My local paper, the Star Tribune, had an article today on helicopter parents, those overinvolved moms and dads who hover closely around their children’s school, teachers, and/or administrators. Helicopter parent behavior might include standing outside classrooms listening to teachers teach, sending long daily e-mails to teachers or administrators, etc. Wikipedia has some additional (and sad) examples of helicopter parenting.
So am I wrong for wishing that each school in American had a handful of helicopter parents who were pushing that school to do a better job of preparing students for their digital futures?
Boy, it would be nice to have those helicopters pushing for more tech. Think of the energy!
However, I don’t think that this type of parent would allow a child to use the tech/thinking tools to author the child’s own learning and knowledge.
I think the helicopter parent described would be too afraid to let go and let his/her student take the reins of student’s learning. Might get a virus or actually spend time with actual world changing ideas or something…
Of course, there are helicopter teachers (helicopter schools?) too… We may all be afraid of this shift in thinking toward finding/creating your own knowledge. We can’t have people making mistakes, so let’s micro manage and make certain we have terrific standardized test scores.
That’s too bad (both helicopter parents and schools) because that misses the point of the new education system that is coming. The new system will prepare people for their future in the knowledge based society that’s here.
We avoid them making mistakes by avoiding teaching them how to think. Heaven forbid they make a mistake and turn it into a teachable/learnable moment.