"The Innovative Educator", Current Reform Pushes Us Back to 20th Century Education

"When politicians, administrators, or even parents believe that succeeding at our current education (i.e., memorizing the multiplication tables, mastering the long division algorithm, being good at paper-book reading, and studying science, history, and civics in traditional ways) is what is important for today‟s and tomorrow‟s students, they put those students at a huge disadvantage relative to the fast-changing future". 

The above excerpt was taken from "The Reformers are Leaving our Schools in the 20th Century", an extremely thought-provoking and relevant article written by Marc Prensky (and highlighted/summarized on a blog titled "The Innovative Educator"). In as brief of a summary as possible, in his article, Prensky advocates for our nation's schools to revamp the current curricular format-- in the author's opinion, it is not the U.S. educational system that needs adjustment. Rather, it is the actual, day-to-day education that is provided to students within the system that must change. If thousands of other industries are acknowledging the fast-paced, technological changes that are occurring each and every day  in our world, why is it that many educators refuse to adjust their instruction? There is no reason why the students in today's schools should be forced to sit through the same teacher-dominated lectures and lessons that I experienced a decade ago. Times are changing, and the field of education must begin to take action. Last night, in one of my special education courses, my professor said something that really hit home for me--he said, "Our goal as teachers shouldn't be to make good kids. It should be to make good adults who will be able to function well in society in adulthood". If the use of technology in the classroom (and its appropriate use) isn't promoted and increased, our nation's students are going to be left in the dust.

Another really impressive portion of Prensky's article touches upon our responsibility, as teachers, to truly come to know our students--often times, due to the objective, standards-based assessments that have become the current focus of education, the unique and individual personalities of our students are ignored . Unfortunately, this trend of "teaching to the test" hinders our ability, as educators, to develop (and maintain) meaningful relationships with our students--they become numbers and scores, not people. In my opinion, simply displaying the desire to come to know each of our students' personal interests, strengths, weaknesses, and fears can be the key to developing a comfortable and innovative classroom. Allow students' ingenuity to come to the forefront in education!! The technologies that we are beginning to explore in this course can hopefully be used as tools to help promote student-centered learning!

One more thing--check out TweetDeck (there's also a link to it on the wiki for this week). I've had a twitter account for a while now, but this is the first time that I am actually exploring the site's possibilities. TweetDeck just makes it so much easier to organize and sift through tweets, articles, and other useful information. It eliminates the stress from tweeting!