Another Thought
Here's my thought entertainment for the day
What happens if you link these two ideas together?
1) "A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words"
2) "Information Overload"
Years ago now, a friend of mine showed me one of his prized possessions.
It was a text book that was used in the mid-1800's.
I looked at the book which had Reading/Writing/Arithmetic in it and I was surprised to see the level of teaching that was done. The lessons were not "Lite", they were heavy duty for grade school level. I look at today's textbooks, they look heavy duty, but when I help students with their homework I see that they are what I'd call "brain dead". Few questions, extremely simple, and unimportant. More like Trivia questions.
I hear complaints about ADHD and how hard it is for teachers to handle students and reflect on my school years. At that time there weren't calculators, no computers, no internet, and a Black and White attenna'd TV.
I can't remember anyone in my classes that exhibited ADHD behaviour. There were no Drugs for handling ADHD because it didn't exist.
So what happened between then and now?
Here's a theory for you.
School Children today have access to the latest technologies: X-Boxes, High Speed Internet, Fantastic Graphics on TV, computers in the classroom. They are bombarded from little on with pictures. (each worth a thousand words.) Computer video is 30 pictures per second... hmmm... let's see 30,000 pictures per second.
Our brain is fantastic, it can process that much information that fast. But what is this fast processing doing to our brain?
Are our brains getting addicted to information? If we don't get information at the rate we normally get, does our brain get bored and start looking for more information?
If the information doesn't come fast enough, we'll look for ways to feed the addiction = distraction.
Addictions are interesting. There's all kinds of addictions created by repetition.
People can get addicted to: water, eating, smoking, drinking, TV, Twitter, extreme sports, and drugs (of course). My friend is addicted to Mountain Dew. Heard of Coca Cola addicts too. My addictions included Laffy Taffy, JuJuBees, and salted pumpkin seeds. Rignt now I'm addicted to potato chips. I can last about a week before the urge get's unbearably uncomfortable.
So what? You say?
We can go with the flow and adjust our teaching methods to conform to high speed thought. Or we can fight it and still try to teach our children with the methods we used 30 years ago.
Your thoughts?
