Carmen

= A Vision of Students Today = =__ By Michael Wesch __=

Michael Wesch Professor of Cultural Anthropology.

Michael Wesch invited 200 students to share its thoughts about what they taught about education as Michael will use this information for a video he wanted to post on Youtube. The video was viewed over millions times. The conclusion: The video was over the top, that things were not so bad, that the system was not as broken as he thought and he should just stop worrying and get on with teaching.

However, the very first day of school, Michael arrived finding 493 empty numbered chairs siting mindlessly fixated on the fron tof the room and with a 600ft creen that stared back at them.

The problem is not written on the wall, it is Built into them.

For the first hour, Michael hold the attention of almost 500 students. He was marvel at what remarkable achievement so have kept these young students in a single room siiting quietly as they listen to him.

However, Michael's teaching assitants reported quite the opposite. It turns out several students in the back cranked up their ipods as soon as he started the lecture and never turned them off. Other students were texting, blogging and facebooking.

Last spring, Michael conducted a class survey. How many of them did not like school? Over 1/2 of them rose their hands. The second questions was, how many of them did not like learning? No hands were raised.

=What Went Wrong?= What did institutions designed for learning become so widely hated by people who love learning???


 * Some blamed the students.
 * Most blamed technology-new technologies are too distracting and superficial that should be banned fromthe classroom.
 * Other suggested that students are just "wired" differently.

Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner nearly 40 years ago described the plight of "totally alienated students" involved in a cheating scandal.

Texting, web-surfing, ipods are just new versions of passing notes in class, reading novels under the desk and listening to walkmans.

=The solution=

Begin working students in the pursuit of answers to real and relevant questions. We have to embraced the challenge to bring meaning and significance to the classroom. Students have powerful devices on them that give them instant and constant access to a cloud of distractions. We should welcome these devices (laptops, ipods, cell phones) not as distractions but as powerful learning technologies.

Whe students are engaged in projects that are meaningful and important tothem, and that make them feel meaningful and important, they will eventually realize that they need to turn their devices to grapple witht he most difficult texts and take on the most rigorous tasks.