WATCHOUT! TECHNOLOGY IS GOING TO SAVE US ALL!!!

Motivation In the African American Talented and Gifted Community—Where did it go and can technology increase lack thereof?

By Kira Dolley

Motivation is a serious issue in all the classes that I teach. As a teacher of a full range of students in all categories (and most times students in dual categories): IEP, TAG, ESOL, and regular education; motivation seems to be the main issue in my classroom. The true question is how do I get my students to want to learn? It seems to me that over the last 40 years learning and the thirst for educating the African American community seemed to have waned. History tells us that there were surges of motivation in education in the African American community. The Reconstruction Era, Harlem Renaissance, Brown Vs. The Board of Education, Civil Rights Movement all seem to have huge social movements on African American society and the motivation to want to learn and be educated. Today it seems as if the drive is lost in African American students of primary-secondary. If the drive is not shown in regular education students, I find it twice as disheartening to see it not shown in students that have proven to be able to perform off the charts as advanced--on IQ and standardize test (TAG students). It has me shouting “EVEN our Advanced students Don’t even want to LEARN—WHAT hope do we have for tomorrow”! But as I am noticing that through history it was social implications that brought about the motivation to want to be educated. Maybe the fact that America is in the middle of a social technology age, the African American community can jump on the bandwagon to make our youth want to show up to school to learn. Technology seems to answer all their questions “WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS? and “HOW WILL THIS HELP ME WHEN I GET OLDER?”. Although technology won’t change WHAT their learning, it will change how it is delivered. I believe it is the delivery that might spark renaissances in motivating the youth in education. Multiplication will always be the same and Reading and Science will still have the same key figures, but if a teacher gets trained to show students that they can manipulate technology in a way to make it seem easier, exciting, or their own, it might bring about motivating the youth to perform above and beyond the bar that we currently have set using “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” and AYP.  Using technology in the classroom makes students computer literate and literacy using computers crosses over into literacy in Reading, knowledge gained in Math, Science, Social Studies and the Arts. We don’t have to just study Mars out of a textbook, but now a teacher can bring Mars into a student's palms (using the student own cell phones that they have with them) or i-phone/i-pod/i-pad. Smartboards and Interwrite boards allow the teacher to connect their lessons with the touch of a button, and interact with the world using Skype, podcasting, and Google maps! School does not have to be boring, but it certainly needs to change from the way we have done it---simply put—it’s so that our children are motivated to come to school! BUT LETS GET REAL!

There may be too many obstacles to overcome. The answer may be technology but the problem with implementing technology is that it is not accessible to a majority of African Americans. The stupefying thought is that instead of opening more churches, liquor stores, hair stores, fast food joints, we should be focusing on more libraries, internet cafes, and computer stores. The Digital Divide is real! What is the digital divide you say [read about the digital divide here] Research has shown that for the African American community the digital divide is main roadblock to educating the youth with technology. The lack of access to the technology (in homes, schools, libraries etc.) seems to be more challenging than almost any other adversity we have come across. And this is mainly because this roadblock is invisible to the masses. As many people like to say: “The Revolution will not be Televised”---well this is a revolution that may not come simply because we don’t have adequate technology to broadcast any message. More times than not---it takes the change of tomorrow to bring about the great strides for today.