Born Digital: Book Review

During the summer, I had a chance to read Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives (Palfrey & Gasser). This book is highly reflective of some of the challenges and tribulations facing the education system today. How we manage the transition to an ever-changing and digitized society will play out first and foremost within school walls.

The influx of online and high-tech tools to purvey lasting and effective educational strategy are unfolding in front of our eyes; yet, there are many reasons why we are apprehensive towards these new possibilities. Palfrey & Gasser focus on “how to balance caution with encouragement,” as pivotal in our pathway to understanding and establishing a common point on which learning can take place without compromising aspects of security, individuality and privacy. This question is monumental when you frame the degree of trust needed in students building their own skills and discovering their technological talents as a tightrope walk between protection and proliferation. How do we allow students to form their own conclusions and insights in their online world without abandoning our policies concerning their safety and our current role as stakeholders in their learning?

While many people view online social networks as timewasting and unimportant in the context of learning; Born Digital tells us that these networks allow participants to learn what it means to be friends, to develop identities, to experiment with status, and to interpret social cues. The juxtaposition created by allowing adults (coming from a human and “social” world) to develop online and technology policies in education for students that have been born into this digital and “e-social” world is obvious. How can we make the leap to a place we hear but cannot yet listen to? It’s like staring into one of those pictures for a long period of time waiting to see the actual picture emerge – trying not to blink and allow anything to break your concentration – but all the while not sure what it is you’re expecting to see. We may need blind faith in our students (at times) and the courage to try (ourselves) – by not suppressing their creativity and needs because they don’t seem to match our traditional policies of academic progress.

Many students experiment and learn identity play, an important part of the development or therapeutic stage in overall identity development, through the use of online learning environments and social networks. Our students are learning what it means to act a certain way in certain situations. How they respond to people on Facebook is different than how they project themselves in our school hallways. Digital natives think of their identity as context-specific, and therefore, are building social skills around recognizing cues and behaving appropriately on an individual and needs-specific basis.

Palfrey & Gasser caution us that, “in the digital world, people trade convenience for control all the time.” We should not be willing to sell ourselves and our interests for commercial purposes just because we want an app for our phone or feel the need to belong to online forums or friend groups. Students indeed need to learn limitations and be cautioned about their online identities before they get away from them. One example given in Born Digital is that we should be teaching kids about asterisks in online forms and what “denotes required field” actually means. Controlling the amount and kind of information given to online sites and companies should be an explicitly taught topic; yet, many of us don’t realize the significance and weight of that digital skill.

The world today is raising different-minded people. The shift from CONSUMERS TO CREATORS has been made possible through the influx of UGC (user-generated content). Our students are immersed in a world that allows them to be an active participant in the media that surrounds them. We need to cultivate places of learning that beg for their input and depend on their direction. Our students will show us the picture from inside the picture.

“If Digital Natives engage more critically with the cultures in which they are growing up, they stand a chance to remake those cultures in unprecedented ways.”

Whether it’s through the use of web 2.0 technologies in your classroom practice or a shift towards e-learning opportunities for our students to better meet their individual needs and situations, we are making the right decisions in beginning this journey.

Our role should not be to provide the vision of tomorrow’s education – it should be to finally recognize that it is our students who simply need to share it. Once we recognize that learning is through the individual lens; we can begin to shift our focus to more individual means of delivering education. The road ahead is promising and exciting…

For more information about this book, check out:

http://www.borndigitalbook.com/index.php

WIKI: http://www.digitalnative.org/

The Power of Caring - Book Review

Elmer Winner's "The Power of Caring for Elementary Schools," is a concise collection of approaches and experiences from a former-elementary administrator of more than twenty years. This book outlines very direct and clear approaches to implementing 'care' in our elementary schools using step-by-step guidelines and program ideas.

Elmer Winner's goal is to cultivate, "vibrant, nurturing organizations committed to ensuring students with a quality learning environment," which should be appreciated by any student, parent, teacher or administrator. His main plan of action is to keep telling them and showing them over and over again in as many ways as possible. In this way, Winner uses the precepts of behavioural psychology and reinforcement to deliver desirable outcomes and meaningful school climate change.

It should be noted that the American system of schooling considers 'elementary' to mean kindergarten to grade five - not K to 8 as is the case in Canada. This is an important point since many of Winner's approaches involve repetition of phrases, memorization of important "messages," and activities that reinforce these messages of caring and positivity. I would have reservations about implementing the "positive person messages" with a class full of thirteen-year-olds (as is the case in our Grade 8 classes), but they could certainly be successful dealing with younger age-groups. Winner's statement: "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care," is indicative of the kinds of leadership techniques and school vision that he professes about.

As a school leader, improvements in attitude and behaviour can only be made possible and achievable by individuals having a real desire to change and the commitment to make it so. This book focuses on the approaches to student change, but I believe that teachers, too, often need changes in attitude and behaviour; in order to further their practice and adopt new and effective methods of reaching students - thereby raising achievement (however you choose to measure it).

On the topic of discipline and teaching students about correct behaviour choices, Winner describes that students must experience the "natural and unpleasant consequences of their own misbehaviour," but must also hear that you care about them and are committed to helping them. The relationship between choices and consequences is a crucial first-step to improving student behaviour, especially by using the principles of reinforcement to diminish negative behaviours and encourage positive ones (as explained by psychologist B.F. Skinner).

