Richness. That's the word Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates uses to describe why kids are so engaged by today's video games and so stultifyingly bored by today's school curricula.
Check out this YouTube video for an interesting perspective on what's happening (and what's not happening ) in the minds of kids today.
Interestingly, my kid tells me that many of these YouTube videos I've shown him sound preachy and redundant. "They say the same things over and over again," he says, two minutes into the thing.
Yeah, that's what we are up against. It's a kind of stand-off. We grew up on books and 3-channel television and learned to live with classroom lectures. We consider the kids impatient.
But the kids are alright. They just grew up in a different era. They know massive multiplayer video games and instant messaging and a million cable channels (which they can digitally record and watch without commercials). They consider us slow and, well, pedantic.
So I have to ask: What will it take to bring richness to our kids' learning experiences? Somehow, I think richness will make them rich -- however they define that word.
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