Comments on: The Reading Crisis

By: Twilight – Good Book for Kids? « Growing Up Well

Twilight – Good Book for Kids? « Growing Up Well — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:29:17 +0000

[...] See Related Post – The Youth Reading Crisis [...]

By: wildcatteacher

wildcatteacher — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:45:15 +0000

Like every new technology there is great opportunity for its use in both productive and destructive ways. For instance, the television and video player have been incredibly powerful teaching tools for good and for evil. The personal computer and the internet, similarly, have offered us exciting possibilities for profound good, as well as deep destruction. Ironically, the same was true for books, when the movable-type printing press got rolling 550 years ago. Books can be used for good or evil.

My concern is that there is a great cultural shift occurring right now, in which personal technology is running over us, and the children are the first victims. We need moderation and meditation with regard to our use of texting, FaceBook, and all the other social (or anti-social) networking technologies. Our kids are “drinking the Kool-Aid” of the promises of technology without a clue to any of the consequences.

This website gets hits daily from people searching for information and answers to the problem that so many kids are truly addicted to their personal technology. For most teens, the loss of their cell phone is the most traumatic event of their life – it’s scary to see kids meltdown over it. Some people are scared for their kids, but most parents are just unaware. I am hoping that we will keep trying to understand the reality of what is going on, as well share our ideas about how to bring wisdom to the discussion table.

By: dave

dave — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:21:13 +0000

Great stuff. How tough do you think it would be to REALLY enforce hard and fast rule of no texting of any kind at school…….or dare I say, even no cell phones at school…..at all?

I can hear all of the arguments in my head right now against such an idea and I can certainly would understand the backlash. But I would have 2 responses:
1. Kids and parents did just fine for a couple hundred years without having a cell phone at school. If something is wrong, the school will get in touch with a parent.
2. It will force the kids to talk to each other face to face. It will, if anything, force them to work on verbal communication skills, at least while they are at school. Not to mention it would probably prevent a lot of drama that goes on as a result of texting between students.

I also like the point made by Baurlein about kids not getting any smarter, in fact maybe even dumber, despite their increase in technological abilities yet we make this type of knowledge seem like some great achievement.

My fear is the same as all educators in that while we are saying we are changing the way we teach our kids because the times are changing, we are actually dummying down what we teach to them because that can’t or won’t be able to keep up. In other words, we are dropping to their level of ability instead of forcing them to rise to our level of expectation. Again, I know that thought is certainly not a new one and can also be made in other areas of education, but the mere fact that this argument can be made easier as time goes on, only validates it that much more.