"Listen to the Natives" - LISTEN TO REALITY!

Below is a slightly altered version of my latest discussion post on an article by Marc Prensky. I has such great comments on the last post here that I thought I would add some more.

ENJOY!!!

"Listen to the Natives" by Marc Prensky

Prensky, M. (2005/2006). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8-13.

"Teachers must practice putting engagement before content when teaching."

Apparently Mr. Prensky has never taken Curriculum Management. One of the key tenets of that course was "the written, taught, and tested curriculum MUST be aligned." Since the state of has written the content into the TEKS, and the TEKS are what is tested on the TAKS, that is what must be taught. We simply make sure kids are engaged, or we would not be aligning the taught curriculum with the written and tested curriculum. Maybe Mr. Prensky was to busy designing videogames (yes, according to the footnote at the end of this article, that is his job), to figure that out.


I did some checking on Mr. Prensky because I thought that I might not be giving him a fair chance. Apparently, I was. His website lists him as a "visionary, consultant, speaker, inventor, game designer, learning designer and futurist." I think TEACHER is conspicuously missing.
I have a very difficult time accepting teaching advise from someone who has never been a teacher, especially when he makes his money by simply dishing out advice. Did anyone else notice his lack of research or hard evidence (such as student success rates) to support his theories? Maybe I was just too incensed by his indictment of modern teachers to find it. If you do find hard evidence, PLEASE let me know.

Although some of his ideas are theoretically intriguing, I think they are unrealistic.