"Can you keep up?
Baby boy, make me lose my breath
Bring the noise, make me lose my breath
...
Can you keep up?
OOOh
I'm startin' to believe that I'm way too much for you
All that talk but it seems like it can't come through
All them lies like you could satisfy me,
Now I see where believing you got me
Gave you the wheel, but you can't drive me"
-Destiny's Child, Lose My Breathe
While this Destiny's Child song may be cheesey, it reminds me of how I felt as a student and how I feel challenged sometimes as a teacher. Pushing authority to keep up with you, realizing that you know more than the instructor, and seeing that even though the person in control has the power, they do not have the ultimate say over you. It's a great realization song.
Control is one of those issues that I feel all teachers fear at one time or another. The lack of control, the loss of control, too much control...it's a constant battle. In the classroom, a good teacher can always maintain control even when allowing their students to work on their own and manage themselves. The teacher can check what the students are doing, make suggestions, offer input, and help in any way possible. They (should) have full knowledge of the subject they are teaching and therefore do worry about being challenged by their students. However, technology challenges this security. I know for a fact that my 5th grade students know WAY more about technological gaming systems, online sites, and probably PDAs, such as Ipods, than I do. They exceed my technological expectations, and sometimes, that makes me nervous. Reading different articles which outline how easy it is to cheat using electronics has made me go to extremes when testing my students (i.e. desks turned, completely cleared, and for BIG tests, pockets emptied).
I know that when I was student teaching, one of my 11 year old students was burning movies off the internet, making his own animation, and creating complex websites. It was really cool. But, he was also overwriting school firewalls and looking at porn (yes, at 11 years old), stealing other students' passwords and posting inappropriate material, and illegally downloading pirated material. Luckily the school tech was able to trace the source and find out that this one particular student was behind everything, but I would have been CLUELESS otherwise.
How much control can we exert over a class in which the students have superior technological knowledge? I think keeping up with changing technology is imperative for teachers today, but schools need to make an effort to educate their employees to be aware of the potential electronic threats which exist.
Outside of technology, I believe it is important that students feel they have a small portion of control in the class because it gives them a chance to self-monitor, but in the case of technology, until the teacher feels that technology is as safe and controlled as their room, the students will always have the upper hand.
