Learning HOW to Think

I watched a short video for class today called "Shift Happens." It is a play on the old saying... well you know... anyways, it threw out some interesting statistics and thoughts on the ever moving culture and world that we live in. I see this all around me when I think back on my own lifetime and how much the world has changed. When I was a kid I loved to read Goosebumps, now I see students at the school I teach at coming to class with a Kindle. As teachers we are constantly trying to reshape the way we approach the way these students learn in a shifting environment.

This short video made me think about the future. I am interested to see what lies ahead for us as individuals and as a nation. It brought up some interesting points about the changing technology and the simple fact that new technology moves faster than the educational system that teaches students to use it. When I think of my students and the difficulties that lie ahead of them in high school and then college, I believe the challenge for their teachers and professors is to teach in a way that makes them think creatively. Anyone can study, memorize and repeat but the upcoming generation of students are entering an environment that moves so quickly they need to be equipped to change as the technology develops around them. So learning HOW to think about situations and technologies may be a skill that needs to be focused on in this changing environment.

In undergrad I was always struck by the kinds of students who were smarter than me in class and often did better on tests but who had little to no people or critical thinking skills. Their educational world has developed in such a box that when the real and shifting world hits them, they will be unable to follow. In a system of technology that becomes faster and a world that grows in its connectedness in unique ways, we must teach a future of individuals who are able to get outside of the box that is traditional learning and be able to flex along with the moving world around us.

Wipeout...

I am driving home from work yesterday and you would think everything was normal if it wasn't for the intense rain hitting the region causing mass flooding around the DMV. I work in Maryland and had to get to the Alexandria campus for an evening class and of course was met with an onslaught of crazy traffic. I know living around the city you expect to get a certain amount of traffic no matter what road or time of day, however this was bad...

So many people work in the city and travel to work each day, it was interesting to read this week about the trends and statistics regarding urbanization the decline of rural America and the population movement away from cities known as suburbanization. When I think about my life and the places I have lived, I was interested to read about the history of suburbs (the place I mostly resided). My mom was a teacher and able to live and work in many different areas so the choice of our residence was placed mainly on my dad. He initially worked in a suburb of Los Angeles then got a job working on Capitol Hill and we moved to a home in Northern Virginia.

According to our sociology book urbanization increased during the 1950's in a post WWII era and many people were seeking out the American dream of owning land and a home. Thanks to government programs that assisted families in receiving mortgage loans areas outside of major cities developed and drew large populations in. In my life I have not seen this specifically but I have lived in these areas. I have seen what the social scientists today describe as the movement to newer outer-ring suburbs. I lived in Reston, VA which was the first post-WWII planned community which I believe makes it a "first suburb." In high school I played sports against and new many kids from the new outer-ring suburbs like Centreville, Chantilly and Sterling.

I also went to high school where as a white male I was in the minority. This is example of another important change in the makeup of the suburbs today because it has a growing number of racial and ethnic minorities. This was not so much the case for the outer-ring suburbs, although I would be willing to bet that it is trending that way.

The People Rule?

I recently went on a trip to the Newseum with a group of my 7/8 graders. We spent time in class discussing our freedom here in America and what we are allowed to do or not. The subject was our first amendment rights and the extent to which that applies to what we do and say. According to the information presented to us the average American citizen can easily name all 5 main characters from The Simpsons however had trouble naming the five rights given to us in the first amendment.


When we started studying government in the next section of our sociology textbook I was challenged with the question of who really rules our country? We live in a democracy which by definition says the people rule, however is this actually the case? When it comes to this question I went back to our time at the Newseum, put together some of the facts written about in the book and it got me thinking that the people don't actually rule but I do not think they really want to rule.

Our country has a free and open voting system, yet less than half of our citizens show up to voice their opinion. According to our textbook this results from a fairly difficult system of signing up to vote and a general indifference to the voting system that comes from people not believing their vote will truly make a difference.

Low voting rates contribute to a system that pluralists theorists would claim give individual citizens little or no direct influence on political decision making. I think this is the case in the United States. Government is less influenced by individuals and more by interest groups that lobby as a representation of a group of people. This as well as a well established system of checks and balances that exist in government keep the government from becoming too centralized.

So, do the people rule? In some ways yes and in some ways no. With the explosion of social media such as twitter and facebook many more citizens are using unique ways to have their voices heard. This may be the new face of interest groups and lobbying our government, however as it stands now this still is a small portion of a population who is less versed on their given freedoms and more likely to name someone who lives in a pineapple under the sea...