"Turning on the Lights"-My response

I was very intrigued with what Prensky had to say in this article. Like most heavily opinionated articles I found it a bit extreme, but there was definitely some truth in some of his points. Charles Handy was quoted in the article saying "Most of us prefer to walk backward into the future." I must admit after reading this article I had a similar attitude. Part of me wishes that I lived in the age of a one room school house where a teacher's primary resource for teaching was books and a chalk board. I may be guilty of romanticizing the past or wishful thinking, but there is something in my brain that tags that style of learning as more wholesome and rewarding than the current entertainment style learning. However, I know that if I am going to be relevant to my students I need to embrace this technological age and learn as much as I possibly can to help them keep up with their peers. With that in mind the thing I found most troubling in this article was the writer's view of who is responsible for the student's learning. His whole section on 'The Boredom Crisis' demonstrated a view, found throughout the entire article, that it is the teacher's job to entertain the students so that learning can take place. The primary function of all of the electronics he mentioned is entertainment. He mentioned cell phones, music players, game machines ect. I grew up in a family where my dad talked about boredom as a character flaw, we were encouraged to live a life of passion, find things in every situation that interest us. I really appreciated this take on life because it enabled me to choose to learn. I fear that students nowadays are not going to have that skill or that ability to learn on their own. I fear that students will have an "entertain me" attitude when it comes to learning which is sad. I love to learn new things and part my love comes from the challenge and reward of accomplishing something difficult. I embrace the fight to stay interested and learn new things as a result. I'm not saying that in every situation the students should have to fight to stay interested but I think it would benefit the students to instill a healthy sense of self motivation, which in my opinion is difficult to do if our focus is on entertaining the children.