It is well known that the world is becoming increasingly digital and that digital users are becoming increasingly younger. This has put, or SHOULD put, more pressure on parents to teach their children what is acceptable on the internet, what is responsible on the internet, and what is not. But what about those children who have disengaged parents? Does it become the teachers job, the schools job, the governments job to teach those children about “digital citizenship?” It all becomes very murky and a bit of a finger pointing game of “It’s your job!,” “No, it’s YOUR job.” Then, to muddy the waters even more, there are people like Jesse Miller who say all this “digital citizenship” talk is ruining our digital leaders of the future.
In a TED talk delivered in 2014, he stated, “…if we focus only on developing digital citizenship, we will surely fail to develop digital leaders.” How could that be possible? How can teaching children how to be respectful, safe, and aware “fail to develop digital leaders”? Look, I get his point (or at least I think I do), he wants us to spend more time talking about our individual actions and less time talking about other people’s potentially dangerous actions, but didn’t he say, at the beginning of his talk, that kids know the minute workings of their iPad before entering Kindergarten? Kids get PLENTY of time with technology equating to plenty of time to become digital leaders. What they need is careful, consistent guidance on how and when to use technology.
In my opinion, the best part of Jesse Miller’s talk what the conclusion. Listen to this powerful statement:
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx43RVITx6QTe5BQrmFBPKifM8gOmF9vnT. Being a coach myself, and now an aspiring teacher, this comment lingered in my mind. Why is it that sports/coaches take higher priority than digital use (social media, texting, gaming, etc), when almost everything else is secondary to digital use? I have seen parents struggle to enforce phone “down time” in their homes, teachers constantly battle for their students attention and, yet, coaches have very little kick back when “confiscating” phones after 11:00pm. Why is that!? Is it because coaches have more respect? Maybe, but it seems unlikely that players put all coaches on that type of pedestal. Is it because coaches have more power? Definitely not, parents control all aspects of their child’s life, not just their athletics, and teachers can have control of academics AND athletics. It is common for a player to be suspended from a game because of poor choices made during school time. So what is it? Maybe, just maybe, it’s that coaches and sports are engaging. Kids are active and entertained while playing the game. Maybe teachers could learn a thing or two from coaches?
Sitting in my “Physical Education for General Classroom Teachers” course earlier this year, we discussed the differences in student engagement in elective courses verse mandatory courses. It should come as no surprise that electives had appeared to have much higher participation and student satisfaction. This can likely be attributed to the fact that students are involved in something that interests them. Educators need to rethink how they deliver instruction; they need to “up there game” because if they don’t, technology provides an entertaining alternative. Are they up to the challenge? Am I up to the challenge? I think so. Are you?