The curfew has now been lifted in Baltimore and hopefully things can return to somewhat normal. There are many takeaways from the events of the last week, and I am sure the pundits and talking heads have covered them. I would like to focus on my personal takeaways and I am sure others have said this as well but it is an important reminder.
It happened now what can we learn from the experience of the events from the last week? What can we as educators and parents learn from these events?
To me the answer is simple, and that is we need to sometimes GO BACK TO BASICS!
What do I mean. Well in my last post I mentioned how technology will never replace the teacher, which is true. We also seem to live in a generation where social media seems to set the norms and we talk in 140 characters or in abbreviations.
While there many be many benefits to technology, social media and living in such a fast world we need to remember the basics.
Some of those basic include but are not limited to:
- Common Sense and decency
- Respect
- Building relationships and friendships
- A sense of community
- Responsibility
The last I check a computer cant teach these basic and important skills. Rather this is the responsibility of Teachers, Parents, Clergy, and other Role models.
I wrote a blog a while ago that got a lot of push back when I said the role of the teachers is 24/7. What I meant is that we ( parents as well) are role models and our students and children are always watching us and what we do.
Yes we lived in unprecedented times with information at our finger tips and things happen in real time like never before but if we are going to learn anything from the events of the last week we need to take a step back and slow down if you will and take the time t teach, instill, and more importantly model these basic ideas for our students and children.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, especially on the recent events in your town - I had wondered. You are right that the only thing left to do is to make changes which are positive.
ReplyDeleteThat checking back in with ourselves, re-aligning to what we know we ned to do is important. It points out that we all drift from our ideals and need to be cognisant.