What Needs to Stay (and it's not Big Bangs)

So as I was thinking about my big hair styles, wishing I had a New Coke, and jamming out to Monster Ballads, I thought about what still needs to still be part of what we do in the year 2012? Obviously, an incredible amount has changed in our world but their are essentials that will always remain. It comes down to this:

Students will always need to think. Although they think more than ever that they don't need to since all they have to do is "google it", I believe that students will need to think even more because they have to discern through information. This will be essential to them "going beyond" the first thing that pops up to truly researching and discovering what is truth and what is not. What makes something reliable? How will they know the information they get is true? These are the questions that we will be helping them through. Assessment will be turned more and more on the students to self-reflect...but we will guide them through this process.

To be a teacher to the digital native we will need to enter their digital world but we will be the ones helping them create meaning of the ideas they discover. They already know how to think, we will be teaching them what to do what that thinking.

So my students don't know Gun's N' Roses...

(and why explaining Ferris Bueller for teaching absolute value just doesn't work anymore.)

As I was jamming out to Gun's N' Roses during my plan time I realized how old I had got when my TA's had no idea who that was. I remember if I was in high school teachers that played G&R were cool! And so the generation gap begins. Which is where I think I need to first start at the differences so I can change my instruction to not be obsolete.

So here is how to know if you are (way) older than your students...

• In your sophomore class picture, you're wearing a shirt with the collar "up".
• It was a major accomplishment to get to the "Chase" scene in Ms. Pacman.
• Leg warmers were cool.
• Most of the fillings in your mouth are directly related to Bazooka or Bubble Yum.
• Rotary phones.
• The first time you ever kissed someone was at a dance during "Crazy for You" by Madonna.
• There was nothing strange about Bert and Ernie living together.
• While in high school, you and all your friends discussed elaborate plans to get together again at the end of the century and play "1999" by Prince over and over again.
• You actually know who Rick Springfield is.
• You can recite the Preamble to the Constitution, but only to the tune of Schoolhouse Rock.
• You could sing "99 Red Balloons" in English and in German.
• You don't even want to remember the hairstyles you had in the 80's.
• You ever asked to be gagged with a spoon.
• You ever dressed to emulate like a cast member of a Duran Duran, Madonna, Rick Springfield, or Cyndi Lauper video.
• You ever owned a set of "Pop-Wheels", that handy little combination of shoe and roller skate that lasted about a year on the open market.
• You ever wanted to learn to play "Stairway to Heaven" on the guitar and choreographed "Dancing Queen" by yourself in your room.
• You freaked out when you found that you now fall into the "26 to 40" age category on questionnaires.
• You know all the words to the double-album set of Grease.
• You know the origin of the phrase "Where's the beef?".
• You know who shot J.R.
• You know, by heart, the words to Weird Al Yankovic's songs.
• You learned to swim at about the same time that Jaws came out and still carry the emotional scars.
• You often catch yourself saying "When I was your age", "Youth is wasted on the young", "I used to be able to do that", or "What is that thing called again?".
• You owned a Jordache anything, or you remember when Jordache jeans were cool.
• You remember "Friday Night Videos" before the days of MTV.
• You remember having to get off the couch to change the TV channel.
• You remember that music that was labeled "alternative" really was.
• You remember when film critics were certain that no movie could ever possibly get better special effects than those in the movie TRON.
• You remember when there was only "G", "PG", and "R".
• You sat with your friends on a Friday night and dialed "8-6-7-5-3-0-9" to see if Jenny would answer.
• You thought "Weird Science" was a masterpiece.
• You took family trips BEFORE the invention of the mini-van and remember riding in the back of the station wagon trying to get passing trucks to honk at you.
• You tuned in regularly to the adventures of the Bionic Man and Woman, Wonder Woman, and/or the Incredible Hulk.
• You wore anything Izod, especially those wind-breakers that folded up into a pouch you could wear around your waist.
• You're starting to believe that having the kids go to school all year wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.
• You've shopped at a Banana Republic or Benetton, but not in the last five years, OK.
• Your first musical purchase was an 8-track tape.
• You know the profound meaning of "Wax On Wax Off"
• You wanted to be a Goonie.
• You know who Max Headroom is.
• You ever had a Swatch Watch, or three.
• You thought eating Reeses Pieces would attract your own Alien.
  
  

From www.badpets.net/Humor/Lists/SeventiesKid.html