A good teacher...

         A good teacher... is one that teaches children to be adults. It is so important to teach a child that they are citizens of a modern democracy.  It is crucial that they know how to analyze information to determine it's worth.  It is crucial that they can see through the falsity of advertising and propoganda.  It is crucial that they know they have a voice to be heard in our society.  A good teacher must make students aware of the respondibility that comes with this role of a citizen.  The students must be aware of how important their vote is, both locally and nationally.  They must understand that they are also citizens of a global community and that the actions they take in thier own community affect people and environments across the world.

         A good teacher... lets their students develop their own curriculum.  They let their students decide what they would like to research.  They let their students "own" their education.  By doing so they bring out the intrinsic motivation that is already buried inside their students.



          If students are to learn technological literacy in the classroom, then it is important to foster the ideals of self-determination theory such as, autonomy, competence, and relatedness, because these values provide the students with an intrinsic motivation to succeed separate from weaker external forces pushing them towards academic success.
          Technology requires a certain amount of intrinsic motivation to overcome.  External motivation, in the form of grades or recognition from peers, does not lend itself to the "out of the box thinking" that good use of technology requires.  Vicki Davis's students exhibit this intrinsic motivation by determining what they will do on their own, not by what the teacher is just telling them to do.  She supports their learning and gives it validation by letting them teach her and tailoring the work to match individual student needs and interests.  For instance she had no idea how to use the terraforming aspect of the software when they began the class.  She let the students teach themselves and, in effect, her how to use it.  This provided the students with ownership of their education.
         They took the initiative and accomplished learning on their own separate from that teachers knowledge base.  In addition, she took the time to make her students teach the class how to do things.  By making the students into the teachers they now have an important role in the class.  Passivity is not acceptable in that classroom context.  I also appreciated the fact that she made the students look up words on-line if they did not know them already.  In todays world a huge tome of a dictionary is unneccessary and impractical.  It is much better to teach students to take a proactive, technologically superior, step towards independence.
         From a moral perspective, it is of the utmost importance that students learn how to engage in a technologically advanced culture such as ours.  Denying them the skills required to be successful in this kind of world is guaranteeing them that they will not be able to compete in the modern job market and thereby limit their future success.