WITH GREAT POWER COMES…

complex questions.

Students today have access to information immediately and without filters.  This gives them a lot of power.  Power that can be used for good… and the alternative.  I was at a pretty impressionable age on September 11th, 2001.  I was in middle school.  My friends and I were living in a scary time and we knew it.  We had a lot of questions.  It was difficult sometimes to hear the answers… sometimes because we knew the answers weren’t true, and sometimes because we knew they were.  The internet was around, but it wasn’t as accessible as it is today.  Web 2.0 hadn’t taken over quite yet, and not everyone with an opinion wrote it down online publicly to share with the world.  This blog post tells the story of how a simple poetry assignment elicited intense questions from an 8th grade English class.  The questions reveal a sign of changing times.  One that seems introspective in many ways…  Different than the way many 8th graders may come across at face value.

necessary reflection.

What does this mean for teachers?  It’s time for us to reflect.  What are some tools that we can share with students of today to help them be appropriately informed?  What tools can we share that will help students make sense of their emotions?  Where can students go for help?  How should teachers support these concerns?  While this may seem contradictory, maybe the answers are online.  Let the technology connect people.  Have students write a blog and respond to one another to encourage them to start conversations with people, even if they disagree on certain issues.  Even though the world is divided in many ways, starting conversations is the key to tolerance and coexistence.  The ability to have an intelligent and respectful conversation with someone you disagree with is a skill that will take you pretty far in life!

the opportunity to gain perspective.

A couple of years after 9/11, my class video chatted with a school in Iraq.  It was a powerful lesson.  We learned some names and faces in a country that we really only had heard about in the news.  The students were our age.  They shared many of the same interests as us.  We lived different lives, but there was much respect in the conversation.  Immerse yourself in learning.  Mike MacLaren took a trip with his L2 students to take their driving tests.  The students learned English, gained a powerful perspective, and had influential conversations.  Across different languages, backgrounds, and cultures, students want to and will connect with one another. 

great responsibility.


The responsibility lays on the students, the parents, and the teachers.  We must teach children today that while technology brings people together, it can also tear people apart.  We need to teach them digital citizenship.  We need to teach them about resources like Duolingo that make the world more accessible to them.  Use technology to translate to connect with more people.  Be an informed individual.  Form your own opinions.  Travel to gain perspective.  Use technology to break down barriers.

Comments

  1. You bring up a great point regarding the access to anything and everything that our students have at their fingertips. It is our job to be resources for our students and help them learn through us and ask us questions before immediately running to a search engine. We do need to be transparent and honest when it comes to questions we don't know the answers to as well. I'm sure your video chat with the school in Iraq is something you will never forget, as well as an educational experience far beyond a lecture. Questions you had were answered directly from the source and not through a quick search online.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts