Many would remember the conversation that started some time ago about the nature of truth, right and wrong. Graham Wegner has continued the conversation here and on his blog – teaching generation Z. Well I wanted to search this a bit further…. I raised the challenge on Graham’s blog for us all to start drawing some conclusions on this journey of conversation (not that I want it to end). So I thought I would take up my own challenge and draw some conclusions here….
1) In a diverse world, of opinion and views we must be sensitive to the experiences of others which without a doubt will impact how they conduct their personal and professional life. Teaching is a personal profession – you bring a part of who you are (which is formed by experience) to your classroom and to the world of your students. This is a quite a daunting thought…. “You mean to tell me that I may be responsible for how this kid turns out?” Obviously they do have parents and other influences in their life, but it is important to remember that the teacher is often a strong influence in a student’s life.
2) If point 2 is correct, understanding my world view and how I see what is right and wrong is of upmost importance as it suddenly effects more than me.
3) While this conversation started from a question of teaching students right and wrong in a digital world – it has suddenly become much bigger than that part of a students life. Perhaps the issues surrounding becoming a responsible digital citizen are not too different to those of becoming a responsible citizen of the real world?
Just 3 conclusions I have drawn from the conversation. There are probably many more but that is enough thinking from me this afternoon (long day). The last thought I will leave with…. What hope do we have of having students act responsibly in a digital world if we create a reality at school that focuses solely on the consequences? It is easy to get away with doing the wrong thing online, so if there are no consequences….. well you see where I am going.
Actually I am going to let that go for now…. A discussion on consequentialism another day perhaps?
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It’s funny how an idea can come back to life and start to be a discussion point. I ended up this afternoon on another website that shows a certain worldview in action. I like your point about teaching being a personal profession and that you bring your worldview to the job – I suppose the best thing we could aim for as educators is to be upfront and honest about our own worldview (hard to do online, for sure!) and the influences our life experiences bring to the job. This is definitely not just in the realm of religious beliefs but in smaller values (Holden v. Ford, Labor v. Liberal, country v.city) where a whole lot of life experiences shape our opinions one way or the other. If we are honest about why we act and say certain things with our students, then they will learn by interacting with all of their teachers that there are many different aspects and viewpoints to life. And it is hard to change attitudes that are hardcore at home, as even though we might actively work to change attitudes, things like racism, sexism, fanaticism will be embedded despite our best efforts to show an alternative point of view.
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