7/6: Turkle and Wesch

Everyone can admit the ways in which our society has gone digital. Standing in line at the grocery store, I look around me at all of the people looking down at their phones and am disappointed. This is not to say that our digital lives don't have value. It's true that they provide us with entertainment, allow us to organize our professional selves, and help us stay in touch with people who live far away from us. However, the Turkle argues that these same devices are taking us places we don't want to go (a life with absolute control, edited photos, planned friendships, pre-meditated conversations, etc.). The unlimited and endless power to edit and delete gives us agency to clean up both our bodies and relationships, pushing us away from honest connections and compromising our capacity for self-reflection. 

How do we teach our kids to self-reflect? Wesch, in his article on anti-teaching, suggests giving students space to connect, be creative, and think critically in order to achieve this goal of self-reflection. Students will participate in the act of self-reflection if they are freed from the restrictions traditional classrooms impose upon them. Without having to worry about grades or exams, students learn to ask "questions that are meaningful and relevant in their own lives" (p. 5). If we, as teachers, find moments to learn with our students instead of only focusing on what we can teach them, they will have the opportunity to find significance in their own education. I think we can start to achieve this learning by leaning in to our students' interests, particularly new/social media. Bringing social media and current, student-vetted technologies into our classrooms can then become a positive aspect of our students' digital lives. 

As Turkle argues, we need to cultivate a capacity for solitude and view that solitude as a positive experience. Beyond individual solitude, I think we can create spaces of solitude in the classroom where students can learn and ask questions without being interrupted or distracted by their teacher. Perhaps in doing this, we can allow our students space to think critically and generate questions, in turn positive creating habits like patience and curiosity.