Turkle and Wesch
But in all seriousness, this Ted Talk really hit home and made me reflect a lot on both myself and my own experiences with technology, as well as my experience with my students and technology. I was shocked to see that the video is almost 10 years old because it rings so true to today, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic. This was my first year of teaching, and I remember the first few weeks of school feeling so anticlimactic. I teach 7th grade, and for the first two weeks of school we returned fully virtually. Once students returned face-to-tace, they had to be socially distanced and have masks on their faces, and only half of the class was present at a time while the other half stayed home and would log on to class through Zoom. On the first day back, only one of my classes had students who were willing to actually speak to each other. Because I had to simultaneously teach to students in-person and online, I had many students who would be in the classroom with me, yet would refuse to speak up and would only use the Zoom chat to message me. They all had their eyes down and seemed terrified to speak, yet at the same time I noticed all of them creating these groupchats with each other over Google chat rooms, and I would see my students messaging each other all day throughout all of my classes. It was the most bizarre thing.
I feel like this is where Michael Wesch’s voice pops into my head and says “eat lunch with them!” There were a few times I would ask my students why they don’t turn their cameras on while on Zoom even though I know what they look like, or why they use the chat even though they are right in front of me. And they would tell me that they were anxious, that they were nervous and self-conscious. I remember being 13, so I get it. However, I couldn’t help but think about Turkle’s point that conversations should be hard, and that we need to be vulnerable.
I think where Wesch and Turkle really come into conversation with one another is that they both understand the importance of creating an environment that is conducive to learning, and a key to that environment is connecting with others. Wesch emphasizes that learning happens when people allow themselves to fail, yet love themselves enough to try again. Right now, my students are too embarrassed to let themselves fail. They even criticize themselves right after trying, and I think it’s because they are afraid of the criticism others will give them.
I had a student this past year who volunteered every day to read my slideshow. In a class of only 5 students, he pretty much read the slides every day. Yet he would always get to a point where there was a word he didn’t know, he would start to try to pronounce it, and then just say “I’m sorry Miss but I am not saying that word,” and then keep going. Sometimes he would try to get through the word, and then at the end say “That was horrible,” before I was even able to tell him he pronounced it correctly. While he had all the confidence in the world reading the words he knew he knew, he struggled to try again if he thought he didn’t know a word.
I think if technology is going to help us in our work, there needs to be room for imperfections like Turkle points out. It is those imperfections that lead to the connections that allow us the confidence to try again, and that creates the ideal environment for learning.
You make great points here and I also teach the 7th grade. This year has been super strange and I will say that they are typically very social, this year the pandemic atmosphere, distancing and masks really silenced them. I am hoping students will return to their social and curious selves they typically are. We do have a great opportunity to create our classrooms to be the world we want them to experience, both a gift and a huge responsibility.
ReplyDeleteAbby, I really like how you grounded Turkle and Wesch's arguments in your own classroom experience. I think it really contextualized what they were trying to say in an important way. I also wholeheartedly resonate with the point you made about trying to make connections virtually this year--I think Turkle was onto something, even if the video was 10 years ago. Makes me curious to think what she and Wesch might have to say about forging student relationships as we prepare for next year.
ReplyDeleteAside from v high self-consciousness being a symptom of our middle-schoolers, social media really puts a spotlight on their insecurities since so much of what they see isn't completely accurate. Weirdly enough, since they were not in person and were not in each others' in-person gazes this year, hyper self-consciousness still showed through in the online world, where are kids could be anonymous, to an extent, in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWow, I also did NOT realize Turkle's ted talk was already 10 years old. You're right, it's still entirely relevant. When you brought up your kids opting to keep their videos off and type in a chat instead of speaking out, I love that you made the connection to Turkle and recognized that the problem here is that students today need more opportunities in which they feel vulnerable. To them, vulnerable=bad. But they're missing out on so much opportunity for personal growth by not experiencing vulnerability.
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