Lately I have been more acutely aware of the general behavior and actions of the younger generation. Being the potential students that will fill our classrooms, I suppose this spy like behavior is due to the desire to get to know the clientele a little more closely. A city such as Ann Arbor, however, has a diverse, yet highly affluent population. While the demographic makeup may reflect a diverse array of ethnicities and cultures, the opportunities that most people in this city have are greater than most other cities. Therefore, most of my conclusions must be met with a veil, but I cannot help but notice the sharp drop in personal interaction among peer groups. Another caveat that I must mention before continuing is that I realize that, inevitably, each generation looks upon the next one with a certain amount of judgement and criticism. The "back in my day" mantra seems to hold true throughout time. I am not sure if it is a self-reassuring idea of "we had it so much tougher" or "things were more simple back then" or what it is, but I am starting to feel those sentiments creeping inside me.
I see ipods, iphones, itabs, ibooks, i carumba! Bart Simpson
Is it our job, as teachers, to find ways to cater to their interests in phones and technology? I don't think you'd find a teacher who would respond yes to that question without some attached explanation. I do think it is important that we find out what our students our interested in, but what if we're unknowingly sacrificing key life skills by choosing to find ways to use cell phones and other tech devices in the classroom? I think there's a medium that can be found where compromise is not at the expense of learning or the teaching profession.
I think the bottom line of this post is that I am worried about the reliance on technology by the younger people in the world. It seems that cell phones are in the hands of younger and younger kids each year. My desire as a teacher is to help better the autonomy and future life skills of my students as much as it is to teach them french. For that reason, I worry that I will want to spend too much time developing communication skills while neglecting other aspects of learning. I am aware of the benefits of technology and I have used it several times with much success, but I fear the trend will continue and eventually become so dependent upon technology that we experience a Matrix like revolution. Ok, that may be somewhat extreme, but I hope that there are still some teachers out there who are dedicated to teaching children and not teaching technology to children.
Hey Evan! I appreciate your honest thoughts about how increasing technology use may be affecting younger generations in some negative ways. I agree with your observation about people interacting less and less in person - I often find myself in public spaces where two people are physically together but completely absorbed in their phone, ipad, or whatever. Or when you're spending time with a friend, they may be on their phone nearly half of the time texting other people, tweeting, instagramming, and you feel like you don't have their full attention. It seems like we're in the age of extreme multi-tasking - it's hard to be solely focused on one task when you could be driving and texting, walking and checking email, or listening to a lecture and facebooking. There is access to constant stimulation when you have some handheld technology. I see how that may be affecting my students in the way that their attention span is very short. It's hard for them to stay engaged in something for long periods of time. Even with this trend of less personal interaction, I realize that we can't really control the increasing technology use that seems inevitable. And if that's the case, in order to make students successful in the future, it seems that we DO need to prepare them to be digitally literate, whether we agree with this technology trend or not. But I am hoping that we will learn how to teach digital literacy in a way where students can think critically about technology so that they are not becoming so dependent on it without realizing it. I'd like my students to be critical and aware of how technology is affecting their lives.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post!
The good thing, dinosaurs are awesome. The bad...they're all dead...so you can't be one. So, if you're a dinosaur, that must mean that either 1) you are awesome or 2) you are dead. You are clearly not in the latter, given that you're posting and busy with that whole grad school/teaching thing...so it must mean that you're awesome.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you. I fear that too much reliance on the "new" will alienate us from connecting with students on a really personal level. How much do we gain or sacrifice by insisting on learning the newest technology versus learning the core content, whatever that might be. Part of me wants to reject most all technology, but the realist in me can't because I think it would be unfair to students if we didn't train them on what the "real world" actually means today.