Teaching continuously for 50 years has allowed me to observe changes in education. I agree with peers that the students of today are not the same as those we taught 50 years ago. We were able to teach 30 in a classroom, but discipline was much better in the “old” days. Children knew they faced punishment at home if they misbehaved at school. That’s not the case today.

One big change I’ve seen is the learning modality shift. The majority of learners in the past were auditory or visual learners. Only a few needed tactile or kinesthetic learning experiences. We even enrolled in classes and workshops to learn how to teach these “special” children. Now, about 80% of learners fall into this same category.

So I wonder how learning does take place in a room where the teacher uses mostly lecture or visual methods. Did our society as a whole fail to make this a strong “connect”?

Perhaps the absorption of video experiences has added the following negatives to our lives: 1) children are not aware of addresses, phone numbers or directions home; and 2) children insist they should be able to “start over” or push a “reset” button when things go wrong.

While URLs and phones with memories supplant the need for memorization, what are we to expect when a power outage occurs or a battery runs down?  It appears that some are having difficulty separating what is real from what is virtual. And last of all, “I’m bored,” and “I don’t know what to do,” has become the mantra of many students when a peaceful moment does occur.

-        Kay