The Lovely Wife said to me the other day, "Why do we need teachers if everything is available on the internet?
It's a fair question and it got me to thinking. After that thinking I came up with a single word answer: context. Part of the GED test here in Arizona (and a few other states) is a civics test. It's basically a How Well Do You know The United States trivia test. Seriously. One of the questions is "What is one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for?" Answer: "Oldest member of the Constitutional Convention." As a teacher, I bring relations and connections to the trivia. Trivia is knowing who Susan B Anthony is. Context is discussing the decades of fighting, the truly nasty opposition, and the social issues of the movement. Context is connecting that movement with the women that didn't want to go back to being housewives at the end of WWII. Context is also knowing what to ask. Context is creating the situation where the student comes up with the question. Recently I put up live feed of a volcano in Iceland. A student asked isn't it cold there? This opened up a conversation on what makes a volcano hot, how we can capture that heat for energy production, types of rocks and more. Another reason for have teachers is helping others sperate the proverbial wheat from the chafe of all that information on the internet. After all, just because it's on the web doesn't make it true and we have seen the results of less than critical thinking on "facts". To sum it all up, I like to think of what I do not so much as teacher, but rather inciting curiosity. My jam is setting up a place where people can come and explore and ask questions. Talk about things and see stuff they may have never thought of. And to show them how they can find information
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Step inside the mind of me.Hi. Welcome to my little electron of the internet, where you will find random comments about whatever pops into my mind! Previous mumblings
December 2021
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