Rosen's chapter detailing reasons why students might dislike school highlighted several reasons why I often found myself bored in school as well. Outside the classroom, our lives move so quickly. We are immediately connected to each other through phones and the internet. In fact, I know that my boredom did not become intolerable until I was given my first cell phone when I was 17. Not only was I suffering from senioritis, but I was anxious to get back to a world that could communicate with me instantly and convey its meaning in just one symbol, the smiley face emoticon, :). Adding that one symbol to a sentence (an abbreviated sentence) can define the meaning of the entire text. There is anything like that in the classroom. Everything is drawn out, wordy, repetitive. Teachers repeat the same things over and over because usually the facts are not very memorable. The facts we do remember are those that come with a catchy saying or an acronym. We apply essentially the same concept when we see symbol <3 as we do when we look at the acronym "ROYGBIV." We immediately know the context of whatever communication or written text will follow it. Class and lectures just seemed like a waste of time when I was familiar with a language that was so incredibly fast.
Rosen attributes the disconnection between teaching method's and the current students' learning methods to the fact that teachers are not family with how they learn today. Even I am not familiar with how students learn today. The technology now available in schools was not in place when I was a high school student. I am terrified of the first time I will have to plan a lesson using a smart board. My students will be ten times more familiar the technology than I will be. My teachers seemed inadequate enough with the technology available to me. I can't imagine how much more difficult it will be to fight for the students' attention when we have to read from actual, stationary, non-illuminated books without screens and they are used to constantly being ocuppied with 5 different tasks at once.
Jessica makes a good point when saying,"class and lectures just seemed like a waste of time when I was familiar with a language that was so incredibly fast,"especially the students today, in which technology is surrounding them in there everyday life. As a teacher I also feel the same way when she mentions that the students will be more familiar with the technology; even growing up in the technology era, there are still a few things I do not know, and will proabably first learn them when I first step foot into my very own classroom. So I can relate with Jessica in feeling that way, but I feel it will not take us that long to figure it out, since most of the time it takes only one time to have a knack for it, well at least most.
ReplyDeleteSo do not worry, you are not the only aspiring teacher who thinks that, lets just hope our classes will be generous enough to help the poor teacher.