Developing an interest

If children have interests, the education happens.
                                                       - Arthur C. Clarke

It's an exciting time to be an educator! I've been saying that a lot lately. Teachers today have so many tools available to them. Over the last few months I've been hearing and reading about teachers developing their own PLN (Personal Learning Network). With the multitude of resources available through blogs and websites from other teachers, and twitter postings, the learning curve is spiralling upward. It gives all teachers a great advantage in the classroom. With the tremendous growth in social media, both students and teachers have, at their fingertips, the power of instant communication and access to the vast repository of the world's knowledge. That's exciting!

The challenge for educators, probably more so now than ever before, is to help our students navigate their way through this ocean of information. We need to help them develop the critical thinking skills in order to enable them to chart their own direction; and, at the same time, give them the appropriate moral model so that our exemplary behavior will be another compass they can use along the way.

But even with all the exciting learning opportunities available to our students, it's unfortunate that a significant number of teenagers are deciding to drop out of school. I read recently that, in the U.S., an average of 7000 students drop out of school every day! Here in Canada I understand about 10 % of students drop out yearly. The reasons for this disturbing trend and the possible solutions to reverse it are most assuredly on the minds of many in the teaching profession.

What can I do as an educator to help alleviate the above challenge? Well, one of the first things that comes to mind is to keep finding ways to energize my instruction and the way I present information to my students. One of my goals as a teacher is to incorporate novel ways of teaching my course content, whether that be through blogs or wikis, or some other technological tool. Anything I can do to pique my students' interest will be a win-win. It's fun for me to create a more engaging lesson format, and, hopefully at the end of the day, my students will gain a deeper learning experience.