I’ve been thinking (as I have also been attempting to teach my students) that words matter, and what we say as well as how we say it, matters very much.
On the Web site where I located this little gem of a video, was this short
article. The interconnection I’m thinking about here is that we are generating massive, incredible amounts of information – and it all matters – and what are we doing with it? What are the repercussions of this generation of information? This is a series of questions that I’m not sure I’m capable of answering. Okay, I’m sure I’m not capable of answering them, short of slipping in the bathroom a la Doc Brown and his Flux Capacitor epiphany.What concerns me is the short article regarding the laptop desk for the car. Now obviously this is meant for something other than laptopping while driving, and the reviewers over at Amazon.com have had a BLAST with it, but at the same time, I think it’s more important than just a desk. In a car.
I'm thinking about my syllabus for next semester, and I'm also thinking about our 20803 roundtable meeting. I am likely to cut back on my assignments next semester, but increase my focus on helping the students to really concentrate on the import of the ideas they are generating. I'd like to create some assignments that matter - although I suppose that the best I can do is come up with something that might matter.
I don't want to think that I am enabling students to go forth into the world and occupy jobs where they think that having a desk in their car is a good plan, or that working on the weekends is necessary, or that just one more raise will make their lives perfect.
How do we make our assignments matter? How do we ensure (as best we can, anyway) that we help our students learn all they need to know to best live their lives, while not making them feel like they need to have a desk in their car?
*I am, of course, driving at 88 mph.
1 comment:
Hi Laura: I knew your wrote this just from the title :) Wow! Such big questions and so overwhelming. I've actually been thinking about going in the opposite direction--scaling down and focusing on writing at a magnified level. Rather than less assignments, I have been thinking about less peer reviews--and using that time to discuss writing teachniques and choices more. Because of all those "outdated" jobs four years from now, one thing remains the same: the student will need to know how to communicate verbally (even more so in this computer age than ever) with clairty and cohesion to succeed. So, my question, I guess, is how do we teach them to process all this information while maintaining our focus on writing development.
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