Disappearing Boundaries

David Warlick is a keynote speaker at an online k12 conference. He talks about the boundaries that have always existed in our cultures and our classrooms, but are now becoming invisible in the 21st century. I found it interesting to hear him speak about watching his father get ready for work each day and that he always had a sense of what his future held, something similar to his father. He says that he was probably the last generation that could see his future in his parents, our kids know it will be different.

Our students are connected constantly, we as educators, should not fight that, but embrace it. There is so much information available to us if we are only paying attention. The difficulty is that it involves so much change, as a classroom teacher, our education did not prepare us for a career in education, that preparation must continue on a daily basis. At this point it is feasible to have students who are more literate than their teachers. It has become a flat world where we are all working together to gain information, share it and learn form it.

As Mr Warwick said, "It is the first time in history we are preparing our kids for a future we cannot predict, we must teach kids to teach themselves."