Well, I am not any of these but I am the mother of a few of them and I spent 18 weeks teaching 22 of them Computer/Technology Concepts.  It was fun.   I wanted to share a few things I learned about myself and about these kids.

1. The most important thing I learned is that when the Home is in chaos a student is just not ready to learn.  Wow, you say, groundbreaking news.  Well, if you have heard this before have you really thought about it.  Have you really thought about the consequences to our society now that we have produced a generation where the MAJORITY of kids come from broken homes.  These kids are making there way through an education system that is not equipped, nor should it have to be, to minister to the hearts and minds of students who are hurting and confused.
2. I learned that kids have a wonderful capacity for creativity and expression using technology.  Yes, we get frustrated with them because they change all the computer settings and only seem to care about what there profile picture looks like but it is their way of communcating to the world.  It’s our job as adults and parents to help them learn approprate use.
3. Students need constant introduction to the working world.  Traditional education has simply not kept pace with what the working world needs.  In fact most young people simply don’t have a great picture of what areas of expertise the working world needs in the future.  They hear about traditional career fields but are rarely introduced to new and growing fields in technology, science, and medicine.

Well, it was a good time with these students.  But back to VA work for me.

The first day of course went completely different than I had planned.  We see kids touching all this technology and we make an assumption that they are pretty competent when it comes to using a computer.  WRONG!

Half the class scored under 15 WPM when i administered a typing test.  (Should have given a WPM texting test).  Many could not respond correctly to terms such as:

• Open a browser
• Go to My Documents
• Shut the computer down.

But we forged on, made adjustments for the very different levels of computer skills in the class.  But here are some interesting thoughts I have formed over the last 6 weeks.

1. Kids are great but they came is so many different types of packages.  You have to pay alot of attention to the package’s needs to impact learning.
2. Real world examples are still difficult for them to relate too, so you have to find examples from their world.
3. There is no FEAR

I have taught many adult computer classes and I had to stop because I couldn’t deal with the FEAR factor anymore.  “OOOOOOOOHHH I just know I’m going to break it!”.  The kids have no fear.  They click away till somthing works the way it should.  When we are in Word and I tell them to insert a Times New Roman 24 pt Title… within seconds they are off exploring all the differnt fonts and colors and sizes and shapes.  So I let them.  Times New Roman 24 pt is boring.

Next week they are creating a newsletter about themselves.  I think this will be fun!