Times change. Doesn’t mean people can’t learn to read a clock or to think critically.
They don’t need to retain and a lot of it is bullshit anyway.
Thinking critically is not on the same plane as reading a clock. I just don’t understand why people fight the current tools rather than using them to reach a new generation.
I’m of the generation that had it all - the cursive and the keyboard. Bridging that gap isn’t that difficult.
You don’t have the perspective I do. These young people are addicted to and numbed by their technology. They do not understand what critical thinking is. They want to be entertained 24/7, and can’t be bothered to do the work of thinking.
I never suggested getting rid of technology. But catering to people who don’t want to have to put any energy into anything other than having fun or being constantly diverted is not doing anyone a service.
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Old folks get that, Lotus. No, really. They do.
I don’t mean to be impertinent but isn’t it your job to make them understand critical thinking? If what or how that’s being delivered isn’t reaching this cohort, perhaps it’s time to rethink the approach? (I say this knowing full well you have a curriculum you teach to and don’t mean it as a personal you.) Sounds like there’s a disconnect that you could ask your class to solve using the critical thinking skills you want them to have. 
@Lord_Bowler Older people have been saying that for ages. They said it about you and me alike.
Another thing that’s bugging me is if these kids want to play on their phones all class, why are they even there?
As far at the time thing
I am on BD6 time
it’s what time I want it to be
Isn’t that a reflection of life as it is now? Shit is whatever we want it to be rather than what it actually is.
BINGO
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Seems to me we are precariously close to the point where that is simply not possible.
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I’m struggling to believe it Norm.
That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I only have so much energy. I try everything I can think of to reach them – and I am a very creative thinker, and not one to give up. Most of them don’t understand the very concept of learning. Don’t give me this bullshit about it being my responsibility to lead a horse to water AND make him drink.
They are there for one reason ONLY – I ask them and they tell me so I know this is a fact. They are there to get a higher paying job.
They do not WANT to learn to be critical thinkers. They are lazy and want to be entertained. PERIOD. (Most of them, of course. There are always exceptions)
Again, my questions aren’t meant to be personal and I can only really come at this from a student perspective as well as a parent of soon to be college students. I also used to run scholarship programs and I know how shockingly lazy some kids can be even when it comes to getting free money.
Even from being in classrooms in the 90s, I found education delivery to be old fashioned and frankly boring. Lectures and reading and papers and tests seemed so old fashioned as we began discovering a whole new world online with information at our fingertips even without it in our pockets but school slogged on in it same old form.
I think it’s time for a major overhaul of programming and delivery. I know you’ll likely object as my step mom who used to teach English at UCLA did but even the keeners like me were being turned off 20 years ago and came out with a piece of paper that was required to get a job as a receptionist. It’s become an extension of high school in terms of job requirement.
Trust me, technology has been incorporated into the classroom. That is not the problem. Frankly, the schools have become overly dependent on tech, imo. It doesn’t make students more engaged in their educations, in any way, shape, or form. The problem is getting them to focus for more than a minute and a half – on anything that requires deep thinking. Tech has shattered their ability to focus.
Tech isn’t going away so what’s the solution?
weed
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I know tech isn’t going away. The solution is for society in general and academia in particular to realize that too much tech is frying people’s brains and to develop curricula that give students time to live in the real world without interfacing with tech all the damn time.
Have you come across any studies about the effects of technology on brains?
When you say develop curriculum to allow students to “live in the real world” do you mean like apprenticeship based learning or something else?
There are tons of studies on the effects of the internet on the brain. Read The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr. He cites a lot of those studies. The news is not good.
I mean anything that allows them to participate in reality in a way that enhances their learning and their lives. Nature-centered education is one example. The possibilities are limitless.
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