Comments on: The Child Within the Student

By: Karmi Gross

Karmi Gross — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 07:09:06 +0000

Your point is well taken and complements the thrust of my post. We can focus on the needs of the individual, personalizing learning, and leave it up to the kids to apply the thinking skills and sound values we provide to the technological seas they must navigate. See my post on ‘Data Data Everywhere’ which outlines the direction in which ‘good thinking’ should be headed.

By: James Duthie

James Duthie — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 23:43:18 +0000

I think that those who say that teachers must be in the business of teaching students to constantly recreate themselves have put the cart squarely before the horse. It is a truism that in today’s classroom it is the students who frequently teach the teachers how to use the new technology; the students are looking after that aspect themselves. I don’t think it is possible for the teachers to remain as current with the new technology as the students are, nor should they try. As far as teachers and technology are concerned, the old saying applies: I am their leader, I must follow them. By all means use technology as a tool, but don’t make it an end in itself.

Education is about far more than trying to predict what technological marvels lie ahead and trying to prepare students to deal with them. That is an inherently self-defeating exercise since teachers and school systems will always be behind the curve. Education is about engaging the student as an individual and helping him or her to develop the intellectual skills and character traits which enable them to navigate whatever circumstances arise in the future. The kids are always going to be far ahead of their elders in learning how to work the new apps, social media and what have you that will continue to emerge. What we as adults need to do is teach them how to evaluate events (history), character (literature) probability (math), technology (science) and values (ethics). We fool ourselves if we think that educational systems can prepare the next generation to meet the challenges of nano-computing or whatever, except by going back to the basics – good thinking, sound values and a big dose of healthy skepticism.

By: Karmi Gross

Karmi Gross — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:21:34 +0000

I believe that we must focus on retraining teachers to fully appreciate the exponential change you speak of. It is simply inconceivable that the educators of our future generations do not comprehend the new realities, and teach as if technology and its massive impact on all we do, know and create is a passing fancy, or a tool for enhanced entertainment. If teachers themselves do not recreate themselves, how can they possibly be responsible for teaching the skill of constant recreation, which will probably become the most important of skills in our rapidly changing world.

By: Maha Broum

Maha Broum — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:30:39 +0000

Excellent point you demonstrated here. Policy makers need to develop new policies to keep up with fast-changing technology to meet students’ needs/interests/ abilities. Current school system is not responding to students well.

By: Lee Cox

Lee Cox — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:24:37 +0000

Technology is ubiquitous, and it feeds a warp-speed engine of change that will continue to accelerate, exponentially, as far into the future as we can see. The acronymn GRIN (not original with me) is apt in representing genetics, robotics, intelligence (artificial as well as biologically enhanced), and nanotechnology as the major technologies that are shaping the future. So yes, we must use technologies in all the appropriate ways in the educationanal arena; but we should also be preparing our students to function and prosper in a world that will be defined by phenomena of exponential change. In such a world, assumptions become more and more tenuous, certainties less than certain, and our ability to predict future occurrences and outcomes from present-day data tenuous at best. This raises the educational stakes sharply, from a matter of determining what tools to use (a very important matter in its own right) to a meta question of what we need to know and how we need to be prepared to live.