"How will the future of teacher student relations in the classrooms be?"
-Elif
Wesch: We must begin to move away from the one-way conversation that is often taking place in classrooms. No longer should the teacher in the class be thought of as the sole authority on a topic. Nor should the teacher be thought of as the sole educator in the class. We are all educators. Teachers and students alike. We should move towards a relationship based more on reciprocity than simply taking (action of students) or giving (action of teachers).
In order to really consider oneself as knowledge-able we need to also be able to see ourselves as potential producers of thought. We can no longer view the teacher solely as a giver of information and the student as a consumer of the information. We must create the kind of relationship where the students not only realize they take the information they've learned and synthesize it into new thought to be shared with the world, but a relationship where they actually get the chance to do so. For simply telling people that they have the ability to do something (in this case, produce thought from synthesized information) means nothing if we do not give them the chance to practice and utilize that ability.
In order to really consider oneself as knowledge-able we need to also be able to see ourselves as potential producers of thought. We can no longer view the teacher solely as a giver of information and the student as a consumer of the information. We must create the kind of relationship where the students not only realize they take the information they've learned and synthesize it into new thought to be shared with the world, but a relationship where they actually get the chance to do so. For simply telling people that they have the ability to do something (in this case, produce thought from synthesized information) means nothing if we do not give them the chance to practice and utilize that ability.
Christensen: Agreed. Not only must we work to give our students these tools, but we must allow them to hone them. As teachers we should give our students the space to create ways in which they can take action. We should not keep their valuable thoughts confined to the space of the classroom, but rather we should allow them to explore the greater world and impart their valuable knowledge to others. For substantial change may not happen until we begin to move our thought from simply being in the classrooms to being out in world.