It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon but I still find myself running inside every half hour or so to check my phone, check my email, look at news headlines, etc. And I have a new ipod touch so I'm obsessing over that when I could be in our kayak tied to the dock not more than 100 yards away. Sound familiar? I've been thinking a lot about the downside of the digital age. My friend Lori sent me the following link www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129348373&sc=emaf
about students being unable to think deeply. I fear that this connected world is having an effect on the way we read and think, and therefore the classroom. Another interesting article I just read presents the research to back it up. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me
It seems that like everything else, we need to set boundaries for ourselves and our students. With that being said, I'm off to the lake. Enjoy the final days before you jump in with both feet.
Yes, but - I would say that people are just as capable of "deep reading" as they have always been - it's just that hey don't get much practice. It's pretty obvious that the modern world doesn't provide a lot of opportunities for "deep" reading, or, similarly, for exercises of patience and the delay of gratification. Granted, most people don't spend time doing deep reading, and they quite likely never did. Rewind the clock one hundred years and you would not find an America populated by Thoreau like scholars, pouring over ancient tomes of wisdom and meditating on their significance. However, you would find most Americans living their lives much slower, and with a lot more time to think through problems, and with much higher levels of patience. Personally, I think these things are all connected. This change in culture / technology doesn't mean that smart people can't be trained to think "deeply," it probably just means that they will have more catching up to do.
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ReplyDeleteTo piggy-back on Jon's comment of "However, you would find most Americans living their lives much slower, and with a lot more time to think through problems, and with much higher levels of patience":
ReplyDeleteI find that my students are VERY used to instant gratification which I attribute highly to the digital age. They can always get in touch with whoever, whenever; they can get answers right away; they are always able to be "online"...etc, etc. They have this sense of urgency and seem to have little patience, wondering, curiosity or creativity. I often wonder how I can help them practice these skills that even people my age (not THAT much older than my kids) had to develop.
There was an article that took the position that computers were sapping creativity (similar to deep reading, I'm thinking) because people never are in the position to be bored. Time was (before cell phones, ipods, etc.) the author said, when we would zone out and enter a private world of creativity to escape Aunt Mathilda droning on about her digestive tract. I'm thinking ditto about reading. I know that when I was overseas (Picture this: Morocco 1977) I read things I would NEVER have attempted, like Gunter Grass's _Tin Drum_, because the books were there and I needed entertainment I didn't need to work at. It gave me a habit which, thankfully has persisted.
ReplyDeleteBUT - I've listened to kids analyzing the minutia of Harry Potter, and the subtle strategies of DMing (Dungeon Mastering) for fractious people. I agree with Jon - the thinking is probably just as prevalent as it ever was. The look and feel of it has changed. If you believe it you will see it.
It turned out I had more to say:
ReplyDeleteThis also reminds me of something Jeff Wilhelm wrote in the introduction to one of his books. It had to do with Zone of Proximal Development. He was talking about someone who learned car repair by only watching versus someone who had a model who talked instructively about what they were doing and encouraged active involvement. I think the same is true of reading and writing. Used to be that people talked a lot more about what they were reading than what they did. Kids learned by demonstration what it meant to read critically and deeply - and were able to enter into the conversation when they were ready. But they were also living cheek by jowl with more adults than just their parents. Another thing that we do in our current social structure is mass kids together in building where they get to see, but not necessarily interact with, maybe 7 adults / day. Then parents and maybe coaches also have a hand. But most of their interaction with adults is instructive rather than participatory. It is only with their age peers that they are interactive. This has got to impact their facility with with deep thinking.
I've had the chance to observe my 16-year-old son's brain on computer. I used to worry that he was on too much, but now I see how it has enhanced his learning and has been a great tool as well!
ReplyDeleteLogan has a mild Tourette's, so his 504 plan makes it possible for him to use the computer for word processing, which makes us all happy, teachers, myself and Logan who can type extremely well. As an only child, I see how he is able to keep in touch with friends and family members, including me when he's with his dad, through texting and social networking. He's also very musical and has become more adept at playing both acoustic and electric guitar thanks to online reading and YouTube tutorials.
He does get saturated, however, and loves to go searching for books to sell online with his dad, and he enjoys reading magazines and books that are recommended when he's not working out at the gym, biking, skiing, or jamming with his guitar friends.
My son's brain on computers, at 16, is doing pretty well. (And yes, he's better with computers than the majority of his teachers, but thankfully his Computer Electronics teacher is keeping him challenged with the inner workings of these devices!)
I think my own brain on computers is doing okay as well!
I really enjoyed this thread!
In terms of computers sapping our creativity - the reading is all about how computers have opened up new avenues of creativity. If you think about it - when I was a kid, there was no way to make music except blow my wretched trumpet. Now I can create , mix, and disseminate whole albums of material with multiple instruments right on my computer!
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