I inherited this moldy oldie from my mother (who did become a teacher). If  you think Satan’s Trusty Minion on the cover is creepy, you should see the rest of the rogue’s gallery.

Yeesh.

Enough with the bashing of everything pre- or non-digital. I don’t believe in utopia, and I’m sick of hearing that some kind of two-point-opia is the answer to everything.

This post has been percolating with me since I saw the video below. If you don’t have 5 minutes to watch, it’s essentially a series of very smart people pointing out that traditional western classroom schooling is no longer sufficient to prepare kids for the information and tech-dense world we live in.

I agree with and get excited by just about everything in it.

Although the vision and enthusiasm of the speakers is infectious, as I watch there’s a conservative voice in the back of my head that feels scared – provoked even. No bricks-and-mortar classroom?

That voice spoke up again when I followed the lead of a few friends and (although I normally avoid them like the plague) took a quiz. In my defense, it had a very important-sounding name: The Pew Research Center “How Millennial Are You” Quiz. I was entertained to see how poorly I scored (32), but what I remembered was the question “have you read a physical newspaper in the last 24 hours”. Skimming a paper in the lunchroom is a very different kind of reading than surfing and sharing links. I’m happy to include both in my day.

Lest it sound like I’m getting defensive, let me move on to the third thing that inspired this blog.

Apparently, some schools are starting to discourage teachers from posting hand-written signs – saying that they should be printing everything from computer – even in a kindergarten class.  This boggled my mind. Learning is all about rich and varied experiences. Do we want our kids to learn how to read English, or Times New Roman?

People type a lot now, I get it. Does that mean we should stop teaching kids to print?  We don’t question why an athlete in training does sit-ups,  even if their sport never involves competitively sitting up.

I once saw a great interview with a successful computer animator who was talking to students in Sheridan College’s animation program. He was exhorting them to absorb all kinds of 2-D art and to learn how to draw, because in his experience the students whose background was limited to video games, TV and film went nowhere . They couldn’t compete.

I’m not opposed to change. Society and education need changing. I’m just afraid of recklessly discarding things of value to make room for shiny new tools. New media literacy should be viewed as an important facet of education, not a complete replacement for other forms of reading and doing.  By keeping some old stand-bys in the mix, we’re not handicapping kids, we’re giving them a deeper toolkit for processing and synthesizing everything that is yet to come.

“In with the new” is great fun at a party, but when his loutish brother “Out with the old” shows up, things can get ugly.