"Turning on the Lights' by Marc Prensky

As part of the Week 3 assignment for my Instructional Leadership class, I had to read "Turning on the Lights," and article by Marc Prensky. Unfortunately, the article really set me off. I have decided to share my response here, in a more open forum, in hope that I might get some responses from some others who have read this article. Below you will find my original post.


"Turning On the Lights" by Marc Prensky

Prensky, M. (2008). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40-45.

"Long before they ever get into school, kids have seen a tremendous amount of the world."

Maybe it is just that this is Monday after a holiday, and we all had to return to work today, or maybe I am just being bitter, but this article really set me off. Prensky sites modern students' "tremendous [knowledge] of the world" as if it is something new, as if students who entered school previous to this technological age came in completely devoid of knowledge. They didn't. They may not have known about global events, but they did have a working knowledge of the world around them. It was then up to the teachers to develop that knowledge and hone it for productive use. Prensky claims that students who have seen lunar landings are learning math and science, and that the math taught in schools is irrelevant because "it's 1,200-year-old algebra and 4,000-year-old Egyptian geometry (2008)." Where does he think technology comes from? That "1,200-year-old algebra and 4,000-year-old Egyptian geometry" was the basis of the learning for the scientists who put the lunar rovers on the moon. He continues by claiming, "a kid who master's the electronic games Caesar III, Age of Kings, Age of Empires, Civilization IV, and Rise of Nations. . .knows a lot about world history. Yes, maybe they know the violence that comes from history, but they hardly know the causes of those character's actions or the results that came from their actions. History is a spiraling continuum of causes and effects that students will not clearly understand without some guidance. Prensky does say that, "Teachers would not longer be the providers of information but instead would be the explainers, the context providers, the meaning makers, and the evaluators of information that kids find on their own (2008)." A good teacher has always been one that can take information that is important to students and make them have a clearer understanding of all of the concepts that go along with that information. In the past, that information might have been the science of raising crops, or the math involved in selling a harvest, but that is what students came to school knowing; it was important to them and their way of life. I will agree, the breadth of knowledge that students can access is greater in this technological age, but to think that just because a student has read Harry Potter, that they understand sentence structure, plot development, archetypes and other fine details in literature is absurd. I believe that the information that students bring into the classroom is a valuable starting point, but there still has to be room to use that knowledge as a framework to teach some of the basic skills that everyone needs to be a successful communicator and productive citizen when they step away from their computer.