As the adage says, we are never too old to learn something new.

This is true, especially now that massive amounts of information are only a click away. 

Those of us who are dubbed, Digital Immigrants are often schooled by our younger counter parts, the so called digital natives. Those terms surfaced a while ago but remind me of the great divide in generations that seems to be getting greater.

Case in point, my generation, the Baby Boomers, are apparently the cause of everything that’s gone wrong over the past years. There may be some truth to that! My parents were called “The Greatest Generation” and in my opinion, rightly so.

In a recent conversation with a couple of my grandchildren, I recalled the many technological advances that weren’t around when I was a young child. It seems rather impossible to consider life without a cell phone or computer. The bewilderment that comes when I share the most simple givens of life “back in the day” as compared to now is both comical and telling.

When I remember my teacher training courses and staff development in-services during my early years as a teacher I felt a sense of competency and accomplishment. I observed a correlation and relevancy as I worked to transfer that knowledge with the real life scenarios I faced in the classroom.

As the years passed and technological discoveries increased as well as the responsibilities given to teachers, I sensed the old school knowledge and skills were soon becoming obsolete. I learned along with many of my colleagues how to adapt and change with those discoveries. We learned, sometimes reluctantly, how to utilize them in the classrooms and to help others become comfortable users as well.

Towards the end of my educational schooling career, I began to see incredible gaps and inconsistencies in teacher pre and in-service training. My concern grew out of the need to provide relevant, current and meaningful access to the ever increasing knowledge that presents itself to the learners everyday.

If young people want to gather information on a topic of interest they do a search. We can still guide them in identifying credible sources and references but they are off and running tracking down the information they seek. They are quite capable.

To some extent a teacher has become more of a facilitator/coach than an imparter of knowledge. Yet we continue to insist on hours in a seat, listening to lectures and preparing our students for test taking. The structure and delivery method utilized in the classroom has changed ever so slightly since my early days of teaching.

How can young people reconcile this educational delivery method with the one they use for every other interest they have in life?

As I have promoted since before the publication of my book, Learning Unleashed, our delivery approach to education via the typical schooling format can be stifling and utter torture for a large swath of children who already know how to get from A to Z without having someone tell them, repeatedly. So they acquiesce, they follow the rules, the comply. Some don’t and they usually end up in trouble.

It is a totally different era in learning. Even the youngest teachers who begin their careers as digital natives are already running a race to keep pace with the changes as they happen. Often with a school district ill equipped or financially unable to wholesale “change out everything” to make way for the newest or the best.

For many children, our public schools offer a chance for access to technology even if it is not the most current. For others, the world outside of conventional schooling open doors and opportunities not found in public and even some private schools.

The important point here is a format that enables learning.

There will always be a vital need for technology in the learning paradigm. But the way in which young people can access learning has to begin with enough time and the opportunity for integration. Both of these are hard to come by in a scheduled, test crazed environment in schools.

Something is on the horizon and it is encouraging to witness.

Change is inevitable and hard but it’s the only way forward.