Curriculum night...or, what my child's teacher is teaching me

Admittedly, I'm not all so thrilled about loads and loads and loads of technology in the classroom.  Birmingham Public Schools IS, though, so I am constantly being barraged by educators telling me that "We are not from the digital age, we can only hope to learn this [digital] language which our children already speak" blah blah blah blah blah.

What a load of rubbish.  I firmly believe that we can all learn whatever we set our minds to learn, make time to learn, and are eager to learn.  Yes, it is always easier to have a routine, to use the routine, and to work with what is comfortable and fast (that is why I balk every time my husband buys some new sort of equipment...I'm used to moving at a certain speed and doing things a certain way and it annoys me to have to slow down and learn something new, even if it is better)...but the old way never sticks around for very long so yes, we have to take time to learn new things.

(And so - Yes, it's a pain to set up a new blog...to get used to all of the new capabilities that blogger has now that it didn't have a few years ago...when I just feel like writing...but that is all part of the learning process too. )

Anyway, back to curriculum night.  After being bullied for about 1/2 hour about how we were so far behind our children and we have to get with the program (by a woman who has only been teaching for 8 years...8 years that I have spent on the computer fooling around and learning whatever I felt like while my young children were growing up - learning html, learning how to blog, to use whatever I felt like using, learning how to figure out whatever I want to know, etc), I did catch on to a few bits that struck me, turned me around, and made me realize I'm going to like this teacher, after all.

Here they are...I think they are worth sharing!

1. The WHY for all this moodle, wikis, etc. - all technologies which I think are cool and fun but do not blow me away and make my knees quiver with excitement, "oh they are so cool and the wave of the future", (because they're going to be totally old-school by the time Emma is done with high school, I'm sure...things just move that fast): it's all about learning, sharing, and creating information.  Everyone has something to share, from the youngest on up...and some things the youngest can teach us (ways of thinking, etc.) are totally great and awesome.  ***I love this because it makes me realize that everyone has something totally different to share - from my kids (which I knew), to their teachers (which I also knew), to me (which I didn't know...so weird, yes).
2. My child's teacher is adamant that my daughter needs to learn how to fail, needs to cry (not a problem), needs to be disappointed (not a problem, either...our whole family is pretty used to disappointment and such lately), needs to do it all herself and fall on her face, etc.  I'm not excited about this idea... but I can kind of see her point.  I was pretty darned perfect in school and a few rejections I did had came so late that I could barely handle them at all.  However, this idea is going to take some marinating.  I came from the land of "do it all yourself, be responsible for your own self" and it's kind of a lonely place...PLUS if you are supremely responsible, then you still never get those failures that are supposed to shape you and make you so resilient and awesome and ready to take on the world.  So we'll see.
3. A quote that I hope to always remember..."I've got my cape, I'm wearing my Superwoman outfit.  I can handle it."  How awesome to feel like you really DO want to get to work and handle every single weird thing that is thrown your way by the 3rd graders entrusted in your care....that phrase basically put me squarely in her fan club, despite the 1/2 hour browbeating I took earlier (with all of the other parents...but hey, I bounced back from it AND joined the fan club!  I guess I picked up some resilience after all, somewhere along the way after my academic career. It's never too late to stop learning!)