A local school solicits quotes from their seniors each year to be featured along with one of their senior pictures in the school’s yearbook. This quote is absolutely spectacular! (the picture is not the actual yearbook page but rather my rendering of said page)
My quote to accompany this would be, “Dear school administrators everywhere, we have to do better for the next generation or we’re going to lose them.” Actually it looks like we may already be there.
There are so many school leaders that operate under the same negative view of technology as the leaders of the school this young lady attends. Students all around the country are constantly being forced to live under policies like:
“No cell phones on campus”
“Turn your cell phone in when you arrive and it will be returned at the end of the school day”
“Cell phones must be turned off during the school day and kept in your backpack or locker”
“Cell phones can only be used during lunch and after school”
Why? When the kids ask this question, they get, “They (the devices) are too much of a distraction to the learning.” As a recovering school administrator, I ask again, “Why?” Here’s the answer few administrators want to hear. “Because we aren’t teaching the kids how to use them appropriately.” Not only do they not want to hear that, most come back with, “That’s not our job.”
Oh?
Let’s take a deeper dive into that for a bit.
Computers
Calculators
Typewriters
Musical Instruments
Theater Performances
Ink Pens
Quills
Chalk
Writing
Reading
What do all of these things have in common? They are all tools used in the world..in more or less a reverse chronological order to their introduction to society. Additionally, they are all tools used in the world that schools felt compelled to teach kids how to use. Dr. Jordan Shapiro in his book “The New Childhood - Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World” goes as far as to suggest that this is in fact why school exists. He says, “The purpose of school is to teach kids how to express themselves using the tools that currently shape their world.” If you look at my list above you’ll see that he’s right. So why now do we suddenly believe the purpose of school has changed? Spoiler alert, it hasn’t.
Clearly, the world around us has seen significant and impactful changes in recent years, especially in the area of technology. Often however, the world tends to focus on the negative impact technology has had, especially in the lives of young people and in schools. While acknowledging the reality of those negative aspects, I believe positive impacts far outweigh the negative. I believe it is incumbent upon educational institutions to foster those positive aspects of technology to prepare students for the realities of and success in the modern world. For Dr. Shapiro’s school purpose to remain true, meaningful and relevant integration of technology and devices into curriculum is both necessary and key to our student’s success. Today’s cell phones are powerfully creative and insightful tools that are not only not going away but will play an even more prominent role in the lives of students than they ever will in the lives of the adults currently running schools.
One final personal frustration with the “cell phone ban” approach found in many schools today is this…those schools that take up cell phones from students more often than not turn right around and hand them another device that does primarily the same thing! The rebuttal I most often hear about this is, “Yes, but we can lock it down.” Actually, we can’t. For the “distraction factor” argument to be completely quelled, a student device would have to be locked down so far, the device would be nothing more than an expensive paperweight. In my high school days, we were distracted by the notes we passed in class. Notes which, I might add, were written using the very tools we used for every other aspect of our education. Did our teachers lock our “devices” down back then? Nope. We were redirected and taught that we should use our tools for good.
Education technology infused curriculum is the foundation on which modern learning could and should be built. Never in the history of American education has there been such an impetus for a deep, fundamental shift in the way schools facilitate, support and guide student learning.
The fact that this young lady’s quote made it past the upper school administration and actually into the yearbook is a clear indication that those leaders don’t get it. She is a visionary and wise beyond the years of most administrators. Let’s trust the future to the next generation AND recognize that the tools currently shaping their world are relevant to that future.
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