The use of Instagram, Tumblr and so forth is great, if well conducted. I think social networking has been encouraging users to showcase their work and ideas. For example, the momentum of writing this blog for me is not because of what the class requirement calls for, but I'm excited someone else is going to read it and probably leave comments. I always think about the reason why selfie went viral, especially among young people. On top of the truth that technology has made taking pictures easy and enhanced, another contributing factor may be that people are seeking for reassurance and praise. Other than posting spur-of-the-moment captions of what you are eating and doing, we can use social media to make thinking and learning and sharing become a contagious habit.
Should students be taught differently?
Today on the way to school, I was listening to a radio. Not sure what kind of program it was, they were talking about education. What shocked me was when the speaker talked: "MOST (may be more than 90%) students are bored at school -- because they think school is boring and teaching is repetitive", and it reminded me of my academic experience. I dropped out of high school, simply because I thought the things I was being taught had no value, and the only purpose for cramming knowledge was to score high at the giant test. Why I had to learn about things that I'm not going to use? or where on earth could I apply them? I actually scored high by then, but I felt I was just sitting there and wasting my talents.
Under the pressure of my family, I had to go to college, where I was taking up Business and English as my major. I basically couldn't speak any English in the first year, and what I wanted was to graduate as soon as possible so that I could get the degree and perhaps a job. However, my life has changed in the second year, when we started our literature class. Mrs. Lee was our British Literature professor, who had studied in U.K. Though the content was totally over my head, I fell in love with literature, or rather, her class.She taught us poetry at first-- from Beowulf to Shakespeare's sonnets, and to Shelly, Keats and Byron-- using videos and music to demonstrate the rhythm of the verses and the beauty of poems; discussing topics from different perspectives and encouraging us to have our own interpretation. She set up a forum, where we were asked to read more books than what the course asked and make comments about it. She encouraged me to watch American TV shows, to read classic literature, and to use iPad as a learning tool. I had never thought I would be intrigued by English, let alone poetry; however, her class has empowered and enlightened me to read, to think, and to share, and inspired me to come to the States and pursue a career in education filed.
So, from my story, I would argue that students should be taught differently. Of course, students will be given same content and instruction for the most part; however, it's necessary to include different modalities and integrate multiple tools and strategies to make the learning experience interesting and real. I said in my first blog that I want to be Steve Jobs in education. Yet another role model for me is from my all-time favorite movie Dead Poets Society -- John Keating, the English teacher. We have to try different ways to encourage and inspire our students to think and to create; make them believe we trust them and expect their progresses, and thus they will be able to find their own expectations and inspirations, that is, composing their own verses. No one will have exact same takeaway from a poem due to different background and experiences, and what we can help is to value and well consider their differences and diversities.
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