Assignment 1. “How do we educate our children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century?”

The actual education needs to be revised and adjusted to present (and more challenging, to future) demands, and this is not new. There are a lot of “old fashioned” paradigms that we really need to get rid off. Even though I do not agree with all of the author’s ideas (like the one about ADHD and East Coast), some of them really made me reflect. I found very interesting what he exposed about the divergent thinkers, his idea that kindergarteners are more able to make “side” connections and think “out of the box” than when they get more “educated”, it give us teachers a lot to think about. It is clear that students need to be prepared to step out of the box, be creative, question what the teachers says… but, are we allowing them to become independent thinkers?

Our students are digital natives, they need technology, they breathe it, and they are surrounded by it. How can we balance the use of technology it in our daily teaching? How much technology is enough? Shall us teachers, limit it? Or shall them limit our traditional teaching? Honestly, I think we need to work harder in order to better prepare our students for the challenging economics of the 21rst Century. We need to envision our students as independent, creative and divergent thinkers; lets try to stay at their pace and renew our teaching in order to better prepare them.