Education and entertainment

Hello everyone,

When I first started teaching in the dark days before iPods and cellphones, my colleagues and I used to ask each other in wailing voices, "What do they want from us, Muppets?"

What we meant was that our students had spent so much time being entertained that they wouldn't accept a normal education unless it was couched in the imagery of entertainment, much as Sesame Street so successfully did. We couldn't compete with the Children's Television Workshop--or any other professional programmer, and we knew it, and we resented it.

Today, things are both better and worse.

We have much better technology now; there are a wide variety of things we can use in the classroom to hold student attention as we teach. There is more research about education available to us, and we have better training. Our textbooks are more interactive and use web-based resources in ways that were only a dream when I started my career. Students are communicating in writing more than any other time in history.

On the other hand, students often seem less inclined to think abstractly; they are less patient with lengthy processes; they are often less able to concentrate for long periods on complex, abstract thoughts; they read less than ever; their writing is filled with the quirks and shortcuts of text-messaging and email (u r w/ me on this? ;) lol).

Does this mean it's impossible to get students to pay attention without all the bells and whistles of the technology-based classroom? If it is, pity the poor teacher who can't get a projector when she needs it. I think students can still be engaged by a great text (even an old one) with nothing more than a great teacher and enough books and desks to go around.

I just don't think it's necessary to be so Spartan if you don't have to be.

When you plan your lessons, plan to use the widest variety of teaching tools that are available to you. Frequently vary your activities. Acknowledge that what you do in the classroom competes with video games, the internet, text-messages, an enormous music library, and a general lack of independent reading. Plan accordingly.

On a side note, there is a growing concern that today's youth are not learning to socialize normally. They listen to music, they text message each other, they email, they play video games together, they have sexual encounters. But they don't always know how to have an appropriate conversation, with eye contact, over an extended period, without outside stimuli. We need to try to give them opportunities to practice normal conversation. Hence the recent trend toward socialized instruction, giving students the opportunity to practice conversation at the same time providing an activity in the classroom that can be engaging.

Do we have to entertain? No, but who wants a boring class?

Jeff Combe