"Why 1492?" was the question I set for a long weekend's
homework assignment.
Such a question would never be set if my students didn't
have Internet connection.
The text book may make one sentence inferences, but my students
know what they write can not resemble those dry paragraphs.
I suspected my better students would be able to connect the
'Black Plague' to Columbus' arrival in North America.
The less promising would probably focus on voyages.
However, all the assignments will be printed, (some in
exotic fonts), spell checked, and be of the quality
my generation submitted at University, not middle school.
This is the potential of the Internet.
Because I am computer literate and have been so for twenty
years, my students have the benefit of a teacher who knows
the use of the Internet.
Tragically, many teacher's do not, and have neither used the
Internet for their own education nor the education of their
students, save by finding sites which tell them what to tell
their students without doing the research on their own.
Doing your own research is vital, whether teaching in 1927
or 2007, for what one author might focus upon, another might
consider subsidiary.
Further, text books, as we know them, are obsolete. One size
does not fit all. A teacher who can translate a text into
'other words', because she has fully grasped the subject and
can supply the other words, has always been at the top of her
profession.
A teacher who can surf better than her students maintains
the edge, and can create questions which require thought,
because no one book or one site can give all there is.
To encapsulate hundreds of years of history between two
covers means a great deal must be left out, truncated and
depending on which side one was on, i.e. a British Text
contra an American one, that was either an insurgency or a
revolution.
With the Internet available, each student can get all sides
of an event and explore those areas of greatest interest.
One might be fascinated about the clothing or food of the
Vikings, another by the ships, a third by their political
structure, a forth by their mythology. No two papers should
ever be the same, for the questions must require thought, not
repetition.
The research that goes into "Why 1492" among thirteen year olds
is of the kind that makes a Master's thesis. By learning how
to learn, by researching how to research, the child gains
more then the facts; how to get the facts is the true lesson.
Seeing the path of Ghengis Khan, a satellite image of
Australia, an interactive tour of Manchu Picu, inspires
the mind to want more, to learn more.
To develop a lust for learning is available to every
child, and parents should insure that their children are
being taught to think not to regurgitate.
Often, my student's teach me, having uncovered a site
with new information, so that every year my history
class gets better.
