Sorry Jeff, but I couldn’t let this one slide…
Come on, you don’t honestly believe this do you? I’ve seen the PowerPoint you showed the students and I totally agree that students need to learn skills that will allow them to continue learning on their own for a world we can’t even imagine but if you’re willing to say that everything students are learning in school doesn’t matter, that says to me that nothing we do in school holds any value (unless it directly involves teaching students learning how to learn on their own).

Will students need to remember names or dates from history class to be successful? I don’t think any history teacher worth their salt thinks memorizing names and dates is why we teach history, or civics, or economics. I do think what they learn teaches them to think for themselves, ask questions and develop an awareness and appreciation of the world and history on more levels than I have time to mention. Are fundamental math skills like multiplication, estimation or measurement obsolete skills because cell phones with built in calculators can do much of the work for us? I would say that if you don’t understand the concept of estimation, no calculator in the world is going to help you budget your bank accounts.

And if all content being taught in schools is a waste of time, why bother with integrating IT into mainstream classes? If what students are doing in their mainstream classes is a waste of their time, what does it matter if they post what they’ve learned online for others to see, if it’s digital verses paper or if instruction is differentiated?

Is “social education” even factored into this statement? Aren’t students learning how to interact with each other by being at a school in classrooms that they wouldn’t otherwise get from homeschooling via a computer and internet connection? Isn’t this why we so often talk about safe and supportive learning environments?

As an IT teacher who considers himself a history teacher by nature, I am shocked that you agreed with what your student had to say. I’m sure it was light hearted and a little tongue-in-cheek at the time but without clarification on what you meant, what message do you think you were sending to the rest of the school community? We as IT teachers want to win over the other professionals in the building by showing them that what we do is equally as important as what they do so long as it is meaningful, which is best achieved when we work together. Telling their students that what’s going on in mainstream classes is a waste of time isn’t going win anyone over.

We’re struggling, too, with the disconnect between teachers and students. The interesting thing is that some students are also disconnected. We’re a middle to upper-middle class community where about 90% of our students go on to 2 or 4 year colleges and I think some of the students themselves would rather not see these changes take place. Many of them were pretty much assured of a good education and a good job before, but in the flat world (new world?) everything changes.

Keep going after it. Keep trying to get those 20 minutes to talk to your teachers every chance you can – and keep the conversation alive.