Kind of Like Television
The person who said "those who can't do, teach," obviously has never done it nor appreciates it.
I title this blog post from a conversation I had with another teacher right before a placement hearing for an alternative learning center (we were both the teachers for the young man in question). She and her husband are expecting their first child.
"We're kind of like television," she said. "The kids either tune us in or tune us out."
Her statement reminded me of the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman (deceased). His commentary centered around the advent of 24-hour news in the 1980s: CNN was the first such network that has since spawned others. Children that used to stay up to watch the "snow" on TV as stations signed off now have 24-hour entertainment, hundreds of cable channels to surf and an Internet to post information to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter (let's not forget blogger).
I see kids with phones that have apps I can only envy. Everyone can seem to afford an I-phone, yet no one seems to have the cash-on-hand for a TI-83 or 84 calculator. Taking a cell phone from a child is almost oxymoron when his mother was texting him at the time you confiscate it.
"We're kind of like television": we can be tuned in or tuned out at will. It's never the child's fault if he/she fails. The teacher obviously didn't connect, control their class or wasn't "entertaining enough." I've personally gotten emails asking me to "bond" with the parent's child. (Even typing that was creepy.) The suggestion to another parent to take the cell phone from her child herself got this reply: "I just read what you said. It wouldn't have occurred to me to do that."
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States Ranks 15th in Reading Literacy, 19th in Mathematical Literacy and 14th in Scientific Literacy, see: Who's No. 1? Finland, Japan and Korea, Says OECD.
So quietly, subtlety we've become a nation of entertainment addicts, I-phones with apps, games, texting and academic distractions. The development of young minds used to be simple before levels of video games were invented. Now we compete with them and with what the latest "reality show" is (I believe the kids are viewing "What Chili Wants" from TLC fame).
And if I'm not entertaining, be it Algebra 1, Pre Calculus or Math Lab, I am as TLC would have crooned: a "scrub."
I title this blog post from a conversation I had with another teacher right before a placement hearing for an alternative learning center (we were both the teachers for the young man in question). She and her husband are expecting their first child.
"We're kind of like television," she said. "The kids either tune us in or tune us out."
Her statement reminded me of the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman (deceased). His commentary centered around the advent of 24-hour news in the 1980s: CNN was the first such network that has since spawned others. Children that used to stay up to watch the "snow" on TV as stations signed off now have 24-hour entertainment, hundreds of cable channels to surf and an Internet to post information to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter (let's not forget blogger).
I see kids with phones that have apps I can only envy. Everyone can seem to afford an I-phone, yet no one seems to have the cash-on-hand for a TI-83 or 84 calculator. Taking a cell phone from a child is almost oxymoron when his mother was texting him at the time you confiscate it.
"We're kind of like television": we can be tuned in or tuned out at will. It's never the child's fault if he/she fails. The teacher obviously didn't connect, control their class or wasn't "entertaining enough." I've personally gotten emails asking me to "bond" with the parent's child. (Even typing that was creepy.) The suggestion to another parent to take the cell phone from her child herself got this reply: "I just read what you said. It wouldn't have occurred to me to do that."
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States Ranks 15th in Reading Literacy, 19th in Mathematical Literacy and 14th in Scientific Literacy, see: Who's No. 1? Finland, Japan and Korea, Says OECD.
So quietly, subtlety we've become a nation of entertainment addicts, I-phones with apps, games, texting and academic distractions. The development of young minds used to be simple before levels of video games were invented. Now we compete with them and with what the latest "reality show" is (I believe the kids are viewing "What Chili Wants" from TLC fame).
And if I'm not entertaining, be it Algebra 1, Pre Calculus or Math Lab, I am as TLC would have crooned: a "scrub."
posted by Unemployed | 3:37 PM
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