Backup Education: Is fear for the future making teachers teach to the past?

 http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-Backup_Education-EdTech-1-08.pdf

Summary:

In this article Marc Prensky explores the common discomfort among teachers in integrating technology in instruction and curricula.  Prensky boils the discomfort down to a misunderstanding of the “basics” (the essential skills) that schools teach. Prensky argues that the basics are the best methods of doing things, and change throughout time. For example, cursive was once considered a basic skill, a necessary building block for continuing education because it is a necessary skill for recording and communicating ideas. But there is a distinction between the skill, and the method. The skill is penmanship, as a method for communicating. So penmanship was considered a basic to communicating. But as our world and methods for communicating change, so do the basics. Now is more useful to learn how to type than write script because it is a quicker and more effective form of recording ideas and communicating.

Teachers are attached to teaching the basics as they know them for fear that students will become too dependent on technology and won’t be able to function if it ever fails. Prensky believes that these fears are unfounded, and that teachers are basically saying,  “We don’t trust the technology of today, or the future. We don’t trust the world in which you kids are going to live. We believe the way we did it in our time was the “real” way, the only reliable way, and that’s what we want to teach you kids – “the basics” (1). Even further, Prensky states that this attitude towards change and integration of technology is a problem because it teaches to the past, and teachers should be teaching towards the future with all the resources we have in the present.

Response:

I admit it, sometimes technology scares me. Maybe this fear is from all the science fiction and dystopian literature I’ve read, or maybe it’s from the fact that I am human and humans tend to fear change. But I see technology evolving right before my eyes, and realize that it’s not fear of robots taking over the world or even worse, people turning into drones with little information feeds installed in their brains, my fear is that I won’t be able to keep up—that I won’t be able to navigate the ever-changing technological landscape let alone give my students the tools to do so themselves. I see my parents struggling to adapt and understand the way my generation uses technology for education and communication. Then I go into a sixth grade classroom with students born post 9/11 who can’t believe that I didn’t get a cell phone until high school and that I still don’t have a smart phone and I can suddenly empathize with my parents. This fear is fleeting, but sneaks up and proceeds to stress me out every now and then.

I think Prensky has a point, the worst science fiction case scenarios are highly unlikely, and resisting change is also resisting possibility. So I go into teaching with an open and optimistic mind. As I better understand technological resources and accept that the way we communicate and learn is changing, I am beginning to see the many ways that technology can actually boost rather than stifle creativity, communication, and collaboration. And as far as the technological apocalypse is concerned, I will teach my students critical and creative thinking skills and hope for the best.