Robert Gordon
Prompt: To what degree do you think you really understand the needs of your students and what they need for the 21st century? How wide is the “gap” between them and you? In what areas are the gaps? What can you do to make connections?
Response: I feel that I understand the needs of my students in the 21st century. I believe that schools need to be reformed in order to equip the needs of diverse student bodies in a way that fosters right-brained innovation (instead of placing it in the backseat). Along with this thought, the world of standardized testing needs to be revamped to be able to recognize students of all abilities (and races) that are required for 21st century jobs.
Because of the globalization of modern economics, America today needs to educate kids to become innovators. Its been said that this century is going to be the one where the right side of the brain gets its time in the sun. However, like Daniel Pink has stressed in his book, A Whole New Mind, analytical thinking shouldn’t be thrown away with. Rather, it needs to be conceptualized in such a way helps capture context and emotion. For example, Pink writes, “Storytelling doesn’t replace analytical thinking...it supplements it by enabling us to imagine new perspectives and new worlds...Abstract analysis is easier to understand when seen through the lens of a well-chosen story” (Pink, 108). It places educators in a situation where the old way of doing things will not suffice. This shows that we need to be able to give academics a higher conceptual meaning for students to gravitate toward versus repel from.
Journal #3
Prompt: To what degree do you think you really understand the needs of your students and what they need for the 21st century? How wide is the “gap” between them and you? In what areas are the gaps? What can you do to make connections?
Response: I feel that I understand the needs of my students in the 21st century. I believe that schools need to be reformed in order to equip the needs of diverse student bodies in a way that fosters right-brained innovation (instead of placing it in the backseat). Along with this thought, the world of standardized testing needs to be revamped to be able to recognize students of all abilities (and races) that are required for 21st century jobs.
Because of the globalization of modern economics, America today needs to educate kids to become innovators. Its been said that this century is going to be the one where the right side of the brain gets its time in the sun. However, like Daniel Pink has stressed in his book, A Whole New Mind, analytical thinking shouldn’t be thrown away with. Rather, it needs to be conceptualized in such a way helps capture context and emotion. For example, Pink writes, “Storytelling doesn’t replace analytical thinking...it supplements it by enabling us to imagine new perspectives and new worlds...Abstract analysis is easier to understand when seen through the lens of a well-chosen story” (Pink, 108). It places educators in a situation where the old way of doing things will not suffice. This shows that we need to be able to give academics a higher conceptual meaning for students to gravitate toward versus repel from.
This leads to the gap between me and my students; they want that good story to inspire them into gaining knowledge. I think our students today, whom are bombarded by technological stimuli, are losing their sense of imagination, and hence the need for stories to give them interest in academic content.Teaching with a good story will help form my students’ thinking about whom they are and whom they are to be. We need to enhance the creativity of our kids, and the resulting imagination is what is going to help sustain human life on Earth (although we mustn't forget the dramatic loss of wildlife we have seen and will continue to see unless we do something about it)..
Although I am older than my students will be, I grew up in a time when social media was starting up and Internet was becoming widely available. I understand my students need to be able to become comfortable with technology without “relying” on technology, where the latter often seems to be the case these days. This is where I feel our gap is the smallest. I am going to be able to mentor my kids into using the technology around them to their advantage, to see the big picture in things, and to be proactive with the use of their time (which can get out of hand when using technology!).
The need for more creativity in our student bodies must be reflected in the way we test our students. Standardized testing, as it stands right now, is no way to determine the growth potential of a 21st century student. I have heard that the government has invested a lot of money to research new methods of testing students and I hope it evolves into a more equitable assessment tool than it is today.
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