Digital Natives Article Response

“Listen to the Natives” Article Response
By: Emil West

I found the article very troublesome for me as a Language Arts teacher. While our students are much more advanced than we as educators were at their age, there are still some fundamentals to be gained that aren’t necessarily to be done using the most up-to-date technology.
Literacy is a major problem in America. Even if students can read, they are not inspired or even compelled to read, and the little reading they do, is small tid-bits of information, that’s completely backed up by technologies such as text messaging, or anything internet-oriented. I think technology’s great, but I also think that our students will get their fair share of technological education on their own, and in other classrooms besides my classroom.
The world still reads paper-texts, and needs to do more so. My classes will be geared towards reading paper-text novels. It’s tough getting kids hooked on reading with technology, when so much of technology involves viewing pictures, (not to say that’s a bad thing).
The last statement of the article reads,
“If we don’t stop and listen to the kids we serve, value their opinions, and make major changes on the basis of the valid suggestions they offer, we will be left in the 21st century with school buildings to administer-but with students who are physically or mentally somewhere else.”(Presky 13)
This is true, but we shouldn’t give complete power to the students. Students want to play video games and learn about pop-culture which isn’t exactly educational, so to speak. My goal is to get my students addicted to reading, so when they leave public school, they will be avid readers. Our students will have enough digital tools under their belt by the time we try to give them necessary educational tools, as a language arts teacher I just want them to read and write and anything else that will help them master the biggest technological tool of all time: language.