The Tate Modern
This is part 5 of the 5 parts on the classroom crisis that I began in August.
[1800 words]
Digital life lessons
The progress I achieved in the classroom all started with banning the students’ digital devices. I was their lord and master for three hours, and I assumed dealing with the attention problem was the easy part — after confiscating everyone’s phones I just had to wait for the dust to settle. But I soon learned that a phone ban is more complicated than it looks because it’s all about the follow-through.
After initiating the ban I noted reactions around the room and heard from students how they were feeling. Not good was the consensus — at first. For most a feeling of annoyance or hostility was mixed in with apprehension about how things would go in a phone-less three-hour stretch of class. That struck me as pretty much how millions of people, students and otherwise, feel about their tech dependencies. But unlike what happens in the real world, I had several advantages going for me. I had a captive audience, more or less. We had lots to do in the time slot, plus everyone could see a hard end-point when our time was up, but mostly we had a syllabus to cover. I figured the only way to make this scene work was to ensure everyone forgot their plight, the better to focus on the wonderful discoveries about the digital world they inhabit. A sprinkling of colorful language didn’t hurt. Continue reading