In the recent years there has been a transformation all over the nation in the field of education. It has had some adverse effects on the student, parents, teachers, administrators, and society as a whole. There are various problems that can be addressed with this issue but for the sake of this article I will focus on just a few and not too extensively. The rest will be discussed in future blogs as well as an upcoming book. I want to focus how the mindset of today's student as it relates to a feeling of entitlement, no self accountability, and laziness.
Most students of today have poor work ethic. They do not try hard to complete task or go outside the box to acquire different resources to help themselves. The irony is that these resources are at their fingertips...literally! They have computers and smart phones. This allows them to access this information. When I was in high school we would have to go to the library and make copies of the books or check them out. Then we would have to go home and use a typewriter......and god forbid if you made a mistake in the middle of your paper...there was no backspace! You had to be on point to complete these tasks therefor being successful in school. Now imagine your child or other students of today in that situation....how would they fair? Allow me to bring this to life. I was teaching a class and gave a homework assignment to research Andrew Carnegie. The students came back and said that they could not find any thing on him. I just looked at them with a blank stare. I asked for all students who had computers at home to raise their hand. Every hand in the classroom goes up. I then ask them who had smart phones and more than half of the class hands goes up. I then tell them to take out their phones and go to google. I instruct them to type Andrew Carnegie in the search box. They all look as the info pops up on their phone. So this is very prevalent in today's classrooms all over the country. What is going to happen when this is the mindset of our Doctors in a critical situation? We already see how some of our government officials are acting....could you imagine this mindset running our country? Making decisions for you when you are elderly? This is and will have an adverse effect on society.
There is also a sense of entitlement with today's youth. They really feel that they are suppose to have these expensive items like the smart phones and computers which they do not even use to the best of their abilities as illustrated earlier. This has caused them not to try because they think it going to come to them because they are suppose to have it. This lack of initiative and laziness is going to have adverse effects on them if and when they graduate and face REAL LIFE situations.
The technology has been something that was suppose to launch us into this information age and bring students the world to their monitors. It was suppose to be a tool to further s students educational ability but now it serve as the number one distraction. Students are not focused in classrooms because they are not being visually stimulated as they are with their phones,laptops, ipod's, and video games. Teachers have to really change the way they teach. I use technology as far as using power point instead of a chalk board. I also show mini video clips and documentaries. When I assign homework it is Internet based. These are just a few things that has to be done to deal with the changes in the way our youth receive information effectively. I would love to assist any teacher or school with how to achieve better results with better Best Practices. Feel free to contact me at shawnmurry1@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blog. Parents must take control of the media that their children are being exposed to. There should be limits to TV time. computer time, and video game time. Wow that was a lot of categories...when is it time for reading and studying?
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