This is how its author writes.
Two seismic forces beyond our control — the advent of Web. 2.0 and the inexorable influx of tech-savvy millennials on campus — are shaping what I call the new digital shoreline of higher education. These forces demand that we as educators reconsider the learning theories, pedagogies and practices on which we have depended.
The book, whose clunky mixed-up title I’ll let you discover at the link, wants us to know that it’s all good — all the twittering shit our students trail into class is all good. And even if it isn’t, it’s… what’d he say? It’s a seismic force, so you can’t do anything about it anyway sucker. It’s Nature, baby! Beyond our control! You think you can keep The Tumblr Temblor out of Classroom 25A Soltan Intro American Lit? It’s fucking inexorable! I’m not gonna argue the thing ’cause we all know it’s just a … a …. thing and you can’t do anything about things.
Nor can you do anything about pretentious writers. Look at this paragraph, with its pseudo-urgency and its self-importance (what I call) and its we as educators …
Huh? Educators? What’s wrong with educators, SOS?
I dunno. I can only report the following. Every self-respecting professor I’ve ever known has at some point said to me something like: The worst dread I have about dying is that my obituary headline will call me an EDUCATOR. It’ll say LOCAL EDUCATOR DIES.
I mean, maybe they haven’t said something so strong. All have, however, expressed contempt for the word educator, and have shuddered at the thought of it being applied to them.
Is it because we’re cynical lazy shits who don’t truly educate? No. Au contraire. There’s something about the word. Again, I don’t really know. I only know it’s embarrassing. And it’s totally not surprising to find it here, in this empty pretentious paragraph, the guy patting himself on the back for being an educator.
And – you know – those teaching practices of the past… We haven’t just used them. No: We’ve depended on them. We’ve been in a co-dependent relationship with them, and we’re terrified of losing them to those uncontrollable seismic millennial things.
Mobile apps, content sharing and these tech-savvy students can become a professor’s best assets in the classroom, even if they sometimes seem threatening.
Threatening? It’s a fucking Phuket coming right at me! And there’s nothing I can do. I, Educator, have lost control of my classroom.
But here’s the good news:
These students are helping us — teachers at all levels — with new ways to communicate and they’re motivating us to truly see the potential of the vast, shared and co-created information resources that exist within interconnected nodes. We’re being challenged to rethink information creation, storage and delivery. They are time-slicers, shape-shifters, creators and mobile connectors. The playthings of our students’ youth are becoming the tools of their future.
I haven’t encountered language like this since my late lamented hippie youth. We are da yout! The last sentence is positively Cultural Revolution boilerplate: THE PLAYTHINGS OF OUR STUDENTS’ YOUTH ARE BECOMING THE TOOLS OF THEIR FUTURE. GLORIOUS FUTURE! DON’T BE SCARED, EDUCATOR! JOIN OUR YOUTH. TAKE UP THE CHALLENGE.
******************************
Send this guy a copy pronto.
October 10th, 2011 at 11:52AM
UD, you outdid yourself on this one. Brava!
October 10th, 2011 at 12:30PM
Hilarious.
I am always amused when someone refers to themselves as an educator. This is an immediate tip-off.
When someone asks me what I do I usually say something like: “Oh I do research and teach at the U.”
I have a friend who is a wonderful scientist and excellent lecturer to undergrads. He just says when asked: “I am a teacher.”
And this book… Even SOS is reduced to sputtering.
Whereas, if you trundle over to the School of Education – oh excuse me that would be the College of Education and Human Development – they are educators.
October 10th, 2011 at 12:36PM
Dennis: Thank you!
Bill: I was talking to Mr UD about ‘educator’ and he pointed out that we have no trouble being described as teachers. We don’t know any professors who have trouble with ‘teachers.’ It’s educator.
October 10th, 2011 at 2:42PM
The picture at the oup.com link immediately reminded me of “My Name is Larry,” which I remember from Dr. Demento years ago. Now everybody gets to be Larry.
October 10th, 2011 at 3:55PM
Margaret,
I’m totally with you on “educator.” I’ve described myself as a professor or a teacher but never an educator.
As an educator, this guy surely employs “methodologies.” Of course he could call his methods, “methods” but that would be as bad as calling himself a teacher.
October 10th, 2011 at 6:03PM
I don’t have a big problem with the word “educator”, but I do have a thing about the use of the word “seismic”, which I try to suppress whenever possible since the writer usually doesn’t have a clue about active geological processes.
October 11th, 2011 at 7:14AM
They are so tech-savvy that over half of them can’t figure out how to use the automatic page numbering in their word processors. Or that those litle squigle under words in their paperes mean they might have mispelled some words.
October 11th, 2011 at 10:20AM
Amen, theprofessor. My students are so tech savvy, they never check their e-mails, don’t check the announcement or their grades on the Blackboard site, don’t understand how “insert comments” works on a document (not to mention the page numbers or squiggly lines), miss announcements because they are too busy texting under the desk – yet it’s my fault for not embracing their facebook addictions in class.
The thing is – this is the new area. I have many a grad school colleague who get published and got jobs based on writing about how teachers need to embrace the new tech savvy youth stuff and just go with it. It’s the new growth area in composition instruction.
And now, of course, the administration at my U wants to turn all composition classes into all online – with us “instructors” being nothing more than glorified writing tutors. The idea is a standardized 100 level writing class that is the same for all students – and we just sit in the library and students come to us if they feel they need help. The admins feel this can save them millions of dollars a year, because they won’t need so many educators!
October 12th, 2011 at 12:37PM
If it’s seismic and unavoidable, I’m not sure why Amazon only has paper copies for sale. Maybe he’s aiming at the old fart market that doesn’t do Kindle?
October 18th, 2011 at 1:07AM
This is an awesome post. Yay SOS.
Now I’m kinda curious how the author thinks these time-slicing millennials’ seismic new ways to communicate and inexorable co-created information resources can become a professor’s best asset. Not curious enough to trudge through prose like that, though.
October 18th, 2011 at 5:54AM
Thanks, Jonathan.