Wednesday, November 7, 2007

A Vision of Students Today

This is a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

Umm, how many of us are old school teachers. Come on admit it (as I sheepishly raise my hand). Are we really giving students what they need? Do you hate the question "Why do we need to learn this?" Am I delivering content in the most appropriate way? Is it the right content?

(sarcasm)

Bah, what am I thinking. Since I am always right my methods must always be right. These students just don't know what they need to know. No need to change how things are done.

(/sarcasm)

5 comments:

Real Gary Ball said...

Ok not everybody agrees with this video. Check out Gary Stager's critisism.

http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=48655

pcone said...

Gary, it was so popular that it is no longer available. Too bad for moi.

Real Gary Ball said...

I just watched the video again. It must have been temporarily down. Try it again.

Unknown said...

Another great video! I think we need to show these to all teachers huh?
*Sometimes I wonder if all this information will actually make a difference though. It makes our job a bit daunting with all the resistance.

Anonymous said...

So a student is given the take home task of researching sweatshops around the world. While doing so they come across Nike's huge factory in Indonesia (23,000 worker) and the use of violence that the company has been caught for. They find out that their favorite NFL football player's jersey was made in Pakistan. They read letters written by factory workers. They become very angry, write a letter to Nike and facebook all their friends about it. They blog about it back and forth and finally start a petition on bebo. Another student gets caught up in the action and researches all the soccer balls the school owns finding out that every one of them was made in Pakistan. She writes a letter to the Minister of Education urging all schools to buy only products guaranteed to be manufactured free of child labor. In this time each student has logged numberous hours on bebo, facebook, and youtube. All while watching television and listening to music. They come back to school he next week and are told to "grab a desk" and "get to work". How do we possibly teach these students from this structure? We guide them.