BP#5_2009121_Anti-Teaching

     How are the schools of today doing?  The schools of today do not work for the 
majority of the students I teach.  Students leave my classroom after being with me
for a year or two, and still lack many necessary skills, as well as most of the time just counting down the days until graduation.

     As most of them are visual learners, the lecture method does not keep their
attention or actually allow the information to be taken in and reorganized, and added to the student’s  brain for the long term.

     Virtual learning environments do definitely engage my students more, but they do not always make the connection between what they experienced or talked about on with their class topics.  The web 2.0 tools that I have introduced into the classroom do excite the students, and they look forward to experiencing the new.  The changes in content and delivery have been miniscule compared to what I believe it should be, but I can see a difference.  Just the 360cities.net was enough to encourage the students to explore different countries in South America.  Now when a map is placed on the projection screen, there is immediate discussion about where a country is and the living conditions.

     A strong point about Personal Learning Environments it that it gives the students a place to tie the websites and blogs and Flickr and Facebook into one place.  Do I think that just PLEs or Web 2.0 technologies are enough?  No.  I think these technologies are an essential tool to thriving in life.  Students still need to be taught, and only a teacher can do that. Teachers teach, but students choose to learn or not.   The choices offered can be broad and deep, or narrow and stifling. The topics may differ . . . instead of three weeks on the Civil War, students can understand the important points of the war, and demonstrate what they know about it by incorporating different technologies.  I have seen teachers have students create a fictitious Facebook account for someone on both sides of the Civil War.  A map of their travels, a photostream of what they each may have seen.  And instead of projects just pasted together, if students are posting on the internet, a chance to develop personal pride in their work and peer reviews, just like in the real world.

       Back to my students.  In a perfect school, students would have access to media daily, in a variety of formats.  Big screens with open captions for viewing historic films, skype available at different stations around the school for students to chat via phone to anyone, deaf or hearing, signing or oral.  A designated space and time on a computer with internet access that is unfiltered.  Content specialists to assist in the creation of media that the student is interested in and creating.  Less testing and teaching to the test, and more books and computers that lend themselves to student exploration.  A community of learners with a vested interest in protecting their school materials and their future.  Students learning about themselves and their world, but not learning alone.  A community to support, encourage, and create the future they are interested in together.

photos from personal collection