No matter how hard we try, we simply cannot make things stay the way they used to be. That was made very clear to me last Saturday night.
When I was younger, Halloween was a neighborhood event. My friends and I would dress up and walk from house to house around our neighborhood. We would rake in a tons of great candy within a few short minutes and then go home to enjoy our cache.
When my kids were younger, we took them in the car to various neighborhoods and walked up and down the street with them while they knocked on the doors of strangers asking for treats. They loved it, of course. We made sure they got to the grandparents’ house to show off their costumes (and to get more candy). There was a fundamental shift in the way we “did Halloween,” but it still looked and felt somewhat familiar.
Now my grandkids are Trick or Treating. My days of being excited about the holiday are pretty much over. Oh, I still love to see them in their costumes and all, but going out and buying candy and waiting by the door all night just isn’t what it used to be.
But I did it. I bought the candy. I sat in my living room all night.
You need to understand that I live in a quiet, extremely walkable neighborhood. We have lots of kids in our neighborhood. It is an older venue with houses built in the 60s and 70s. How many kids showed up, you ask?
One.
My granddaughter, Malia, came to see me last night. She was beautiful in her gangster outfit. She had the Michael Jackson “Smooth Criminal” look and moves. (Of course, I thought more about Fred Astaire, but that’s another blog post on change I suppose).
Most of the kids in our town go to the downtown block party, the mall, a local church, or Centenary Avenue for their Halloween fun. Halloween has left the suburban sprawl and concentrated itself in the “mall mentality.” That’s the American right to have everything you want to buy conveniently located under one roof for your shopping convenience.
As I sat and reflected on the changes to Halloween, I realized that everything in life is similar. Nothing is the same as it once was. Families have changed. Work has changed. Kids have changed. Television, radio, movies, and games have all changed. Some even contend that our climate is changing (let’s not go there, ok?).
And then I look at our classrooms. Chairs and desks are still in nice, neat rows. Students are still expected to be seated most of the time. And let’s not forget about quiet. Most of us like our students to be quiet! Yeah, even me on most days. As teachers we try to make our classrooms look and feel as much like the 1950s as humanly possible. About the only thing that tells outsiders that we are in a 21st century classroom is the presence of at least one computer. Well, maybe that puts us in the 1980s anyway.
All the research says that TV, the Internet, music videos, online gaming, and more has changed the way our kids think. Some research even says their brains simply operate differently than brains used to. They no longer think linearly (which is awful for language arts, math, and social studies teachers). Their attention spans have shortened. Their imaginations are non-existent.
Why should they be forced to think in a classroom when everything they want to know is less than six mouse clicks away? To quote one of my students from last year, “Just tell me the answer, Mr. Childers.”
I must admit that most of my attempts to bring technology into the classroom is still on my terms. I want it the way my brain functions. It is difficult to get out of that mindset and think like a middle schooler. After all, isn’t that why I went to high school? To stop thinking like a middle schooler?
What about you? How has change impacted you? Your teaching practices? Your classroom management? Parent relationships?
Oh, and Happy Halloween. Bah Humbug.