BlogWhy is it that for the first time in history, our children are so very different than us? And what does this have to do with the design of our schools?
These are the underlying questions posed by Jim Craig in the South Bend Tribune (Indiana) in his “Schools Need to Meet the Needs of ‘Digital Natives’” editorial recently. He continues:
We adults are described as “digital immigrants.” Just like someone who learns a foreign language later in life rather than growing up with it, we will never have the same intuitive understanding our children do. This has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with how one learns.
We view each new device as a new challenge to be learned, often painfully. Digital natives do not. Rather, they see each new development as a continuously evolving and improving facet of their lives that is something to be used, not just figured out.
What does this have to do with school? Everything.
Our students enter school buildings in Niles [Indiana] every day. These buildings — the youngest being 40 years old — were all designed in the same way, with classrooms meant to facilitate instruction the same way it was conducted 100 years ago.
Our schools are long hallways with a series of isolated boxes opening into the hallways. Each box was sized to accommodate exactly 30 student desks and a teacher desk. There is an electrical outlet in the front and one in the back. This was all you needed when effective instruction meant the teacher talked and the students listened.
Over time we have, of course, added things. Now, there is a phone, some computers, an overhead projector, some screens, some bookshelves, some tables for group work and lots of power strips, extension cords and other space eaters.
There’s not much room left for students. The problem is that it has become a very ineffective learning environment, and becomes more so every year.
We are able to show modest increases in test scores because we have become much better at doing things the way they have been done for 100 years — not at all because we are doing things differently. We are at the end of that improvement rope; its time to change.
I greatly appreciate his tone at this point, reminding us to step out of our own traditions, and re-think the very premise of school in this day and age:
Step back for a second and think about our students’ lives. They spend their day in school listening to lectures, answering questions, watching subject-matter movies, reading print on paper documents, handwriting their work with pencils and pens, lugging around textbooks and being told not to communicate with each other — after all, in a standing-room-only classroom with 30 students and a teacher, that can be too disruptive!
Recognize the picture? It’s exactly the same environment I went to school in 40 years ago.
Then the bell rings. When the day is over at 3 p.m., our students leave their “museum” life, and become instantly immersed in their digital lives. They communicate with cell phones and instant messaging, experience interactive media with DVDs and iPods and play video games.
Do you know what a blog, a wiki or a podcast is? Ask your kids. Their minds are operating at a speed and level in this technological world that is absolutely unlike anything we digital immigrants can comprehend.
Jim then steps on the accelerator in his argument:
Now comes the dark side. This dual existence is rapidly rendering education as we know it to be ineffective, or worse.
All of us can remember falling asleep during a history lecture, doodling during algebra or hiding in French class to avoid being called on. School was, at times, boring.
Today, multiply this experience by a thousand. The fact is, more and more bright, otherwise motivated, talented kids are becoming disengaged by the old-fashioned school process. Their digital-native minds don’t work the old way. They are bored out of their minds.
I have experienced this with my own children. My oldest is a freshman. She gets straight As, plays sports, joins clubs, is respectful to adults and loves her friends and most of her teachers. Any adult would say this is a kid who should be able to accomplish anything.
There is a problem. She hates school. Absolutely detests it. Dreads each day. Why? She is a true digital native and, as such, is bored to tears with the way that we are running school in our 40-plus-year-old buildings that were designed 100-plus years ago. Her mind doesn’t work that way.
But isn’t it the same for all generations? And can’t our kids just learn the ‘basics’ as we did and let business teach them the rest?
*****
Note: Craig makes reference to Mark Prensky’s original work that fostered the idea of “digital natives, digital immigrants” - well worth the read to appreciate just how far behind we adults are to this young generation. It’ ain’t just semantics. Not by a long shot.
I can remember, years ago, hearing from my parents that TV “dulls the mind and turns your brain to Jell-O.” To digital natives, school is in fact what is dulling the mind. Show me a workplace using the tools we have to use in school and I’ll show you a place that is soon to be out of business.
This isn’t an instructional issue. It’s not about “the basics.” It’s an engagement issue. We have to teach a different way to have kids become engaged in school.
And he doesn’t let us, school design teams everywhere, off the hook either:
We have to have a different environment to do that.
