Synthesizing Education

Recently, I have come across a number of articles that discuss text messaging and questions regarding the “danger” it poses to literacy. Then I was going through my Google Reader and read a post on “A Plethora of Technology” titled “Text Messaging and Literacy” by Barry Bachenheimer where he asks the following:

The key question is:  Does text messaging have a role in learning (particularly in school) to help learning, especially in the area of literacy?

His question deserves a lot of attention from educators, and one word comes to mind when I think of the role of teachers and text-messaging: adaptability.

First, we need to come to grips with the fact that almost all teens are text-messaging. The Pew Research Center states that:

Fully 72% of all teens — or 88% of teen cell phone users — send text messages, up from 51% of in 2006. Among all teens, text messaging has now overtaken every other common form of interaction with their friends. (posted here)

So now that we have the “inevitability factor” out of the way, I think we need to start making some other realizations including this point from recent research:

According to Mr Raval’s small-scale study, which focused on 20 youngsters, children have developed an ability to switch between two forms of language when texting or writing standard English.

Pupils were given a spelling test and conducted two writing exercises designed to replicate situations where they might normally text, such as describing something they had done the previous day, held in formal classroom conditions.

Mr Raval said: “The fear that has been put across in the media is that children don’t understand the need to code switch – that is, switch between standard English grammar for an exam or essay and what is acceptable when you are communicating on a social level. In fact, they are capable of that switch, just as bi- or tri-lingual children might speak English at school and a mother or father tongue at home.”

While the text-experienced children wrote much less than those without mobiles, concision was not necessarily a bad thing, he argued. “Whether that is a positive or negative effect is up for debate. It depends on the situation or the subject studied. A science exam might require brief answers which might not be appropriate in a literature exam.” (posted here)

So perhaps the problem isn’t “how” will text messaging and other forms of social media alter the way students communicate, but rather, “why” we have a need to teach students code-switching and making conscious decisions about when each of these two forms is justified.

This is a HUGE shift in the way that we teach kids. We can’t limit in-class pedagogy to strict adherence to formal language. We need to accept that a new language is being created, and there is responsibility for educators to teach students appropriate times for each genre. Simply ignoring text messaging is a violation of the oath that we take when we become teachers. Education isn’t locked into a specific time period or context where one line of thinking rules supreme, and we shouldn’t be treating our kids language use that way.

Do you write the same way Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence or speak in the fashion of Patrick Henry to the House of Burgesses?

Times change, and it is the responsibility of the educators NOT to neglect these changes, but rather, teach students to adapt so that they may be successful in the future.

Barry has also created a Wiki for his project where you can post information. Please be sure to stop by, drop him a couple of lines on your feelings, and keep this conversation going.

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