Relationships, Relevance, Rigor. In that order.

I have a colleague at school, JJ, who is our one and only History teacher. He sees every student in the school every year (two grade levels during semester 1 and the others during semester 2). JJ is no-nonsense, enthusiastic, creative with the kinds of lessons he teaches, brings the real world into his classroom, and his students love him. In my first year of teaching, after a humanities department meeting about increasing the rigor of our instruction, we walked out and JJ said, "They don't remember how this works. It goes Relationships, Relevance, Rigor, in that order." 

That little nugget of wisdom is not only true, but has become the cornerstone of my teaching philosophy. And, it seems, that of Dr. Michael Wesch as well. I related to Wesch--I spend the first couple of months of the school year having one on one conversations with my students, just 5 minutes while everyone else is preparing for the day, reviewing, or doing a quickwrite. We talk about anything EXCEPT for school stuff. It has become one of my best teacher tools, and lays a foundation from the start that WHO they are is the most important first step. Relationships, Relevance, Rigor, in that order. 

Wesch believes that students bring gifts that are not always seen at first. I recognize the story of his sleeper. I have had those in my classroom as well. He knew that discipline and punishment were not necessarily the right call, he sought first to understand what was going on. By putting the relationship first, he was able to see the learner that was laying dormant (thank you, Sir Ken Robinson), encourage and support him, gave him space and the opportunity to show his learning and expertise in his way, and he found success. His approach hits all the marks of Relationships, Relevance, Rigor, in that order. 

Wesch understands that learning is not finite, there is not a finish line to education, and when its done right, with intentionality, students return to the learning again and again, not unlike Baby George. 

                                                                                                                                

Raised in The Print Shop

I approached this material with a specific perspective: as a woman in my late 40s, I was awake and alert for the digital revolution. My father worked for a computer firm and I, too, had the Apple IIe that my sister and I would spend hours in front of, making banners and cards for our friends in The Print Shop program, printed on the perforated paper bordered by punched printer-feeder holes. That is, when we weren't playing Pitfall on our Atari 2600. That's right, kids, I played the ORIGINAL Zelda. On the ORIGINAL Nintendo. I like to tell my own teenaged children that I joined gmail so early that my address is simply my name--no need for extra numbers or special characters. Take THAT, all you younger Sarah Kristiansens out there!

What Prensky describes when he talks about "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" is simplistic and inaccurate. What he seems to be describing is this concept that there is this singular unit of information, and "natives" access that information through technology while the "immigrants" would reach for paper tools. Need a phone number? Natives will look it up on their phone, while immigrants will reach for the white pages. In this way, technology is only a different tool to access the same information. A faster tool, for sure, but a tool nonetheless. In 2001, this might have been the case; my phone in 2001 made calls, and the most exciting thing about it was that the cover could be switched out to a fancier one. In this way, Prensky may have been correct in that there was a generation who would not have to stretch a phone cord to its limit, knowing only the convenience of a cordless or possibly a cell phone. Technology in everyday life was still mainly a tool for accessing information.

Boyd challenges the ideas of Prensky and those who came before him who made assumptions that children born into the digital age would be fluent in that language, but by the time she writes her book, the digital world had evolved so much that it became the driver of content, not simply a tool to access it. Her critique of Prensky would feel more valid if he had not made those comments fifteen years earlier. The difference in the digital space between 2001 and 2014 might as well be a millennium.  

As a teacher of rhetoric, however, I could not be more in agreement with her assessment of the assumptions that terms like "digital native" come with. Aside from the connotation of the words themselves, it is the assumptions about todays youth that are fraught with bias and inequity. To start, if we consider the idea of a "native" in linguistic terms, this would have to mean that digital natives are surrounded by speakers of this technological language in order for it to be acquired. We know that this is not the case, and assumes that technological fluency is achieved passively, simply by being around it. 

More importantly, it disregards the reality of access to technology for young folks. Just like there is no uniform preparation for literacy and math--I know first hand that ninth graders do not come to my classroom with the same skills--not because they are incapable, but because they may not have had access to it the way their peers did. Boyd noted this "assumed level of privilege required to be 'native'." Not only is media literacy necessary in schools, but teachers must be savvy enough to differentiate that learning as well, because we can not conflate being born in this technological era as having some kind of innate knowledge of its workings. 

The many hours that my sister and I sat in front of our little Macintosh was an example of the privilege from which we benefitted. We may not be part of the group Prensky would consider "native," we certainly had a head start learning that new language. 

Oh hey!

I'm Sarah Kristiansen, I am a high school teacher at The Greene School in West Greenwich where I teach 9th and 11th grade English and AP Lang. I am married to TK, we celebrated our 20th anniversary last year, and mom to Sam (19) and Jane (16). We have two Cocker Spaniels--George who is the kindest, nicest dog on earth, and  new puppy Benny, who is a tiny, furry terrorist. Lately I feel like it's only school and work...but summer is here and I'm officially lounging in bed until the late hour of 6:30. Aside from class, my most pressing task for the next few weeks is setting up my new teacher planner. I am a second career teacher, beginning my career a few years ago after a long career as a wedding photographer. Out of school, I play in a band with some other amazing women and I am a total amateur watercolor painter (hello, quarantine hobby). I didn't leave the country until I was 42, when we took the kids to London and Paris, and that was it for me, wanderlust has set in BIG TIME. Just before Covid, I chaperoned my school's international trip to Cambodia and Vietnam, and last spring we spent a week in Maui. I am ready for another adventure...my passport is new and ready to be filled with stamps!

'Iao Valley State Park, Maui

Sunset above the clouds, Mt. Haleakala, Maui, elev. 10,000 ft

(Don't let the adorableness fool you.)