My last post explained Friedman's New Middlers and the job categories these "untouchables" must adapt to in this ever-changing technological and global world.
So, what does that mean for our future students?
What do we do as educators?
Each category screams of specific skills that need to be integrated at the middle and high school level. Many of these skills can be taught in ELA. I will provide a list of skills that seem necessary for new middlers to acquire in the classroom:
-verbal communication
-public speaking
-researching information
-synthesizing information
-explaining/simplifying complex subjects
-connecting digitally to others around the globe
-generating new ideas from pre-existing ones
-reintegrating new technology with old concepts/ideas
-self-educating
-problem solving
-keeping up-to-date with global news/advancements
-group activity
-getting involved in the community
Many of these skills I do not see applied in common schools I have seen myself. Many schools are caught in an old curriculum that has been the same for years. The problem is, the world has not stayed the same since that curriculum was made. New technologies, ideas, and information has surfaced, allowing more information at our fingertips, and there are new skills that students will need in order to hold successful jobs once they leave high school. What curriculum once was okay for students to hold permanent jobs will no longer suffice. We need to integrate these skills, or else our students will face extreme difficulties with the job market due to global competition and increasing technologies.
A lot of classrooms are focused solely on teaching to the novel, but other skills must come from teaching ELA. One can teach a novel WHILE applying these skills; complete focus does not have to revolve only around the novel's specific content. Students will get more out of the novel if they are interacting with it on a level that is most up to speed and up to date with them and their lives. If they are electronically researching on novel topics or issues, writing to companies about problems in the novel that exist currently, exchanging emails with students across the globe, writing articles on problems and publishing them on the internet, then studnets will retain novels more in depth because they will seem more real to them. These skills can also correlate with this ELA teaching, so this continuous system of teaching the same material for years and years can finally end. We can cause that change if we are ready to work hard to continuously adapt our own curriculums to this changing world.
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1 comment:
Jami,
Like you, I have not seen positive strides in the classroom to incorporate new ideas for the changing global market. One of the reasons I see this stagnant problem occuring is that many teachers who are older do not keep up with the new trends. Many younger teachers come into the classroom with bright ideas that focus on some of the skills you mentioned. Unfortunately, many of the older, tenured teachers continue teaching the way they have for the past 20 or 30 years.
Over the past 5 to 10 years, we have seen more change occur than has occurred in the span of 30 or 40 years prior. Our world is changing more rapidly and at an increasing rate.
The skills that you outline can be adapted to any school curriculum. I think we need fresher administration to bring some life into the curriculums we see failing the students. This idea does not propose to get away with older teachers; in fact, they have great ideas and skills in them that make them unique and wise. However, by "fresh" I mean people who are willing to try new things, keep up-to-date, and to reflect on their older habits that may not have been working.
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