The Boomer Chronicles

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People with Attention Spans of ZERO May Be Our Future Posted: 27 Apr 2011 08:20 AM PDT I was reading a friend’s post on Facebook about how her students are so attuned to electronics that it’s sometimes difficult to teach them and wondered if teachers should adapt their methods to keep in line with the direction kids are already going. And someone else wrote a very interesting comment: After spending the last year and half trying to teach “plugged-in” kids, I have such mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, teaching strategies should always be evolving and looking for ways to reach kids. On the other, I see students who can’t focus on one topic for more than a few seconds, who can’t write sentences or spell because they are used to writing only text messages or FB statuses, and who NEVER read anything substantial. If we only try to replicate what they already do outside the classroom, I fear we are condemning them to illiteracy and to a life where they never learn anything they don’t already know. This commenter exactly described my fears for the future: kids with the attention span of a flea. Illiterate, uninterested in ideas and deeper thoughts, and totally self-centered. Many early ed teachers will tell you, too, that kids do not know how to play with each other anymore or even how to have basic interactions with their peers. Where will our future humanitarians, nurses, and other caring people come from? Where will our inventors and philosophers come from? Scary world.

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