Chapter 9

Well, I've come to the end of Richardson. I felt like, while I at times didn't care for his overly positive rhetoric and the-future-can-do-no-wrong outlook, his finish to the book is a rousing call-to-arms. I have a tendency lament by-gone times, when days and lives in general were slower. And I'm only 29. Yet I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he has to say in chapter 9. For instance, when he compares the wide world of business we're preparing our students for, where they "will be asked to work with others from around the globe collaboratively to create content for diverse and wide-ranging audiences," and the out-dated mode of education we still find in many classrooms, which "asks students to work independently for a very narrow audience" (p. 130). I had to nod my head.

Indeed, I liked the idea of driving home to students the notion that their work in class is by no means only meant for the teacher and their classmates. Rather, the work students do in class today can be literally "meant for the world" (p. 135). This notion may totally affect the way a student approaches school work, knowing that not only the teacher, but the whole world will be observing what he or she has to put out. Of course, this idea may be a little daunting at first, but with the teacher as a guide who believes in each student, the child should grow in confidence and be motivated to do their best work.

On the other hand, when Richardson speaks of the difference between the past - when textbooks were edited professionally and were therefore reasonably trustworthy - and today when so much of the information we're consuming is either slanting heavily from bias or is simply bad data, I realize technology has a long way to go before I will ever sign my students over completely to a medium as far-reaching and unreliable as the World Wide Web. At the pace it is growing, I think there is potential for vast improvement in a short amount of time, but first there has to a significant public call for this type of regulation. Until then, it is upon the shoulders of teachers to bear the brunt of such serious discernment. This, too, is just a little daunting.