"If kids can’t answer wonder questions in their classrooms, what IS the point of coming to school?
#truth"
Exactly; what is the point? We are teaching students that they can't get their questions answered--their REAL questions, the ones that sprang forth from their own brains instead of out of the end-of-chapter section of a textbook--inside of a school, where these questions should be answered. Why should students bother coming to school if they have to get the questions they really want to know the answers to at home, where they have the technology available to do so?
This got me thinking about my 1:1 classroom. I realized I have the converse of the problem described in @plugusin's post. I have plenty of student access to technology, but my students are either unable or have forgotten how to formulate their own authentic questions. They don't know how to wonder anymore.
All of my students have a netbook. They have access to it from the very start of the period until the very end of the period. They have the power of the entire internet on their desks packaged in a small, black rectangular box. Within seconds, they can be on the technological path to answering any wonder question that pops into their heads.
But they don't ask questions. Well, they do, but they don't ask wonder questions. "When is this due?" "Is this for credit?" "Do I need to turn this in?" Those are the questions I get. Whenever I ask a question in class they don't know the answer to, they stare right back at me in mute, silent expectation. Waiting for me to tell them the answer. Totally ignoring the technology on their desk.
I get mad when this happens. But not at them. I get mad (enraged, really) at whoever it was that took their innate ability to wonder away from them. As harsh as it may seem to say, I feel as if they have been transformed into containers waiting to be filled with knowledge. My rage comes from the fact that I know that they didn't always used to be this way.
When do they lose their capability for wonder? Is it truly lost, or just diminished? And what hidden curriculum teaches them it's not desirable to wonder in school? Sometimes I feel as if I'm dragging them towards what I wonder, not what they wonder; when I stop dragging them, they mentally settle into wherever it is I've dropped them. And that powerful little black box full of internet magic and web 2.0 wonder sits on their desks, useless.
It's a shame that some students are being taught that school is no place to have their questions answered because of the lack of available technology. It's also a shame that students who have plenty of access to technology can't truly use it to its fullest potential for learning, because they must rediscover their ability to question and wonder first.
In other words, they have to learn how to learn before they can use the technology for learning.