Be Afraid...Very Afraid.

Crossposted over at TechLearning. Drop by and add to the conversation.

Think all the buzz about school soon becoming irrelevant is just hype? Meet George Hotz, (geohot) a 17 year-old from New Jersey who blogs. What makes George significant? 

He has just “unlocked” the iPhone, finding a way to get around the device’s restrictions and allow it to be used not only on AT&T’s cell phone network but also on T-Mobile’s network and overseas.

George Hotz remembers taking apart his first computer, an Apple II, when he was 4 or 5 years old. He also dismantled an answering machine, remote control, vacuum cleaner and more computers. Now the 17-year-old from Glen Rock, N.J., has taken hacking to a scientific level. The sad part, at least to me, he had to do it over the summer  because cell phones are not allowed in school!

The 'George' in Your Classroom
I know, I know, you're thinking George is some child prodigy. That he is not typical of kids in your classes, and as an educator you have plenty of time to master digital and the other new literacies before most kids catch up.  Think again. Read this and tell me this is not the average student in your class. In fact, some, if not many teachers would read that assignment essay and label George as a troublemaker.

Looking around his Web site I read over and over again how bored he was. Bored at school (except for his freshman year), bored during the summer and yet look at the potential of this kid! Why aren't schools places where students are motivated to achieve their full potential? Why is the culture of school such that passion based learning has no place in the classroom?

A Sense of Urgency
We have a generation of students arriving in our classrooms that are more and more comfortable with technology, in fact, more comfortable than we will ever be. And that makes many of us very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that we react with banning and filtering rather than modeling how to connect with content experts and teaching responsible net citizenship.

Living in the Dot Rather than Living in the Line
As educators we have to think of the impact of our teaching in two phases. I'm going to illustrate this with a dot and a line, a line that extends from the dot.

Our classrooms are the here and now. They are the dot and for each student we teach, the classroom experience has a beginning and an end. It’s temporary. And as teachers, we live in that dot.  But from our classroom there extends a line that stretches out for the life of the student. That line is the preparation we have given our students who will be living the line.

Right now we’re living in the dot (preparing them for normed tests) but if we really understood our role in the lives of the students we teach we would learn to live for the line (the new literacies and 21st Century skills-- the changing learning landscape.) There’s nothing wrong with here and now. It’s where we are, and it’s where we do whatever policy makers have given us to do. But the truth is-- with knowledge expanding exponentially-- much of the here and now will become irrelevant as our students get jobs and live their lives.

Creativity Counts
Michael D. Higgins, the former Irish Minister for Arts, Culture and Gaeltacht said,

The roots of a creative society are in basic education. The sheer volume of facts to be digested by the students of today leaves little time for a deeper interrogation of their moral worth. The result has been a generation of technicians rather than visionaries, each one taking a career rather than an idea seriously. The answer must be reform in our educational methods so that students are encouraged to ask about "know-why" as well as "know-how". Once the arts are restored to a more central role in educational institutions, there could be a tremendous unleashing of creative energy in other disciplines too.

We are at a crossroads in education. Mainstream society seems to be re-inventing everything - except the school system, which should, at least in theory, be leading the change. The main crisis in schools today is pending irrelevance. Our educational thinking is concerned with the "dot" or ' what is', when we should be concerned with designing "the line" or ' what can be'.

By providing rich and varied contexts for our students to acquire, develop and apply a broad range of knowledge, understanding and skills, that are tied to the very things that interest them and about which they are passionate, we will give the "Georges" in our classroom the opportunity to become creative, innovative, enterprising and capable of leadership to equip them for their future.

Comments

[mrsdurff]

The high schoolers arrive in our classrooms already bored. They have made up their minds to endure our classes before we even meet them. Who has done this to our youth? That is the real crime. I spent 9 months last year trying to win over a high school classroom and got two...that is the crime. I am really only getting through to the 8th grade and down. I'm not sure why...I use cell phones, iPods, blogs, wikis, I am so radical the other teachers must think I really am deranged....somehow we must find a way to engage these kids BEFORE they graduate....I already failed with last year's seniors...I can't change minds alone that are already made up when I am the only one...I need everyone...that united front you never wanted your parents to be when you were trying to get one over on them....

[mrsdurff]

Your dot versus line analogy could be improved by viewing the learning by all as not linear but jungle-like, more web-like, it's not clearcut or is that just me?

[Robert Dinse]

I was bored to death in school too. Schools fail to make it clear to students how what they are teaching is relevant to students life. The human brain is wired to discard irrelevant information.

[Rick Weinberg]

Sheryl,
I have got to say that I viewed the MSN video of George along with the YouTube video. What I loved was his utter joy of unlocking this thing. He worked day and night. Sometimes staying up until 9:00am and falling asleep until 4:00pm. I think we can make our learning like this for students. I know we can do it somehow.

[Susan]

I read George's summer journal you link to above, and I say he is NOT the average student in my class. He uses dialogue in his record! He includes the kind of detail in dialogue and in commentary that provides images and action. In form, he starts with enthusiasm, and we see the boredom grow because his entries get shorter and he has less fun with them--not because he says so. He provides closure/summary at the end. And he finished the task! That said, I agree that school should help him achieve his potential. Does he know WHY his journal is good? Is he interested in knowing? You see, reading for meaning requires some effort and a lot of experimenting. I've stopped trying to engage the entire class of students: I'm asking them to engage each other through recognizing techniques in their informal as well as in their formal writing. Technology is a means to that end, but not the end itself (not for everyone): witness George's clear and confident presentation of problem/solution!

[Sarah Stewart]

Hi Sheryl

Thank you very much for your comment on my blog. I would be thrilled to talk to you about either midwifery (great to hear you had a home birth!) or e-mentoring. My PhD is looking at e-mentoring in one-to-one dyads as opposed to group mentoring. But as time goes by, I have started to think more and more about group mentoring, especially as I learn more about online activities such as blogs and wikis, as well as online communities. My Skype log is: sarah.m.stewart or [email protected]

My other reason for posting, apart from saying 'hello', was to say how much this post resonated with me. My son is 17 and about to leave school in 6th form. He has been saying for years that he is bored, which is why he is leaving. Of course, he acts up at school because he is bored and then teachers say they have given up on him. He is an intelligent boy and just needs to be inspired but the present education system has let him down and he leaves school with very little in the way of qualifications - I don't think he's on his own. Sorry to rant- you hit a sore spot! Greetings from New Zealand where we are looking forward to a beautiful spring day.