Finnish-ing School

Alcatraz

copyright©2010TWMcDermott


Motivation. I attended a meeting recently which was held in an elementary school classroom. While listening to people speak, my eye wandered to the front wall to a sign printed in block letters. This is what the sign said:

1. Be quiet and stay in your seat.
2. No talking while others are talking.
3. Raise your hand. No calling out.
4. No throwing!
5. Keep hands & feet to yourself.
6. Follow directions.
7. Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Several thoughts sprang to mind:

1. This is the same sign that might have hung in my school fifty years ago.
2. We haven't changed the rules.
3. I wondered if kids still notice that the author actually breaks rule #7 by writing the other six.
4. It made me want to shout out loud, dance a jig, hurl my pencil, touch Betty Lou's braid, and, most dreaded of all, look forward to the excitement and fun of learning.

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Angry Birds. Some of you may already know about Angry Birds. In fact, the data shows that you are probably not even reading this, because you are on your phone playing Angry Birds. Those fearful school-children mentioned above are not paying attention to anything BUT Angry Birds.

For those of us still operating on the analog planet Earth, Angry Birds is an app game which has been downloaded 50million times this year. It cost $100K for Rovio Mobile, a Finnish company, to make it and so far in 2010 it has taken in $8million (see story link below).

This is a cartoon game in which, yes, angry birds, try to annihilate little green pigs who have stolen their eggs. A player earns points for resourceful and accurate annihilation of pigs and their property. This is only one of many successful Rovio game apps and Rovio is but one of thousands of app companies developing games.

Caution: someone might be severely tempted to add Classroom  Rule # 8 above, which would state: "DO NOT PLAY ANGRY BIRDS OR ANY OTHER APP GAMES." We would like to remind you that Finland has some of the finest schools on Earth.

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Stop whispering. I'm fairly certain that the idea of people, especially young ones, being obsessed with a game like Angry Birds is going to upset certain other people. I'm also fairly certain that many of these people are going to wonder what might be wrong with the set of classroom rules mentioned above. After all, we can't teach while chaos is happening all around us can we?

Hello! Chaos is happening all around us. Funny thing, but kids seem to notice this kind of thing, which is one of the chief things that make kids so annoying to adults. We poked the internet bubble in plain sight. We massacred our financial system in a way that would make the Angry Birds pig-green with envy! We're trying like crazy to hide a couple of wars in the closet with crazy Aunt Margaret, not to mention the fact that we've borrowed more eggs than those greedy green pigs could ever begin to imagine.  Our kids' daily schedules would frighten any CEO. And the Kardashians are our national heroes.

Gee, why do our kids seem so distracted all the time?

Be quiet? Don't throw things? Follow Directions? Please.

Children, as the great Philosopher and Teacher Radiohead said, "Stop whispering, Start shouting."

Ed Notes:

Times Angry Birds' stroy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/technology/12birds.html

Rovio, the game-maker:
http://www.rovio.com/

Radiohead tune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2WG_0-CgYA