In this video, Nicholas Negroponte from MIT shares his thoughts on education today. First, he argues that our attitudes about traditional education need to shift drastically. “Look at education as a problem of learning, where a great deal of learning happens through discovery—not being told,” he urges. It is true that with the plethora of information readily available to students that the simple acquisition of knowledge should no longer be a focus or the goal of education.
He suggests that our model of age segregation is a mistake (separating children into grades by their same ages, and having them progress together at the same pace.) While he does not necessarily call for an immediate overturning of our schools to rectify this, he does cite that children working together in mixed age groups benefit significantly. He cites the Montessori school model and others as evidence. I do agree that children should be allowed to progress through the education at a pace that is natural for them—whether that is more or less accelerated than what we would traditionally characterize as “normal.” At the same time, I can see how mixed age groups could raise concerns about young children being exposed to things (either academic or social) that they would not consider to be age-appropriate. Negroponte believes that teaching programming in school can help children develop not only real-world skills that translate directly to the workforce, but it also aids in their metacognitive development. Writing code, for example, is the closest thing that compares to having children “think about thinking.” And debugging these programs when they don’t work (which they never do the first time) is the closest we can come to having children “learn about learning.” These skills translate indirectly to other areas of academia. For example, kids who know how to code tend to also be better at spelling. The assessment and correction process involved in debugging code is similar to the assessment and correction necessary for kids to learn from their spelling mistakes. Negroponte, Nicholas. [The Brainwaves Video Anthology]. (2015, Apr 4). Nicholas Negroponte – Being Educated. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fIuZa_-H60&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp&index=26
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This is not the first time I have seen this video, but Ngozi’s presentation does no less to impress the second time around. I relate to this on a more personal level than most because I, too, was a young writer heavily influenced by the books I had read (and believed that I needed to mimic.) As an English teacher, it is essential to ensure that the texts that students are assigned to read are not presenting a single story. This is a big problem in the traditional Cannon, because Ernest Hemingway, Shakespeare, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Thomas Paine, for example, all present the single story of dead white guys. The single story has become the tool of ages to preserve the status quo. As Ngozi says, “Show a people as one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”
As teachers, we have to make sure that we are not helping to perpetuate these misconceptions and stereotypes, that we are not harboring in our students the unspoken idea that people different than they are should be pitied and condescended—or that they are the ones who should be pitied and condescended. I understand that we do not have complete control over our curricula, particularly with what texts must be taught. If this cannot be changed right now, we at least have the choice to supplement single stories when we encounter them. When we must teach texts that contain flat, two-dimensional representatives of a people, we can help to subvert these images by supplementing it with multi-dimensional, cross-cultural images from alternative texts. Ngozi, Chimamanda. [TED]. (2009, Oct 7). The Danger of a Single Story. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp&index=7
Gever Tulley’s presentation at Ted Talks demonstrates how much kids can learn and accomplish when they are not limited to a teacher-selected, teacher-directed curriculum and classroom discussions. Many teachers may fear to give up “control” of their classrooms. What about your entire curriculum? Your traditional modes of assessment? Your power tools??
But in Tinker School, students are granted freedoms that might have more than traditional teachers cringing at the thought—and what they come up with as a result are pretty amazing. Rollercosters, tree houses, bridges made of plastic bags, boats and gas-powered go carts. Who had any idea that kids—YOUNG kids in many cases—could come up with this kind of thing? It just goes to show that kids, when given the right tools, the right inspiration, the right motivation, and the right guidance, are truly amazing. Tinker School is very consistent with many of the other demonstrations for schools that support Project-Based Learning in favor of traditional curricula. The biggest problem with PBL, however, is that it seems to only be supported in our most non-traditional settings (e.g., charter schools), which tend to have complete freedom in what and how things get taught and also tend to have significantly more resources, smaller class sizes, and—I assume—less bureaucratic red tape than traditional high schools. While I love these examples of PBL and find them incredibly inspiring, what I have yet to see are examples of PBL-type curriculum being implemented in our more traditional comprehensive sites with class sizes of 40-45 being the new norm. If PBL, as wonderful as it is, is going to gain enough traction to impact these traditional school settings, (which make up the majority of all school settings), we need to see how to make it work when you are operating under traditional restrictions. [Ted]. (2009, Jul 1). Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvHViFc0ekw&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp&index=16
Michael Wesch is back with this short video that not only discusses the ways that technology can be used—it demonstrates it. Essentially, Wesch is urging us to rethink not only traditional means and methods of education, but also traditional linear narratives. The widespread availability and accessibility of the Internet subverts the need for single authorities for information. In other words: there is no “top” of the Internet. And, as Wesch explains, there doesn’t need to be. Linking becomes our method of cataloguing what is out: links from search engines, links from information conglomerates like Wikipedia, and links from one web page to another.
Learning—both in schools and in life—needs to shift away from the acquisition of information. Information is no longer a scarce commodity: it is entirely and readily accessible quite literally at the tips of our fingers (or in your front pocket.) There is little need for memorizing information anymore, because information can be found with little difficulty. Being able to assess the validity and viability of that information, and being able to DO something with it, is what learning today needs to focus on. As an English teacher, my job is not to make kids memorize literary terms, or recall every important character in a story off the top of their heads, or even generate a list of themes from a story. These things do come up in our class discussions, because they help us to understand a text as a whole—but these are not the elements that will show up on a test at the end of the unit. Instead, we focus on more complicated, open-ended questions like “Why” and “How” and “What does this tell us about . . . ?” Informational and literary texts both contain a wealth of truths and untruths that tell us something about a society, past or present, about human nature, about the world, and about ourselves. My purpose in learning and in teaching is to tap into these truths in order to promote a broader understanding of the world and of ourselves. Technology is not the only tool that can be used to accomplish these goals, but it would be foolish to neglect it! If our purpose is to better understand the world, why not become exposed to the world? The Internet is a primary resource to conduct research on topics relating to our texts, to organize and synthesize the information that is gathered, and to make something with it. Then the Internet becomes a channel to actually share these new connections with others, so that they can do the same. Wesch, Michael (2011, Jan 24). Rethinking Education. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xb5spS8pmE&index=15&list=PLbRLdW37G3oMquOaC-HeUIt6CWk-FzaGp
Michael Wesch presents a Ted Talk in which he discusses the changes in education necessary to prepare our kids for real life in the new age of technology in this video. By “Knowledge-Able” he means that students need to be able to “find, sort, criticize, and create new knowledge.”
He argues that critical thinking—long considered to be a critical aim in education, is no longer enough (though it is still very important.) Critical thinking is based on the notion that you receive information and process it critically: you can agree, disagree, agree with conditions, analyze it, assess its value, etc. But critical thinking is essentially a one-way street: it is based on a one-way conversation. (Wesch uses the examples of broadcast television and traditional teacher-centric classrooms.) Here the television or the teacher acts as the authority, and students or the general public are consumers of the information that is provided to them. The audience can be critical consumers, ideally, but they are consumers nonetheless. Particularly with the television example, the audience does not have an opportunity to talk back. This, Wesch presses, is not the case anymore. The conversations are not one-way conversations anymore, and the audience no longer has to be limited to a consumer role. The ability to connect with other people, and for virtually ANYONE to create and publish content changes the dynamics of the conversation. Today, an average person posting a video on Youtube can gain as large a viewership as any nightly news station. Wesch points out that technically—technologically—this is easy to do. The Internet provides a vast array of tools and tutorials to enable everyday people to “connect, organize, share, collect, collaborate, and publish.” But to achieve the kind of mind-blowing visibility that he uses in his examples (millions of Youtube hits, ultimate meme status kind of visibility) is actually ridiculously hard. This, Wesch says, is what students need to be able to learn how to do. It sounds like he is saying that he expects all students to be able to achieve this same level of Internet notoriety, which sounds to be a bit like saying that every student should learn to be a professional athlete, an academy-award winning actor, a best-selling novelist, Bill Gates, or the next president of the United States. Can students achieve great things using the tools and connectivity provided by the Internet? Of course. But we should not necessarily set the expectation that the only way they can achieve this is to become million-hit Youtube sensations, the same way that we should not set expectations that the only way for them to succeed in life is to become the next Angelina Jolie. I agree with Wesch that students will be more successful, more confidant, and more prepared to thrive in a digital-driven world is to work with real-world problems and to DO something with it, rather than just sticking to the hypothetical or the theoretical. This is very much the premise to Project-Based Learning, which has been shown to be remarkably effective in many different contexts and content areas. By doing this, students move beyond just “seeking meaning” (like critical thinking—still important, but no longer enough) to “making meaning” and then sharing that with others. Wesch, M. (2010, October 12). TEDxKC-Michael Wesch-From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaAHv4UTI8
In this video, Dr. Dave White discusses two different types of internet users: “Visitors” and “Residents.”
Visitors are characterized as leaving little to no digital footprint in favor of preserving a sense of privacy. (He also notes that what constitutes “privacy” may be shifting from one generation to the next.) In many cases, Visitors are motivated to protect their personal information as a defense against identity theft—although I would argue that this is far from the only reason why somebody would not wish to leave a heavy digital footprint. They may see little value in developing social or professional networks online. (Very likely they have strong networks already offline and therefore do not feel a need to add much more in a digital context.) And most of all, their use of the Internet is intended to serve specific, goal-oriented purposes. The Internet and the resources provided by it are tools to do work or to solve problems. Residents, on the other hand, “live out a portion of their life online.” Often this takes the form of social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.), though it also occurs in online gaming—especially RPG (WOW, Second Life.) For Residents, it is important to see and to be seen: to develop a sense of personal identity on the web and to make that available for others to interact with. They are likely to not only be members of social media, but to actively participate in uploading content and interact with the content uploaded by others. Because visibility in these fast-paced contexts erodes quickly, it is essential that they constantly provide fresh content in order to maintain it. White notes that in order “To keep visibility high, you have to keep feeding that machine . . . with whatever you can think of.” The downside to this is that often what gets fed is quite trivial. One very important misconception that White addresses is the idea that Visitors are bound to be older-generation and inherently technologically challenged, whereas Residents will be young and quite savvy. White’s findings indicate that there is not necessarily a strong correlation between age or general savviness with Internet-style usage. Because Visitors view the Internet as a set of tools for a specific purpose, once they recognize a need for a particular tool, they will learn to use it. And while many Residents may be social-media savvy, they often lack other—perhaps even more basic—technological skills. Many of my students, I have noticed, have very remedial typing skills and almost no knowledge or experience with formatting documents and creating digital presentations—all very practical skills for academic contexts but not all that necessary for navigating Facebook and Youtube. White, D. (2013, May 31). Visitors and Residents [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sFBadv04eY It's very clear which of the two school reformation options Will Richardson wants us to side with. Generally my attitudes towards education tend to fall within Progressive and Reconstructionist philosophies. I would, however, be reticent to accept a complete revolution to the education system as it currently stands overnight. Fortunately, that is NOT what Richardson calls for here. Instead, he is urging educators of today to adopt a blended approach to teaching our kids: to continue to be mindful of required content curriculum and to continue giving required tests, but not to rely on these traditional methods alone. He urges us to teach beyond what is easy or convenient to assess in order to help students develop real-life skills that will be essential for them in the real world. These skills, unsurprisingly, are rooted in technology. Alternative modes of assessment might look like co-created rubrics that set content and quality standards, seeking targeted feedback from outside audiences, as well as student's own metacognitive self-assessment.
Richardson provides educators with different strategies that they can use to help implement these changes in their own curriculum. I think all of these ideas have a great deal of merit in the right context, and are certainly ideals to strive for. I also recognize that some of them will run up against certain challenges that may render them (at least temporarily) unattainable. For example, Richardson recommends that teachers should “discover” rather than “deliver” the content taught in their classrooms. In other words, curriculum should not only be student-centered, but also student-generated. This is exactly how Project-Based Learning is supposed to function. The only problem is that it may or may not align with school department/district directives. For example, Escondido Union High School District has a mandated curriculum for its English department which specifies which major texts are taught, which standards will be focused on, which forms of assessment should be used, and even which essential questions must be posed. This does not make it necessarily impossible for teachers to find creative approaches and to make adjustments to better fit the interests and curiosity of their students, but it does not leave teachers much autonomy either. And in other schools that have fewer restrictions or administration that is open to alternative ideas, I can see this working very well. I do agree strongly with Richardson that teachers should be master learners themselves, and that they should model this learning process for students as frequently as possible. I believe it is okay for teachers to admit that they are not the end-all authority on all (any) subjects, particularly when they are willing to guide students into discovering the answer to those unknown questions. I also really like the idea of having students do real work for real audiences. This may be easier to do in some content areas than others, but it should not be impossible in any of them. For example, students could create collaborative or anthological collections of creative writing, poetry, and essays on topics that matter to people and are culturally relevant. There are endless ways to publish and share this content, and even to work collaboratively with “strangers” on the other side of the world. Finally, I have one idea in particular for a semester-long project that would, as Richardson suggests “transfer the power” from the teacher to the students. I call it a Self-Efficacy project, and it was inspired by a combination of personal experiences in my earlier college years that had a profound effect on my own sense of self-efficacy. In essence, the project would call for students to select one thing that they do not currently know how to do, and to spend the semester developing that skill on their own time. At the end of the semester, they would share or demonstrate it for the class. Even though my content area is English, students would not be restricted to any particular subject matter or type of skill. They could learn to solve the Rubik’s cube, learn to do a back flip, learn to jump a horse, learn to write a novel, learn to speak Klingon, learn to code in Perl, learn to shoot and edit a movie, etc. etc. (English standards would come into play as students engage in the planning process: they would need to be able to express their reasoning and explanations verbally and in writing, to describe their progress, and finally to self-reflect on the project as a whole.) Richardson, Will. Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere. TED Conferences, 2012. EPUB file I recently had a VERY successful anticipatory activity to introduce our newest unit on persuasive arguments. Students started to think critically about what it takes to make something believable or not by taking an active class survey on which of the following they believe in:
It may take some extra time to have students rip up the paper and label the signs themselves, but the physical motions seemed to do a really good job of getting them focused and on-board. You can download my lesson plan and powerpoint presentation below:
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mrs. snowEnglish teacher extraordinaire Archives
May 2016
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