"It's not because things are
difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they
are difficult." -- Seneca
Today, for the first time, I felt like I was failing my pupils. I've always prided myself on my ability to translate national curriculum orders into a fantastic set of end of key stage levels. Always well above local, regional and national averages. But really, that isn't enough, is it? Not even close.
I was doing a basic literacy
exercise with some Year 8 pupils, pretty standard stuff, but they were still
getting into it, and were really enthusiastic about simple things like peer
assessment and our general pupil/teacher interactions. But as fun as that was
for me, I felt, no I knew, that I was letting them down. This wasn't what they
needed. The numbers game, pissing contest of end-of-key-stage results feels
trivial and pointless. I, for one, am going to make a commitment to
stop this madness and re-align my priorities. I swear, that on Monday, I
am going to stand before my first key stage class and boldly ask 'What do you
want to learn today?'. I also swear that their needs will come before those of
the national curriculum. Come Monday, I am going to start on the road to
creating digital citizens, not Level 5+s.
Let's not forget, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We, as prospective digital leaders have been given a great responsibility; we are the ones charged with being agents of change, in our lessons, schools, pupils' lives, parents' lives and in our communities. There is a deluge of empirical research to validate what we are trying to do. Every youtube clip of Howard Rheingold or Sonia Livingstone only convinces us further. We know what we need to do, we know it makes sense. But, and this is a but of mammoth proportions... How do we do it?
- We need to be developing
pupils' crap detection skills (is that term acceptable, or should we tone
it down a bit??)
- Develop a better sense of
self-filtering and self-censorship
- To widen their palate of
possibilities
- For them to widen our palates
- Using new technologies, new apps and new web sites
- Creating new apps and new web sites
- Encouraging pupils to develop
their own voice on-line, to experiment, to take risks, to take risky
experiments, to try, to fail, to dust themselves off and to try again
- To allow our pupils to feel
empowered, but not because they know we are taking care of them, but
because they are taking care of themselves
The Internet is an adult world,
yes, but it's time for a new paradigm. We've all taken our children to a
playground, where they had their fair share of fun and their fair share of
scrapes. Yes, there were tears, but they always want to
return, despite their mishaps. Why wouldn't they?? It's a playground for god's
sake!! Let's take something from this. Let's try to make the internet less of a
murky underworld and more of an adventure playground. Yes, our knees may get
muddy and our hands scraped, but we'll still be back there tomorrow, full of
enthusiasm for the promise of more muddy knees and more unbridled fun.
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