Prensky listed three kinds of students and as I was reading through them I giggled to myself and shook my head with a slight smirk. I can put myself into two of his categories and it’s not the first one. I was a student who went through the motions. I did feel that what I was being taught had little or no relevance to my life and I pushed through high school just to get my HSC, just to have that piece of paper. Coupled with Prenskys type three student I often tuned out and thought English and Maths was totally irrelevant to my life. I simply didn’t understand why I was at school and I became challenging and disruptive in class. Mind you I excelled at and enjoyed HPE and the teacher had my full attention because that’s what I was interested in.
I like Kip Leland (from LA’s Virtual Academy) comment, “Today’s kids are not ADD, they’re EoE.” I agree with the quote because I don’t believe every disrupted kid has a disorder. It’s too easy to just jump in and categorise either ADD or ADHD. I get that they are bored in class and the only reaction is to be disruptive because that is entertaining. I suppose the answer is to teach with more technology involved because that’s what the kids know today; the days of chalk are gone. What frightens me though is the thought of teaching through video games, then they go home and play more computer games. Where’s the lateral stretching of their small minds if life revolves around technology 10 hours a day.
How will I engage the kids? I have absolutely no idea. It’s something I must become more knowledge about before I can go ahead and start teaching effectively.
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