Thoughts of Richard C. Close

While volumes have been pontificated on the benefits of tech learning. Little seems to be written about the mismanagement of cell and Internet influence on classroom behavior. In addition the impact of the profiling engines of applications like Google, Facebook and Snapchat is for the most part ignored. It is time to take an honest look at the negative impacts on class management and the experience on online and classroom learning. The behavior of students in US / western classrooms can be quite different from those of developing countries. Entitled school youth with unlimited data plans, rarely use the Internet strictly for educational purposes. In US public schools, it is a constant struggle keeping students on-task once the computers, and cells, are out. The teacher must instruct from the back of the classroom watching for kids gaming in one tab and doing work in another. Teachers that allow listening to music while studying are continually asking students to get off of te...

  An academic colleague just asked me why I threw a student out of public middle school class. It does sound heartless. I lived a few hours from the Florida HS mass shooting and lived within 20 minutes of the Sandy Hooks massacre of 22 1st graders. The response is how press, government and the academic elite deflecting the deeper causes of violence in US schools. This is what I wrote: Dear friend. If I may, I would like to rephrase your question from “Why throw a student out of a classroom?” into, “What is causing the escalating this chaos to the point of mass murders.” Which leads to the second question and that is, “Why are higher academia, politicians and the wealthy so clueless on violence in US schools?” It feels like we are in a dystopia movie, perhaps because we are.   I mean this in the kindest way . Because I understand you are university faculty. Just to ask me why I would throw a kid out of the room is a question a US public school teacher would...