Thing #5 - It's past my bedtime and I can't think of a catchy title

Okay... I started going through all of the feeds on my Google reader. First, I just had to look at the Obama Youtube kid's mom's pshyco-self-analysis (Cry Havoc got me curious). Then, I had to read some headlines from NPR (because of my job and this blog, I haven't really watched the news all week -- plus, I'm always skeptical of traditional American news channels -- that's another story). Finally, I gave up and said to myself, "I guess I can go and look at the students' stuff."

Here, I'm revealing some of my arrogance. I really didn't want to read what the kids had to say. I assumed that it would be like what I've read on my son's Facebook -- Kristy is sad :( -- Billy is having fun! -- Bitsy is with her best friend Mitsy. Whoopty-doo... Or worse yet, those whiteboard kids (their sad, little faces still irritate me) would be there whining again, and I'm really not in the mood to listen to them cry.

However, I was proven wrong by the postings of these young'uns at Students 2.0. On his blog Innovate, or die, Anthony writes, "In contrast to the consumer generations before us, my generation is growing up a generation of producers. We are the YouTube/LiveJournal/Facebook generation. Mass media which has long been a one-to-many institution, allowing only the big and wealthy to transmit their messages, is turning into the many-to-many world of the internet and cheep consumer devices." Wow!!! Pretty impressive. He's right! These kids are a generation of producers, and though some producers produce frivolous, fleeting, superficial thoughts (see previous paragraph), some young people actually have something worthwhile, insightful, and intelligent to say. This generation creates its own opportunities -- by-passing big business, and I just love that -- power to the people. Musicians no longer have to find an agent -- they just Youtube their music videos. How cool is that?

Then, I read Hannah's Don't Save the World, and I was impressed at the wisdom of this young person. She finds meaning in knitting, reading, relaxing, and spending time with her family as opposed to some teens who visit exotic places to help the helpless (all for the college resume). She focuses locally and perhaps more honestly. When she writes that her summer plans are to "conjugate some verbs, learn some fancy purls, and pick up some books from the library," I thought to myself, "What a cool chica."

So, I extend my humble apology for my resistance to read the students' blogs. I have kids like those at Students 2.0 in my classroom; I don't know why I thought that they couldn't exist out there in the digital world.