Lesson 10 - Dr. Zhao

I was particularly struck by Dr. Zhao's comments about how much we and our legislature limit our students' freedom as they struggle to learn in our current educational structure; that we're still pushing conformity over creativity, and that we have a more communist educational structure vs. China's competitive educational system. In a country that attempts to be an ambassador of freedom throughout the world, this was a powerful viewpoint. I think the YouTube video at the end of Lesson 10 drove home the point even further. One of my professors in grad school used to say, "If they don't learn the way you teach, you need to teach the way they learn." Perhaps, in a nutshell, that's what Dr. Zhao is also saying. I appreciated his statement about teaching technology through content. This is exactly what I was taught about language learning: Give the students a meaningful project in which they have to USE the language to accomplish the task, and they'll remember the new vocabulary and concepts! There still remains this hurdle of fear on the part of some parents and teachers if kids are given too much freedom with the technology. I like to think that the more worthwhile projects they see from the students, the less fear they'll have.