After reading Will Richardson’s “Why School?”, I felt like I had just been through a whirlwind. I felt a mixture of feelings, from disheartenment to excitement. Disheartened because I felt like my cognitive “connected self” was so disconnected from the reality of my “connected self” in my everyday life. At this point in my professional career, I thought that I was making some leeway into becoming the teacher-librarian of my dreams: “I teach my students how to learn through discovery!” However, after reading the book, I realized that in some areas, I was still a long ways off.
Oprah Winfrey talks about “aha moments” on her show. In the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, an aha moment is defined as “a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension.” I had many “aha moments” when I read this book. It made me feel like this journey into digital learning and teaching will continue to be, like the author indicated, “overwhelming, distracting, nonsensical, and at times frightening.” However, ultimately, it also encouraged me as well, to become the teacher-librarian who will be the hub of student learning.
I decided that a good way to organize this blog post is according to the two quotes that made me go “aha”.
“let’s deliver the old curriculum through new tools”
Will Richardson used this quote to describe the current situation of many schools today with regards to digital learning. Before reading this book, I really thought I was doing a decent job of supporting digital learning in my school. I had collaborated with many of the teachers on projects using digital tools, like Prezi, Glogster, and Book Creator. Also,I taught some of teachers in the school to use the interactive white board. After reading this quote, suddenly the rose coloured glasses were off. All the buzz generated from teaching the students and staff to use these new tools really overshadowed the fact that I really didn’t teach them any new skills with regards to digital learning. The Glogster presentations were beautiful, but yet at the end of the day, they were just digitalized versions of posters. The students were still using the traditional research methods to get to that point. There was no passion, critical thinking, or discovery. Well, maybe passion for creating more elaborate Glogster posters maybe.
“We have to start discovering it with them.”
This whole concept of “discovery” was really difficult for me to grasp in the beginning. Traditionally, teachers are supposed to have more knowledge than their students. I remember it was difficult in the beginning to tell students in my school when using a new digital resource that I simply did not know the answer. Often, more than not, the student will “discover” the answer or I will be able to find the answer for them later on. It took getting used because it became a collaborate learning process. For me, I am still getting used to this new relationship between teachers and students. I assume that it will continue to be like a “tug of war”; similar to that of when a parent decides that their teenage son is ready to go the mall with his friends. Like the parent, a teacher will be able to determine if their student will be ready for his or her next step in digital learning.
I have a feeling these two quotes will stay with me, my connected self, when I start planning for my role as teacher-librarian in my new school.
Hi Shirla,
I connected with a similar section of the book. Something that stuck with me was the phrase “learning mastery” and the importance of shifting from content mastery to learning mastery.
Also, I believe our role as educators is to model appropriate use, and weave technology into meaningful experiences, including sharing out that knowledge.
Doni
It is difficult to realize we are falling short in our efforts. But it takes real courage and perseverance to do something about it. I like your ‘aha’ moments. They really speak to the issue of using technology to deliver 20th century curriculum, or using technology because it is how we learn in the 21st century. I have often heard of this this issue, that the students put more effort in to making their presentations look great than they put into their learning. I think it speaks to that issue, no matter how much you dress it up, if the learning process is one of information transfer, it positions the learning in a certain, dull, uninteresting way. I think you are going to have an interesting year! And yes, what does it mean to let go of the reigns and let the learning begin? How to structure that?
Thanks for this Post. You struck a chord with me when talking about the delivering old curriculum through new tools. I think that I am very much guilty of this in my classroom as well. So what is the answer? Do you think that we have the mandate within the current curriculum to teach the skills or does the curriculum need revising to better state these skills? (Which, on a side note, they are apparently revamping several subjects in BC right now.)