BP2_2009101_Anti-Teaching

Michael Wesch has certainly hit on a provocative issue when he says "the most significant problem with education today is the problem of significance." It is a bit of overly strong blanket statement that has most of its foundation in his own experience and opinion. Clearly, you don't have to look far to find students disengaged from the learning. Wesch seems to that the way we are teaching is killing true education and learning. That is too easy of an answer. The finger pointing is rarely a productive action, and it should always point in many directions.

I agree with Mr. Wesch that students are generally not interested enough in their learning to ask meaningful and thought provoking questions. The gift and goal of learning may be all but lost in our current educational system. The question I have is why are so many students pursuing education for reasons other than being engaged in learning. I confess that I am not a driven to learn new things as this current program is pushing me into. I need the external motivation of a degree and the benefits that will come with that. I do believe what I am learning has significance, but I am not always motivated to do it.

Yes, we do currently live in an information age that can connect to the world at large. I'm not sure that access to the information is actually doing that. I teach in an elementary school where poverty is a great problem. Many of these children cannot differentiate between science and superstition. They too have access to this world of information and have no idea what to do with it. Most have little interest in it other than for social or pop culture reasons. I am lost with it at times too. We may all be on "Spaceship Earth", but there are parts of my own town that I don't even understand, let alone further corridors. We have to be willing to look at ourselves honestly before we can learn from others. I feel that most students are simply not ready to digest what is out there even just with the information.

I do not believe there is such a thing a top problem or top solution to the current educational issues. As I am creating my own PLE is seems to be a great tool for the self-aware and self-motivated learned. Teachers at any level will need to give guidance and inspiration to learners using this tool. I need it before I can give it. I also believe I need structure even as an adult. My iGoogle is already present me way more information than I can take in. I don't know how to decide what is significant yet. I am motivated to learn as I do think Web 2.0 tools are here to stay and will increase in their application to learning.

Yet, I still think the true source of motivation comes from relationship to people and not to information. I was a bit offended by Wesch's assertion that religious narratives "are simply not grand enough to grapple with the increasingly global, post-industrial, media saturated world." I am not sure there is anything more global/universal than religious issues. They have not disappeared simply because we have a www. More information will not put an end to them either.