Notes from Millie D

I just finished reading a post from Scott McCloud’s blog, Dangerouly Irrelevant, called Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader. He based his post on the premise that the Fox Television Show highlights what is wrong with education right now: memorization of facts that most people never really need to remember as general knowledge. He argues that it is more important to teach the skills for children as well as adults to find the information on the Internet when you need it, consume it, and use it in a way that is professional, ethical, and productive. The funny thing is that I just finished reminding 4th and 5th graders about that very fact.

Unfortunately we need to have some standards in education to help hold people accountable but in the last dozen years or so we, as a society, have lost the concept that teaching children to be able to think is a more important skills as an adult. Maybe the television show can be used as a teaching moment for children that education is not about the ability to memorize information but how to find it, process it, and then use it in a way that is productive.

The bigger hurdle I’m having with students in this area is breaking the idea that you have to use Google and you don’t have to type the whole entire question into the search query. To address the second part I took a sample set of factual based questions and gave them 20 minutes to find as many answers as they could. Most kids only got part way through the question list. I then showed them keyword strategies to narrow the focus and streamline their work. Many of my students were amazed how easy it was to work smarter instead of harder when researching on the Internet. Yesterday Brian Mull, from November Learning, reminded me that I could have students use Answers.com or NoodleQuest to figure out the best search engine/tool based on what kind of information is sought.

I like how Scott ended his posting and I’m going to borrow it here:

Am I smarter than a fifth grader? Yes, and it’s not because I have memorized
all of this stuff. It’s because I’m an adult who can find the information that I need in mere seconds when I need it,
critically consume information, and act upon information in professional, ethical, and productive ways.
What do you want your fifth grader to be learning in
school?

My answer is for a fifth grader to able to think through a situation and not just memorize factual information that may or may not stick in their adult life.

tags technorati : 21st Century Learning, Google, education, information, recall ScottMcCloud