America, the world leader? I don’t think so.

America, the world leader? I don’t think so.

“Miss, I wanna go to America ‘coz its the best country on earth. It’s where all the video games, movies, music and hot people come from. They’re so smart. They even invented the internet.”

This is the exact quote stated by one of my year eight students when we did a unit on the internet. It’s a common attitude and belief among students that for all technology, we turn to the United States. For these students, progress is synonymous with the US, but ironically, the US themselves don’t believe that their education system, especially when it comes to technology, is doing justice by their students.

Time magazine is amazing in its journalism and is bringing such matters to the forefront. Claudia Wallis (2006) maintains that

“kids spend much of the day as their great grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed. A yawning chasm (with an emphasis on yawning) separates the world inside from the world outside.”

Needless to say, although some teachers still practice this kind of teaching here, most Australian students are ahead in terms of technology.

The Australian bureau of statistics http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/9C02232B6A45D55DCA2573A10019EAC2?opendocument, shows that most families with students have the internet and use it accordingly.

This means that students have information potentially with a click pf a button, making the research process easier, as well as for teachers. The outcome naturally, is more technologically savvy students with the potential for more interesting research and application if teachers allow this. America the leader? I don’t think so.

Reference

Wallis, C. (2006, December 10) ‘How to bring our schools out of the 20^th century’. Found at http://www.time.com/time/mgazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html accessed 11/07/2008.