The last paragraph of this article summarizes the thesis and makes a strong statement. Do you are or disagree and why?
I agree with the author. He is calling for a more balanced approach. He recognizes that technology is here to stay; therefore, we need to find the best way to incorporate it into education by experimenting with it and finding out what works. But, he is unwilling to throw out unwired or unconnected learning where “slow linear reading occurs”. He believes that to swing the pendulum back to the middle or"regularize the instruction", we need to be willing to “down shift” and decelerate. I liked this analogy. I pictured a car accelerating at top speed without seeing the dangers ahead and suddenly forced to down shift into low gear to avoid a pot hole. We hardly have time to consider the pros and cons of technology when something new is introduced. The end result has been a change in our reading and thinking habits where students are unable to comprehend complex text, because they have not had enough experience and practice with it. They are unable to find the main idea, infer meaning, understand difficult words and recognize elaborate text structure. This should worry us.
To gain experience, they need to have uninterrupted time to read and a willingness to pause and probe into complex text. To do this, they need guidance from committed educators who themselves value and are receptive to deep thinking and probing the richness of complex texts. In other words, they need good models and to be explicitly taught how to access complicated text. Simple strategies such as going back to re-read to check their understanding or changing the pace of their reading to match the complexity of the text will make a big difference. I also believe that schools need to select texts that challenge our students. We should be introducing high quality text that they may never pick up on their own but will have a huge impact on their thinking. We should not be afraid of the inherent struggle as they wrestle with meaning. Besides learning to better comprehend they may learn humility, patience and perseverance at the same time. By consciously adding slow reading in the curriculum, I believe our students will be better prepared for life.
Ellen, there are so many things I love about what you say here. At the end you challenge teachers not to be afraid of asking our students to grapple with the inherent struggle that goes along with reading complex texts. This is sometimes really hard as a teacher! But it is encouraging to think, as you mentioned, that not only are we exposing them to ideas and thinking and reading skills they may not otherwise acquire, but we are teaching them humility, patience, and perseverance. That is a really powerful way to think about the importance of teaching the hard stuff.
ReplyDeleteEllen, there are so many things I love about what you say here. At the end you challenge teachers not to be afraid of asking our students to grapple with the inherent struggle that goes along with reading complex texts. This is sometimes really hard as a teacher! But it is encouraging to think, as you mentioned, that not only are we exposing them to ideas and thinking and reading skills they may not otherwise acquire, but we are teaching them humility, patience, and perseverance. That is a really powerful way to think about the importance of teaching the hard stuff.
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