Learning that Makes a Difference
Students are hungry to make a positive difference, made all the more possible by innovative technology and teaching methods.
Often students question how what they learn in the classroom has transferable, real-world applications. Grasping the American Civil War, human evolution, and the quadratic formula may be important, but by and large, educators do a poor job of convincing anybody, much less kids, that such knowledge is crucial not only for future success, but also for the here and now.
More still, teachers need to understand that today’s students live in an era of instant gratification, and that this reality isn’t all bad. Students don’t want to wait to make a difference tomorrow; they want to take what they’ve learned and make a difference now. They are hungry to make a positive difference, a prospect made all the more possible by emerging technologies. We should let them try.
Along those lines, I recently learned of such a real-world, difference-making project spearheaded by Rich Lehrer, a middle school science teacher at Brookwood School in Manchester, Massachusetts. Lehrer’s son, Max, 3, was born with a congenital abnormality which prevented fingers from developing on his right hand.
