Anyone for a rainy Sunday?

I hope you planned on a quiet Sunday this week, because the N.Y. Times produced an issue of their Sunday magazine that deserves some thoughtful reading and mulling over. One article that could get you started is Kevin Kelly's piece on "Achieving Technoliteracy". It starts from Kelly's experience home-schooling his 8th grade son for a year, but it raises issues that affect every teacher and librarian. In helping his son learn about the world around, Kelly and his wife found that technology was essential but not sufficient. A computer, camera and other technology can help students learn, but they are not sufficient. Librarians could think of themselves as a type of home-schooling teacher, because they encourage young people to lern at their own pace and they supply the tools to help them do it. Teachers are great at leading a group into learning experiences and helping them to master skills, but the time comes when individuals must take responsibility for their own learning. None of the facts and figures children learn in school today will be enough to get them through their working life, and many of them will turn out to be false and outdated. Children need to learn how to learn, and learn how to use technology as well as books and experience to help them to do this. Librarians can offer a wide range of materials from which individuals can pick what is useful to them. In a learning society we will all be teachers and we will also be learners. So curl up in a comfortable chair today with the print edition, or fire up your laptop, and read this article and others in the NY Times Magazine to start your ideas flowing.