Ted Williams

What is the best way to teach a kid something important?

As a high school social studies teacher (with SENIORS, no less), this is something I think a lot about.  To be fair, this is loaded question.  How do we determine what is important?  And once that tidbit of information has been carefully selected, how do we get it through the hormonal, ADD, distracted by all things glittery and electronic brains of our youth? (No offense, kids.)

A teacher will get hit with the question, "Why do we have to learn this?" in some form or another at least 27 times a day.  Prior to teaching a lesson, I always think about that question.  This largely helps guide my lesson planning.  Is the content part of a bigger picture?  Will the skill help them succeed in their post-high school life?  For the love of all things holy, will it at least help them understand some of the historical references in Forrest Gump?

Lately, the district I work for has tried to help its teachers collectively answer this question.  Their response? We should be helping our students become 21st century learners.  I have several concerns with this.  For starters, I want my kids to be 21st century citizens, in addition to learners.  Also, it is 2014- the 21st century is old news.  How do I get them ready to be 22nd century citizens?  Or, assuming that Ted Williams was right and cryogenic freezing is the wave of the future, 31st century citizens?  Finally, how do we make our kids "21st century learners" when our classrooms are situated for the 19th century (chalk boards anyone?) and we are teaching towards a test that is largely rote memorization?  Side Note- In Virginia, our state tests are called "S.O.L.s."  When I first moved here from Oregon, I thought that was a joke.

So, what is the best way to teach a kid something important?  What they are learning needs to be relevant and applicable to their own lives.  Relevancy is one of those words that used to have meaning, but then got said out loud too many times by education policy "experts".  But, there is something that is valid about making a lesson relevant.  If kids understand why what they are learning matters, they will pay attention.  Globalizing a curriculum helps with this because it is an avenue by which content can become more interesting and applicable to their own lives.

Globalizing curriculum also helps build essential skills for kids who will enter the work force in the next 4-10 years.  We live in an international, global society and economy.  Why not teach kids how to effectively communicate with people who grew up on the other side of the world because they may be selling them auto parts some day?  Why not teach kids how to have difficult conversations (both written and verbal) with people who have totally different points of views and means by which to communicate because they may be diplomats in the future?  Why not use the internet for more than just YouTube videos and instead link classrooms across the U.S. and the world together to learn collaboratively (who needs chalk when you have Google Plus)?

The buck is being passed on to Generation Millennial's at a rapid rate.  What we choose to teach them and how we choose to teach them needs to make sense and be interesting, but it also needs to help make this world a bit smaller and more fluid.  While globalizing is by no means the only solution, it is at least a feasible, concrete way to start making changes and help solve the problem of what teach kids in a futuristic way.