Engage me or Enrage me

Prensky, M. (2005) Engage Me or Enrage Me. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0553.pdf Prensky_Engage.pdf

Marc Prensky write a very entertaining and thought provoking article on the student in our schools and asking the question, "are we engaging them in schools on levels they are used to at home and play?" The article starts off with three types of learner, the motivated, the going through the motions, or the tuned out students. I certainly already see all three types of students in my 4th grade class for my student teaching. The article then goes back in time. The author mentions how in the 1960's, yes their were all three types of students yet at the same time, these students were not expected to be engaged by anything they did. But now, every student expects something to engage their attention and something to push their creativity. Just like the common video games have captions such as "explore..." "challenging..." "build..." the author points out how we don't have these captions for school much anymore. School has become boring to students and they can't wait to go home and engage their brain the way they prefer. So what are we to do? The author believes that the students of our age are sending us a message, that these students want to be engaged in the same level at school and so incorporate these things into the curriculum. 


Yes, I agree that students should be engaged in school and I try to do that every time I teach, yet at the same time, I have this belief in the back of my head where students should not have to always entertained, they are students, this is their responsibility to be in school so they should listen and behave because that is what we expect of them. When I think about this reasoning in my head, I think it comes from an old philosophy of teaching. This was a different age when children were not allowed to talk up to adults, school is where students were sent to everyday to learn. But our society is different now. I don't know if it is child rearing or simply our rapid expansion technological world but we can't treat students the same way we used to. These old tactics are not working. Children need to be engaged, they need to be entertained in all their senses, they need challenging and exciting work for them because now this is what they expect out of life. So teachers need to wake up to the fact, even if they don't like it, that their are other ways of engaging students, even if it may be through gaming. 


This will take what we read about today in our Chapter 3 of Williamson. How to incorporate technology into the curriculum. Our student live off of technology. Therefore, in some way, technology needs to be incorporated so that the students are engaged and are pushed and stretched into young men and women who are ready to become the leaders of our 21st century. 

So, as the author ends his article, student are asking us, are you going to enrage me today or enrage me? The choice is yours.