Renowned cultural anthropologist Dr. Michael Wesch gave a TED talk about what schools are requiring students to do today and how and why they need to change. Wesch believes that the world needs to stop simply having students know things and, instead, have them use their own knowledge and critical thinking to form opinions and create meaning in the world they live in, hence the idea of going from knowledgeable to knowledge-able.
While I certainly agree with his position, this will not happen unless the content that students are required to know is changed. While some of the skills that are needed in the real world are taught and developed in the classroom, the majority of the skills needed for the real world are self-taught or learned on the fly. As Wesch mentioned in the video, students are only reading 49% of the content but "only 26% is relevant to [their] life" (Wesch, 2010). I know I would have liked a class on how and why to set up a retirement account, how to buy a car, a class on credit cards and creating a budget, a class on health insurance, a how to pay for college class, etc. Even though it would also require that teachers be certified and qualified enough to teach these classes and not give incorrect/bad information, I believe that even just teaching the basics of these--terminology and how-tos--would create better financial and informational literacy in our world.
Despite this disconnect between the current content teachers are required to teach and the real-world connections, I would be able to use some of Wesch's ideas as inspiration for implementing some of these real-life skills into my class. For instance, I can have my students research an issue/topic happening now and not only create a community from within our classroom, but branch out to see different global perspectives through the conversations people are having on the Internet. In this way, I would be able to encourage my students to "embrace real problems" (Wesch, 2010) and show that it's okay to not have all the answers. I can take current events and connect them to students’ lives to start a dialogue in the classroom about the changing world. I could even try and incorporate articles/discussions related to financial literacy and planning for the future with units about the American Dream. Hopefully other teachers realize this disconnect and are able to incorporate connections to the real world in their classroom because, after all, teachers preparing students for the greatest test of all--life.
While I certainly agree with his position, this will not happen unless the content that students are required to know is changed. While some of the skills that are needed in the real world are taught and developed in the classroom, the majority of the skills needed for the real world are self-taught or learned on the fly. As Wesch mentioned in the video, students are only reading 49% of the content but "only 26% is relevant to [their] life" (Wesch, 2010). I know I would have liked a class on how and why to set up a retirement account, how to buy a car, a class on credit cards and creating a budget, a class on health insurance, a how to pay for college class, etc. Even though it would also require that teachers be certified and qualified enough to teach these classes and not give incorrect/bad information, I believe that even just teaching the basics of these--terminology and how-tos--would create better financial and informational literacy in our world.
Despite this disconnect between the current content teachers are required to teach and the real-world connections, I would be able to use some of Wesch's ideas as inspiration for implementing some of these real-life skills into my class. For instance, I can have my students research an issue/topic happening now and not only create a community from within our classroom, but branch out to see different global perspectives through the conversations people are having on the Internet. In this way, I would be able to encourage my students to "embrace real problems" (Wesch, 2010) and show that it's okay to not have all the answers. I can take current events and connect them to students’ lives to start a dialogue in the classroom about the changing world. I could even try and incorporate articles/discussions related to financial literacy and planning for the future with units about the American Dream. Hopefully other teachers realize this disconnect and are able to incorporate connections to the real world in their classroom because, after all, teachers preparing students for the greatest test of all--life.
- References
Wesch, M. [TedxKC]. (2010, October 12). From Knowledgeable to Knowledge-Able. [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaAHv4UTI.
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeaAHv4UTI.