Hours and Hours of Time

Today, our MCA results will arrive in schools. More than likely, we will find little "gaps" in our curriculum that are leading to inadequate scores in many of our subgroups. There will be successes and failures, many times right within your district, if not, a few miles down the road. These "gaps" will lead to a narrowed curriculum as the pressure on academic time in core subjects is ever-increasing. Given this narrowed time, school curricula is inching further and further away from the very things that may increase their students' interest. This narrowing of the curriculum prevents students from gaining those skills that are not only interesting to them, but also beneficial to them in a digital age that they are so accustomed to, particularly when they are NOT IN SCHOOL.

Marc Prensky opens his 2001 article, Digitial Natives, Digital Immigrants stating that "today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV)." Not to mention, 20,000 hours of TV?

There are so many things we have to do with our time in schools that we didn't have in the past. Where do we find the time?

Jamie Vollmer is a former business-man who now works to help strengthen community pride in schools. He is a powerful ally to create schools that give all students the opportunity to unfold their full potential. The first part of his presentation explains two phenomena--the media attack on schools and schools' inability to promote their success.

He also has made a list of all the things schools are burdened with now that they weren't then. He also discusses the term, "nostesia" (the incorrect belief that things were better then than they are now). Simply, as you get older, the better you think your education was.

The sum of my point is this--to increase our student time in academic areas that they need, we need to capture a greater market share of that 30,000 hours that will be spent on TV, video games, or on computers surfing or researching. To do so, our teachers are going to need the skills (which is exceedingly difficult for Digital Immigrants) to speak the language of their Digital Native students. With the time demand also on teachers, we need to explore our mechanisms for training teachers, and not while school is in session.

Sir Ken Robinson has an entertaining video that you can access below. The message of the video (a very funny one, by the way) points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.

Sir Ken Robinson's Creativity Video

I'd have to agree with him! We are simply not professionally equipped with the skills needed to communicate with the Digital Native population. We need to quickly embrace new systems of professional development for our teachers!