Do teachers always realise their critical role, responsibility and valuable contributions to the development and acquisition of children's and young people's skills and knowledge to live and survive in the world outside the classroom? Are they often reminded of this?
Although teachers are teaching their learners here and now, they are also preparing learners for the future. This statement has serious implications... How can those teachers who are not willing to accommodate the "here and now" in their classrooms, ever accommodate the "future"? What are they preparing their learners for?
Looking at my own children (8 yrs and 5 yrs old) and how they interact with the world, made me realise how vulnerable children really are. Am I right in saying that, when one looks at the number of hours in a day, learners spend a substantial amount of their awake-time traveling to school, at school and traveling home again? School is therefore a big part of children's being. BUT, school is not the only part of it! When they step out of the classroom, they have friends, families, homes, communities, and...and...and - all of these contribute to the children's world.
The ideal would be for each smaller component of one's world to actively (and positively) contribute to and support another one. Skills, knowledge and experienced gained in one environment can then be transferred more easily to the other. Since school is such a big component of a learner's world, the impact of it on other components in the learner's world, is likely to be substantial - whether it is positive or negative.
The bigger the gap between the learner's "school world" and the other "worlds" in his/her life, the slimmer the chance of the learner benefiting from the transfer of skills, knowledge, etc. The could even result in separate worlds developing where knowledge and skills gained in one, cannot be transferred to the other.
Why should learners' worlds change completely when they leave school in the afternoon? Sitting behind a desk, writing or drawing in a book, reading from a book, do contribute to their development (i.e. it teaches them self discipline, develop different areas of their brains, teaches them essential skills, etc. etc.). I don't say one should take that away at all. My plea is for teachers to merely bring tools that are (or were?) traditionally considered to belong "outside the classroom", into the classroom to serve a specific educational purpose (i.e. to enhance teaching and learning). At the same time, by bringing the learners' worlds outside their "school world" closer to the classroom, they create a golden opportunity for the transfer of skills, knowledge, experience and insight gained in the classroom, to their worlds outside the classroom... preparing them for the future.
I think that teachers (and school principals) who are reluctant to use ICTs in their classrooms (and schools), should step back and ask themselves:
How big is the gap between my learners' "school world" and the "real world"?
AND
What is my contribution as a teacher/principal - am I making this gap bigger or am I filling/bridging it?
A while ago I watched a presentation at our school that was done by a young gentleman. He was selling a new educational computer programme.
ReplyDeleteHe showed a very interesting video clip. It started off showing teenagers and how "busy" and "fast" their lives are - with cellphones, mixit, ipods, etc. etc. This part of the video clip played in fast forward.
In the next part of the video clip the teenagers were in class. The teacher was writing on the blackboard. Now the video played in slow motion and the teenagers looked as if they could fall asleep any minute.
This really made me think . . . .