I enjoyed Winner's reference to things that are, "built upon sand rather than rock." This focus on initiatives and 'fly-by-night' ideas that attempt to improve instructional programs hits close to home for any educator who has spent time working in the education system. Many of the 'next great fix' approaches to improving schools are not grounded in grassroots-kinds of discourse. For meaningful change to occur, all facets of the education sector should be involved and accountable. Top-down decision-making and implementation is perhaps the worst way to improve our schools. Treat teachers not just as professionals, but as shareholders of wisdom and classroom knowledge. Tap into their strengths, goals and desires - since they are the ones who will be instituting change measures and new methods.

Winner disagrees with B.F. Skinner's postulation that it is more productive to study observable behaviour than internal mental processes. It is through an examination and careful consideration for these internal mental processes that Winner believes caring can break through and be lasting. B.F. Skinner's findings that behaviour that is reinforced will be continued and strengthened, but those behaviours that are not reinforced with be extinguished or eventually die out is the cornerstone of this book's pathway to cultivating a caring school environment.

On this point, often in a classroom teachers can fall victim to the habit of giving reinforcement and attention to negative student behaviour. Loudly saying a student's name or repeating it can actually serve to reinforce the behaviour since they are attaining your interest and attention (regardless of the fact that it's in a negative way). It is the most effective approach in class management style to

• Address the behaviour - not the child. 
• Withdraw all attention and redirect using as little interaction and attention as possible. 
• Avoid correcting students solely by saying their name.

Quoting a line from Blanchard's book, The One-Minute Manager, Elmer echoes: "...children are not what they think they are. Children are not what we think they are. But children will usually become what they think we think they are." With these powerful words, teacher-readers are instantly slapped with the realization that it is often OUR body language, words, and interactions with students that facilitates their own sense of self-worth and willingness to explore their own academic potential. Teachers can make or break a student's desire to try - a phenomenon that each and every one of us can probably attest to at some point in our own school days experiences growing up. Positive mentors and role models are needed in a child's life, in order to build the wealth of positive feedback and reinforcement required to develop a well-rounded and strong person.

A criticism that I have about one section in this book is Winner's choice (in the chapter of "Self-Control Techniques") to use the phrase "I'm an American citizen. You don't have the right to hurt me." While reading this sentence I found myself asking which citizens in the world does someone have the right to hurt? By focusing on the nationality and not the collective aspects of an individual, there is a diminishing of the powerful idea that abuse and injury should not be tolerated. Substituting "I'm a positive person" or "I'm a global citizen or even "I'm a person" would more effectively appeal to the ideas contained within the "Universal Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms" - not just an Americanized ideal of what American citizens are entitled to.

With that being said, there are some encouraging anecdotes and inspiring examples within the pages of this book. "The Power of Caring for Elementary Schools: Success Secrets for Principals, Teachers, and Parents," is the result of Winner's personal thinking and beliefs about children having worked for them for nearly thirty years in a public school setting. If you want to know more about this book visit Elmer Winner's website "The Power of Caring."

The Seven Sins of Forced Education - Review

"Seven Sins of our System of Forced Education" (Sept. 2009) is an article written by Peter Gray that was featured in Psychology Today. I was passed on this link by a member of a LinkedIn group of teachers that I belong to. I thought the name seemed familiar, so I checked my bookshelf and discovered that this is the same Peter Gray that wrote the 1st Year Psychology textbook that was used when I went to Queen's University. This man has important things to say and the psychological training and field experience to back it up.

I explored his blog entitled "Freedom to Learn" and read the titles of some of his recent blog posts. There is a great deal of overlap on what he tackles and the main ideas of my blog posts, since starting it in January of this year. That's not to say that I should be held in the same company as Dr. Gray and his insights, but it does solidify the reason I started this blog, and affirm the notion that there are so many talented and brilliant writers out there who are also driving educational change.

"Seven Sins" has many harsh and blunt moments. It accuses schools of being prisons. Reading this article forces the reader into a prison-like state-of-mind cultivated by the desire to read on through the damaging comparisons, but feeling helpless when Gray's critical observations hit home, especially to those of us currently working in the education sector. Gray states that he is casting off euphemisms, in an attempt to expose the truth - regardless of the uncomfortable thoughts it creates.

The main points of Gray's article focus on the negative effects of schools directly created by achievement-driven programming, isolating student tasks, age-based groupings and policies, lack of student input and direction in school activities, limiting top-down teacher delivery of the curriculum, lack of play and exploration in learning, anxiety cultivated through competition and student comparison, and an overall limiting curriculum that inhibits student resourcefulness, ingenuity and critical thinking skills.

Many who read this article will debate and refute the merits of such a scalding exposition. I propose that Gray's seven signs should be a report card of sorts for educators and administrators who can use it to self-reflect and track their progress on the path to educating our youth. Every teacher, school, school district and state or province, would fall somewhere on a spectrum for each of these sins on any given day or at any given teaching moment. These sins should be a warning. A glimpse into the mirror to measure our resolve in eliciting the lasting and meaningful change needed to better serve our future generations.

Rather than scoff and dismiss Gray's arguments as tyrannical judgments on your chosen career path. Think about each area of criticism and provide yourself with the personal examples and insights that absolve you (at least to a degree) from the idea that you have helped to perpetuate the very things that need to change in the best interests of our students.