IP Blog

3. “Nobody Cares if You Walked Up Hill Both Ways Barefoot in the Snow and Could Diagram a Sentence.”
There are older people now who still live in the past.  They tell stories about having to get all their information from books, a long, tedious process.  They complain about how easy it is for children and teens now to find everything we need just by typing it in on the internet.  But really, what we are learning now in school is different from what they used to learn.  There is less date- memorizing involved in what we learn today, and more thinking involved.  We have to connect things, not regurgitate them.  So the internet may not help us all the time, which is something older people sometimes don’t understand. 
Every once in a blue moon, when I have to ask my dad for a ride to school, he starts telling me this one story about when he was my age.  He had to walk twenty minutes to the bus stop every day because cars were less manageable and less reliable back in the day.  His parents weren’t about to drive him to school when they he could just as easily walk, save their gas money, and save their time.  But that’s the past.  Not too far in the past, but it’s still not the way we live today.  He used to have to walk, used to never get rides.  That’s not the way I’m living, and even though he understands, he still can’t resist telling stories about his past that make me look lazy and make me look like I rely on technology and wouldn’t be able to live without it.  Now it’s different.  Cars, computers, cell phones… they’re more efficient now, and faster.  They get things done differently than older models.  Yeah, it’s making the future generation look a little lazy, and we do sort of rely on technology, but it’s saving lives and making things easier at the same time.  And that is what I am used to.  That’s the direction the world is headed in at this present time, and eventually, technology will be the world.  So it’s important to get up to speed with new technology and quit complaining about how it “used to be.”

5. “My Memory Is Only As Big As My Heart.  Otherwise, I’ll Stick with Google.”
The way the world is developing now, I hardly need to memorize everything.  Sure, for school tests I can’t just whip out my laptop and Google the information.  But why not?  What is knowing the date that Germany unified going to do me?  Most likely, nothing.  And if and when I do need that information, I’m willing to bet that I get a more accurate, faster answer from looking it up on the internet.  Search engines are like a library.  To me and my generation, they are what a library is to the older generations- just bigger, faster, and broader.  They have everything a library has and more.  While right now some of the population is stuck on the old ways, and some of it is willing to learn about the new technology, I think that soon it will all be about technology.  So get used to it.  Why should I pass up a perfectly good resource to do the repetitive, boring work for me if it’s there and it’s reliable?  I shouldn’t have to memorize simple things that the computer can tell me.  Learning now should be about background.  It should be about stories about that date that will stick in my head, so I can make connections and understand the history behind it.  Touch my heart; make me remember how it felt to be Marie Antoinette when the mob was running after her.  Maybe then I’ll remember the date that Louis- the- whatever ended his reign on France. 

6. “Look it Up or Die.”
In school, I mostly feel like I spend my day writing mindless facts onto a piece of lined paper in my notebook.  Am I learning?  To me, it’s more like memorizing, spitting it back out, and forgetting everything once that chapter is over.  Boring.  Sometimes that’s hard enough, but I want to be challenged to make connections and think about the material rather than keep repeating the same old information, over and over again.  It’s pointless to learn something if I am just going to forget it all in two weeks.  Plus, what good is it going to do me in the future, when I have a job?  Some things I will have to know, and that’s understandable.  But if I want to be an English teacher, why am I learning the Fibonacci Sequence?  Making connections and thinking are much more exciting and challenging, and are based on what I know and can figure out.  Anyone who tries can do well in school when it’s just about memorizing a few dates here, a few names there, and the types of bone fractures along the way.  I’ll always have Google for that information, and I don’t want to waste my time learning what I could just as easily look up online.  There’s a difference between what I choose to remember, and what I choose to remember to look up on the internet.  Make me remember.  Challenge my brain.  I want to think, not memorize.