Reaction to Friedman's book
A part of me feels great fear—the mother part of me. My kids aren’t always highly motivated and I fear they won’t compete successfully with Chinese. They also have learning problems and I sense they won’t be working for HP. Science and math don’t appeal to either of my sons. Their gifts lie in art. So maybe they’ll have a difficult time (financially) in the flat world.
As a teacher, I want my students to understand the importance of hard work, creativity, cooperation, tolerance—all those great, life-sustaining values. I want them to study math and science and computers and business. I want them to read well, write well, speak well. I’ve always wanted my students to do those things. As I have done for thirty years, I will continue to stress the vital importance of clear prose and of logical thinking. I will continue to promote the higher levels of critical thought as well as creativity and imagination. I imagine these skills are invaluable in a flat world.
As a lover of literature, I don’t feel terribly affected by this book. No matter what the economics or politics of the world that awaits my students, I want my students to cherish literature and to consume it. (I don’t care if they consume it digitally or not.) The words of the great writers are like religion. They guide and inspire and give us a reason to live. I teach literature to preserve it and to inspire kids to consume it. I want them to find the joy and meaning in it that I have found. I teach literature to give kids a place to expand their minds after they leave the work place, after they send their emails, after they sell their products. Literature will teach them tolerance and will stretch their imagination. It will show them the past, the present, the future. It will show them who they are. It will flatten their world and globalize them.
I don’t know exactly how my teaching must change with the new technology. I suppose I should have the kids blog about their gut reactions to a piece of writing rather than write formal essays about what symbols mean. Or maybe I should ask my students to write collaboratively so that they’ll become adept at sharing and cooperating. Maybe I should ask them to explore more and maybe I should tell them less. But in a way that is a shame. If my job as an English teacher in the 21st Century is to sit quietly in class and record discussion points as the 15 year olds debate among themselves, I feel my expertise is being wasted and that I’ll become incredibly bored. No one wants a bored teacher sitting in the front of a class. I suppose that my students and I could learn to video-conference (can that properly be used as a verb?) and engage in online seminars about Beloved or Of Mice and Men. As I stop to think about it, it might be terribly exciting to open my Socratic seminars to include students from China or India. If technology will allow me to do what I've always done--engage with students, discuss great books, and share ideas--I see no problem with it.
As a teacher, I want my students to understand the importance of hard work, creativity, cooperation, tolerance—all those great, life-sustaining values. I want them to study math and science and computers and business. I want them to read well, write well, speak well. I’ve always wanted my students to do those things. As I have done for thirty years, I will continue to stress the vital importance of clear prose and of logical thinking. I will continue to promote the higher levels of critical thought as well as creativity and imagination. I imagine these skills are invaluable in a flat world.
As a lover of literature, I don’t feel terribly affected by this book. No matter what the economics or politics of the world that awaits my students, I want my students to cherish literature and to consume it. (I don’t care if they consume it digitally or not.) The words of the great writers are like religion. They guide and inspire and give us a reason to live. I teach literature to preserve it and to inspire kids to consume it. I want them to find the joy and meaning in it that I have found. I teach literature to give kids a place to expand their minds after they leave the work place, after they send their emails, after they sell their products. Literature will teach them tolerance and will stretch their imagination. It will show them the past, the present, the future. It will show them who they are. It will flatten their world and globalize them.
I don’t know exactly how my teaching must change with the new technology. I suppose I should have the kids blog about their gut reactions to a piece of writing rather than write formal essays about what symbols mean. Or maybe I should ask my students to write collaboratively so that they’ll become adept at sharing and cooperating. Maybe I should ask them to explore more and maybe I should tell them less. But in a way that is a shame. If my job as an English teacher in the 21st Century is to sit quietly in class and record discussion points as the 15 year olds debate among themselves, I feel my expertise is being wasted and that I’ll become incredibly bored. No one wants a bored teacher sitting in the front of a class. I suppose that my students and I could learn to video-conference (can that properly be used as a verb?) and engage in online seminars about Beloved or Of Mice and Men. As I stop to think about it, it might be terribly exciting to open my Socratic seminars to include students from China or India. If technology will allow me to do what I've always done--engage with students, discuss great books, and share ideas--I see no problem with it.
posted by Cheryl Makovsky at 10:45 PM
4 Comments:
Cheryl, I really like your credo concerning why you teach literature--that would be a wonderful paragraph to read at a departmental meeting and in front of your students. Bravo.
Friedman says that creativity is incredibly important in the flat world, and he's echoed by Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind. While I certainly think math and science and business are important, many students can do those things. It's the students who can think creatively about all these areas - who can continually adapt and learn new things - that are going to be successful in the flat world.
I think technology offers you many ways to extend your classroom and allow students to explore and share literature in ways that would've been impossible a few short years ago. One of the links on my blog about blogging is to a video where the teacher discusses how his students blogged about The Secret Life of Bees - and then Sue Monk Kidd came in and commented on the blog. Your students will also benefit from writing for a wider - and more authentic - audience than just you. As much as they may like and respect you, it still feels pretty much like just writing for the teacher to read - just one person. Blogging and podcasting and videocasting and videoconferencing allows them to connect with so many others - to share their work outside of the classroom walls. It helps show them that their work and thoughts and ideas are meaningful and are worth sharing with a wider audience.
Okay, I'm really rambling now, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised as we delve deeper into what technology has to offer us in these areas.
Cheryl, by no means feel like you are being out-sourced. Students NEED your expertise; WE need your expertise. There are so many creative things you already do and technology is just one avenue. We are doing many of the same things, just in a different format.
Logical thinking in writing is absolutely essential and I encourage you to do as you have, but to challenge yourself to think of news things (like your video conferencing idea) and try it!
Think about the critical thinking piece regarding technology and you can always apply it to the classroom, without technology. The idea is take the classroom beyond our walls within a certain hour in a day.
No one has the right answer, nor should there be a classroom that is the same. Your passion inspires kids...just open yourself to new ways of bringing in enthusiasm to accompany yours.
When people ask me why I teach high school and, more specifically, Language Arts, I never know how to articulate those sentiments. You did it impeccably, Cheryl.
In my graduate program, I had to design a poetry unit. It was juvenile and disconnected, but I was proud of my creation. When I turned it in to my mentor teacher, he looked at my principle learning objective--cultivating a love of words and poetry--and told me it was insufficient. "But how can we measure that?" he asked. That question solidified everything that separated us--I was a lover of literature, and he was a mere teacher of it. I aspire to be both, just like you are Cheryl. I can tell you as a lover of literature myself, I would love nothing more than to be in a class where my teacher not only possessed, by also taught me passion and creativity for an art form. There is room for technology too, but technology can be taught in a lot of different ways. Passion for an art form can only be communicated by are possessive of that art form.
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