No one can deny that the world is different than it was when our current educational system was designed. With this in mind, what are WE (myself included) suppose to do to help our students thrive in a world that is vastly different than the environment in our classrooms?
Frankly the answer is simple… Change the way we teach.
Is the answer that simple? You bet it is!
Is it really that easy? No.
Changing the way you teach is hard. Not just from the standpoint of preparation, but also from the lens of the students that have learned a specific way for many years, regardless of its effectiveness.
So what do we as teachers need to consider… and what do we need to do?
For the past five years, those of us at Choose2Matter have had the pleasure and privilege of helping young change-makers realize their potential, and yearning desire, to impact the world. From Downingtown, PA to McAllen, TX to Prince Albert, SK Canada to East Greenwich, RI and everywhere in between, students have decided how they want to change the world, and then done it.
Thus, we were just a little miffed this week at a letter from NASA to a 9yo boy who had applied for a job as a “Planetary Protection Officer,” noting that he is “young and can learn to think like an alien.” NASA expressed hoped that he would join them "one of these days" and urged him to "study hard and do well in school."
Along came social media. The blog, shortened in format, became 140 characters. Instagram and Facebook became quick photo shares. It became easy to grow a huge network of other educators. Clicking ‘like’ and leaving comments. It was glorious really. Empowering to feel like you were leading others as they were leading you. You were never alone and the learning never slept. Neither did I. I remember when Twitter first started. I remember one of the first times I really connected with other classrooms. I immediately was drawn in by the power… asking questions and getting answers. Reading the tweets of others who pushed my thinking. There was this reciprocal of open sharing. The truth is, the friends I met during those early days of Twitter are deep, deep friends today. People I see in person, people I treasure as friends. The relationships built in the early sharing of Twitter were strong, real, and awesome. The power of the PLN was a real thing. “Personal Learning Network”
Have you ever heard a dial tone or a busy signal? How did we call someone before speed dial and push-button telephones, but after people stopped needing to speak with a switchboard operator? Behold the rotary dial:
Emily Pilloton, Founder of Studio H, a design/build class at REALM Charter School and Girls Garage both in Berkeley, California, describes how she “knew there were things about architecture and design that could have a deep impact in the classroom.”
How many things do we own, that are common today, that didn’t exist 10 years ago? The list is probably longer than you think.
Prior to the iPhone coming out in 2007, we didn’t have smartphones with mobile apps, decent phone cameras for photos/videos, mobile maps, mobile weather, or even mobile shopping.
None of the mobile apps we use today existed 10 years ago: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, Facetime, LinkedIn, Lyft, Whatsapp, Netflix, Pandora, or Pokemon Go.
Several major companies didn’t exist a decade ago. Airbnb, Tinder, Fitbit, Spotify, Dropbox, Quora, Tumblr, Kickstarter, Hulu, Pinterest, Buzzfeed, Indigogo, Udacity, or Jet.com just to name a few.
Ten years ago very few people were talking about crowdfunding, the sharing economy, social media marketing, search engine optimization, app developers, cloud storage, data mining, mobile gaming, gesture controls, chatbots, data analytics, virtual reality, 3D printers, or drone delivery.
At the same time we are seeing the decline of many of the things that were in common use 10-20 years ago. Fax machines, wired phones, taxi drivers, newspapers, desktop computers, video cameras, camera film, VCRs, DVD players, record players, typewriters, yellow pages, video rental shops, and printed maps have all seen their industry peak and are facing dwindling markets.
If we leapfrog ahead ten years and take notice of the radically different lives we will be living, we will notice how a few key technologies paved the way for massive new industries.
Here is a glimpse of a stunningly different future that will come into view over the next decade.
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