Did You Know?

The YouTube video "Did You Know," was quite interesting. Not only did it reference exactly the point Friedman tries to make, but it also made a point about teachers. The video asks us as teachers to question whether or not we are preparing our students for an unknown future. Are we preparing our students to be one of the "new middlers" that Friedman discusses?

The answer is no, we are not preparing them, if we are forcing them to read old texts that they have no interest in. We need to find a way to connect with our students, find out what they like, etc. If that means taking the class to the library to take our texts, then fine. If that means reading news articles on the web, then fine. We need to make our students feel ownership over their classroom, and of course bring in technology to enforce that ownership.

In my opinion, to help our students grow into this new world, we need to have them reading current literature. We need to make sure in the ELA classroom that our students are staying current with the technology that is used in the classroom. Which means that, as teachers, we will have to take a seat and let our students teach us new technology. We need to consistently be looking for ways to teach ELA through technology. In this way, we will be working to prepare our students for the "English" they need in the real world.

The literature they will be reading at their jobs will be on a computer screen, and anything they write will of course be typed. Or, if we think about the YouTube video, maybe we do not even know yet what kinds of technology our students will be using to read and write at their jobs. But we should be constantly learning, just as our students do, to be able to be familiar with the changing world.