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.