Chapter 2 reflection on Rethinking Education

I felt that this article was very intense because it gave the one sided ideas of the technology enthusiasts.  They are very worried that the traditional education that is happening right now will leave the students that are in classrooms, left in the dust when they get into the real world.  I fell that these enthusiasts have a good point but, to a certain extent.  These enthusiasts believe that we are using teaching methods from the 20^th century when we should be preparing kids for the 21^st century.  I agree that jobs in today’s world have changed and technology has become a huge part of almost every job that is out there today.  I still think though that traditional education is still needed.  You don’t want a bunch of adults that can use a computer unlike anyone else but they can’t do long division.  There are certain things that everyone should know and that is why there are curriculums designated for each grade.  The enthusiasts do have a valid point that many adults forget common things that they learned in elementary school which is bound to happen.  That still doesn’t mean that we should only teach students relevant things that they need to know at that time.  They call this Just-In-Time learning.  Part of education is learning things so that down the road they can come back to you a lot faster and quicker.  Just because people can’t pull a certain fact out of their head at a certain moment doesn’t mean that they don’t know anything about it.  When they are able to look it up they can see that fact and remember that they learned it once.  Most of the time then, after they see that fact,  They are able to remember a wide array of things that go along with it because their brain remembers the connection to it.  Also if students aren’t using something right at that moment it doesn’t meant that they shouldn’t learn it because who knows that maybe down the road they might want to use it again.  When I was in high school I hated science class and never wanted to take it.  Now that I am in college I am double majoring in Biology and Natural Science.  We as teachers should try to make our students well rounded because you never know when you might have to break out of a certain box and use something that you may have learned.  It sort of goes back to whether you would want to know a little about a lot of things or a lot about a little amount of things.  Our society is becoming more and more specialized but you never know what students are going to need to learn because a lot of students don’t know exactly what they want to do when they get out of school.  It is very important to teach them technology because pretty much every job will have technology involved with it.  That is why as a teacher I will encourage my students to use technology and learn it.  I am not opposed to that.  I believe that when I become a teacher the students will most likely be more technologically inclined then me so that is why I have to stay up with the current times and incorporate it into my teaching style.