The Signs are Everywhere (even within our students)

I find it fascinating that once you are consciously aware of something, all of the sudden you start noticing it everywhere.  You start to wonder, “where have I been?” or “is this just coincidence?” 

I’ve adjusted my classroom to manage a more project-based, student-centered, blended learning, (insert whichever 21^st century word here) type of model and every time I sign on to twitter I see someone blogging about how these models are the best, they are the future, etc, etc, etc..

Whether it is a world-renowned author, a high school administrator, or an elementary physical education teacher, great things are happening everywhere, and I am stunned at the fact that I thought I was entering untested waters, only to find that there is research everywhere, and articles of personal experience on countless blogs right on my twitter feed. 

My question the past few weeks has been how do we get students to see that this is the best way for them to learn and grow?  I thought students were mostly clueless, and that they were so trained out of creativity that we had to make them see that paving their own path in their individual educational journey is worthwhile.  That may still be the case, but now that I am looking for answers, I found some crucial evidence that has thrown me off the scent of students being clueless…

On Tuesday of this past week I had a conversation with a group of students about video games.  I prompted this conversation because I was interested in finding out more about the possibilities of creating video games as a class project, but I left out the class project part because if I even dared to enter education into the conversation, I knew I would have lost them at that moment. 

As this group of 4 young men argued back and forth about Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, PS3, Xbox, and everything else gaming, two things struck me:

1.  I’m way out of the loop!  I was never one for the adventure games, but I still knew all sorts of things about the systems.  I’m ancient (only 10 years removed from high school) when it comes to knowledge of the gaming arena.  Some of the things they talked about, I couldn’t even understand.  Here I made fun of people like me within the last decade.  What happened?

2.  A student said, “modding is the greatest thing to ever happen to video games!” 

Allow me to elaborate on point #2.  I’m not even sure if ‘modding’ is spelled right, but through inquiry I discovered that modding is the gaming word for customizing, or modifying a game.  All four students nearly scolded me for not knowing that anyone who knows how to write gaming code can go into the game and change just about anything they want to make it look or play however they want.  These four guys went on to talk about different codes they’ve learned to write and different changes to games they’ve seen and how cool it is that they can personalize things. 

STOP!!! (substitution please… education entering the game replacing video games)

How does this sound:  “modding is the greatest thing to ever happen to education!”

I’ve read countless articles in the past months that have said the new way of educating, the 21^st century education, is and will be about personalizing education for all students to actively learn what they want to learn under the guidance of the teacher. 

What I realized last Tuesday is that our students are aware that personalization is the coolest thing, we just have to find a way to get them to realize that it is OK to personalize their education just how they can personalize their video games.  Teachers must embrace the new wave of education, unlearn the styles that they were taught and have been teaching, and open the doors for the students to see the opportunities in front of them. 

Too often we blame the students and cannot understand why they do not succeed when we challenge them to think for themselves and try something new.  But, take a step back and you’ll see that they are only modeling the behavior that the majority of educators are presenting which is sticking to learned behaviors despite the overwhelming amount of push for the “modding” of our educational system and it’s classrooms. 

Educators, please don’t take this as me blaming my colleagues all across America.  But, take it as my attempt to make you consciously aware of these opportunities so that you see it everywhere you look and find the confidence within you to begin “modding.”

Take care,

Coach Mo