The explosion of media in the digital revolution has forever affected students entering our schools. Rather than actively pursuing answers, a shocking number of students now waste their off school time staring at screens.
Traveling through cyberspace, once seen as the vehicle to increased knowledge and productivity, has instead become the preferred means of entertainment. The conveniences of navigating the world, escaping to other worlds, and socially networking simply by moving a mouse, have proven too intoxicating to resist.
Free market functions of selling, entertaining, and titillation are magnified ten fold through the computer, cell phones, and television screens watched daily by today’s school children. It is only human nature that tools (in this case computers) in the hands of children become toys. Productivity has given way to impulses instantly rewarded through the screen.
Meanwhile our schools stand firm, mired in an institutional model created hundreds of years ago and still implemented today. The disconnect between modern society and the education institution becomes more pronounced as the pace and delivery of mass media quickens. A person standing in front of a class cannot compete. Something has to give. Either the traditional classroom becomes more entertaining to capture the attention of students, or the society and its pop culture voice slows down, finds family more important than the money of a dual income, and reestablishes learning as a core value.
As a high school art teacher with over 18 years of experience, I have witnessed first hand the changing profile of what many would consider the “typical” American teen. With each passing year, my students become more scattered and less focused in their thinking. The major contributing culprit is clear. Digital media now consumes a staggering 50 hours per week of their time. Our kids (and many adults) are hooked. The question remains. What good is this doing?
If I could, I would hire James Cameron, give him a copy of my photography curriculum, and send young minds to other worlds. James and I would knock their socks off on a 30 ft. classroom screen bursting with special effects, explosions, and the occasional tidbit of useful knowledge. We could even distribute 3-D glasses!
But we already live in the 3D world. It’s called reality; the reality through which a person must move, think, react, and be held accountable for their actions or inaction. It should come as no surprise that the first truly “plugged in” generation can’t think straight in the real world.
Aside from the occasional museum visit or educational TV program, academic learning in our society is nowhere to be found. Education reform cannot happen as long as the value of learning is isolated to the small pockets of of our schools. We have at our disposal limitless information thanks to the internet and digital media. It’s a shame that market forces, mainly greed, have warped this powerful potential into little more than an entertainment super structure in the hands of our kids.
If I sound to you like a teacher complaining about the quality my students, you are partially correct. I love my job and the kids with whom I work. But it saddens me to see perfectly capable young minds come nowhere near reaching their potential because of convenient distractions beamed to them from every corner of their lives.
It is time for the digital distraction to enter the debate on school reform. Yet time and again our teachers are blamed for education’s woes. But if current teachers are replaced, the question is, where exactly do we get the supposedly better qualified educators who will rescue our stumbling school system?
I honestly have no answer. But I can tell you that most of the teachers I know would wear blue makeup, long braided wigs, and pointed ears if it resulted in improved student achievement. Now take me to my Avatar!
Matthew Dowling lives in Castle Rock. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
