So, here’s a thought I’ve been struggling with over the last year: the brains of adolescents are wired differently than ours. Literally. I mean, my current students were born in 1992, the year I was a freshman and the world was still on dial-up.
I had a pager in high school and, if someone “beeped” me, I would have to pull over, drop 50 cents into a pay phone, and call the person back. I relate this anecdote to the students, and they say, “What’s a pay phone?”
These children have never not known AOL, or the WWW, or YouTube. They have grown up “plugged in” to the world (I tip my hat to you, Morpheus), yet totally distanced from it. This is accessing the entire world from the solitude of a dark bedroom. This is connecting without connection. What does that do to a developing mind?
This is global solipsism. This is the “I” generation. This is the “us” coming from the “me.”
This is the “egocentric” web – literally. The entire web revolves around what each child does while he/she is online. Think about it: you no longer need to know (or be responsible for) information, you only need to know how and where to find it. “I need help with Macbeth’s soliloquies”…click clack click … “Thanks, Google!”
If you Google it, it will come…
Every child, master of his own universe, at the click of the mouse.
How do we relate to them? How do we teach them? How do we think like them?
Posted by acelini 
Posted by acelini 
Posted by acelini 
