One of the stories that I heard a few years back when I was just finishing up my MEd was that students in England were doing their final exams using SMS. I tried many times to try to find that article, but I never could. Now several years later, I have a North American example thanks to the Committed Sardine. The post notes that the article says that students “turn off” their SMS speak when they get into post secondary, but should they really have to? Are the instructors at these higher levels that rigid that they can’t learn anymore (stop learning, stop living – brain plasticity)? I don’t think that is always the case, but it certainly could be – as it was with this judge.
We know that students are using the computer or other network connected devices to retrieve information from the web as a normal part of their day and google things that they don’t know (even if it “dumbs them down” or makes us smarter). And now with so many things that everyone doesn’t know, we are learning all the time and if nothing else, this should be enough of a push to get higher ed really thinking about how they teach not only their students but train their staff.
The judge is only one of hundreds of examples of individuals who must make decisions but are no longer able to be effective in this regard, they seem to have stalled out on learning. But as kids are certainly showing us – well I think this is the case with any generation, only for those born after 1975, this seems to be ever more pronounced and certainly this will be the case for those millenials out there – that it truly is possible to never stop learning and even more so, that even though one might reach the top of the heap in one subject area, there is always more to learn in terms of how people communicate and the social norms that surround communication. Afterall, it is the how and why people communicate that defines any culture and falling behind on there (arguably the source of the generation gap) is becoming increasingly risky.
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