High School and Beyond

High school might be the only hell a person believes in, but at least it teaches us a lot--right? Most college students are still waiting to use the algebra they were forced to learn and the poems they were forced to read in their everyday lives or even on occasion. Many agree that it would have been nice to know how to do taxes, what a mortgage is, how to balance a check book, and much more. I would have liked to know all of that before I became an "adult", but I also would have liked to know that all the time I spent online learning how to write and connect within fandom communities and how to post things that got attention would open doors for me. I would have liked to have been encouraged to express my creativity on the internet instead of being made ashamed that I spent my down time online; I would have liked to have known that I could make a career on the internet doing something I enjoyed.

Okay, so maybe I'm just a teeny bit bitter. Still, it would have been great to have been taught how my fondness for technology would help me someday possibly get a job. In my high school we got iPads my last two years. You know what we used them for?

NOTHING. Other than email and to look up the answers we couldn't find in our textbooks, we used them for nothing. We were supposed to use them to access digital textbooks. The only textbook I had digitally for those entire two years was my algebra book and since I hate math, I basically hated it. It is important to point out that the years I was in high school, eBooks and digital learning was just becoming a thing. Therefore, it wasn't really my school's--and certainly not my teachers'-- fault we had technology we couldn't "properly" use.

What I did enjoy about the iPad was that I had finally found my people and place. I didn't participate a lot, but as Henry Jenkins writes in his article, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, about participatory culture online, "not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued" (7). That is one thing I appreciated about online communities: there was little pressure to contribute, unlike high school. If I didn't participate in high school other than class, I wasn't well-rounded, ambitious, or social.

 

If there is one thing in high school we all love but some days can't stand, it would be parents. I would venture to claim that they can be even more irritating when it comes to their involvement with us millennials and our online lives. It isn't their fault really because they grew up much, much differently. Still, in high school and now in college, my parents hadn't a clue about online communities, networks, and all the opportunities for my future. And they certainly have a right to be worried about the dangerous elements of the internet. I do not doubt that all of the millennials reading this have been asked by their parents why they spend so much time in front of the computer:

"It'll ruin your eyes staring at a screen for so long."

"Why are you wasting your time on there? There is nothing of much value on the internet unless your doing research."

"Online friends are not real friends; they're probably predators."

"What are you looking up? You are not on porn sites are you?!"

"Go have fun in the great outdoors."

 

 Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and there were days I was completely unproductive on the internet. Even so, I think it would have done greater good--or at least no harm--for my parents to ask out of curiosity instead of fear and suspicion what I was spending so much of time. Especially now. I've become much more confident online and I have made a small audience on all of my media platforms. I network and learn something new everyday that helps me have a greater presence. My career as an artist, or "media creator" as Jenkins calls it (6), has begun and I plan to continue to grow it. No surprise then that I spend more time on my laptop and the internet than I ever have. And a little shocking but at the same not shocking that my parents still don't get any of it.

 

This leads me to Jenkins claim that "schools, afterschool programs, and parents have distinctive roles to play as they do what they can in their own spaces to encourage and nurture these skills" (4). These skills meaning multitasking; rapid, clear decision making; connect and work with people of diverse backgrounds; and "navigating information landscapes" (10). I am learning those skills in college. I am behind high schoolers of today and while that isn't a crisis, I think it's important to support people of all ages, but especially those in school, in their online endeavors. I hope grade schools and high schools will spend more time teaching kids how to create and benefit from their online innovations instead of scolding them for spending time on something useless. I hope schools will encourage growth in participatory culture and include them in their curriculum. Of course, schools should also teach caution and safety online--just not in the way that scares kids and parents away; in ways that teach kids how to think before they post something and how to learn from experiences, which Jenkins also speaks about.

 

Take this opinion of mine with a grain of salt. I am not an educator and I do not plan on being a parent for a long time. So, this is merely my thoughts because I like my voice being heard.

 

Bibliography: Jenkins, Henry. "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Centur." (2006): 3-18. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.