Have you noticed that your attention span is not what it used to be? I know I have. I'm not sure why our attentions spans have shrunk so much but it's a widespread situation to be sure. It's obvious if you watch television. They no longer have 60 second commercials. Most are 10 to 15 seconds. Most commercials, entertainment news shows, reality and game shows keep changing the camera angles (why do we want to see things on a tilt??) and the music so that we won't be bored and switch channels. The TV stations are so afraid we're going to forget to watch one of the shows that reminders pop up constantly while we're watching something else not to mention the overwhelming number of promos extoling the virtue of the next television event (when did people guessing what suitcase has a million dollars in it become an event??)
This phenomenon certainly affects teaching. I was trained to talk to my students explaining my subject material while writing on the board. I don't think that works any more. How can we expect a teen with all the challenges they have in their lives and with all the media they're exposed to listen to an adult talk about a subject they're probably not interested in?
More next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment