Teachers of the unknown

I started this blog the day I became an aunt. At 35 I consider myself pretty young, right? Well, in my classes sit students that were born the year I graduated from college, which to me seems like…yeah, yesterday! When my niece gets to the age of these students, they will have already graduated from college themselves. At that point I will be in my late 40´s and, knowing me, still feeling like I graduated…yeah, yesterday! But during my graduation ceremony none of my classmates turned off their cell phones, tagged pictures to each other in facebook after the event or downloaded a commemorative video on youtube. I sent my first email two years later.

Every generation of students perceive reality in a different way but the change has never been as radical. Technology has accelarated generational gaps to a point that 12th graders seem like “tech grandpas” compared to 7th graders. Can teachers keep up? My answer to this question is that there is only one way to do it, and that is stepping off the stage where we have been teaching from and let the students take the lead allowing them to be the active agents of their own learning. In order to do that, teachers will become students and viceversa. Frequently teachers will have to teach -Oh dear!- without controlling all the information. Most of the time, the best answer to a student will be “I do not know either, let´s find out”.

For me one thing is clear:  teaching has become more meaningful than ever.