Students 2.0

What happens when we student bloggers aren’t students anymore? A question that suddenly popped into my head a couple of weeks back, and it’s been niggling away at me ever since. I mean, what happens when the small amount of students who write blogs, with their own individual views on education, aren’t in school anymore? When they aren’t in the loop, when they have moved on to college or university or are just members of the general public? When they have no real connection to the matter at hand anymore?

The easiest way to answer it is the blunt way: If we don’t get successors then nothing will happen, the student opinion will be gone from the loop completely. Which would be a very sad outcome, seeing the pre-launch reaction to this blog. Most of the students on this blog will continue posting after leaving school, just as I will, but that’s not quite the same. We will be posting from a different perspective, we will have moved on, to college, or university, and some of us might just take the leap straight into the big, bad world. Seeing this new point of view does definitely have its advantages, but the opinions from inside the school walls, the opinions from those 20 or so teenagers in the classroom will always be the most important in my eyes.

So how do we get these successors? Well, it’s something I think this blog can really help with, I hope that the next generation of students can be shown what is possible, through their teachers, and be inspired to take it to the next level. This blog is, for me, a tool for both educators and students. Educators can come and hear what the silent majority actually thinks, and hopefully they will take those thoughts and find a way to incorporate some of what we talk about/suggest into their own teaching.

After all, that is how I came to be here. I was introduced to the use of web 2.0 in the classroom by my old English teacher Mr W. I realized how much it really can impact learning, and so I began my blogging quest! As for students, this is a tool that they can use to interact with educators, to see that the student opinion counts for something, and to provide a place where they are treated as an equal.

But what happens to us? the student authors bringing you this blog. Well, that’s not really up to us. It all depends on our readers and the value you give our views when we grow up, go to college, and (eventually) stop sponging off our parents and get jobs. At the end of the day, this will change our perspectives and almost certainly our views. The educators will always be here, as educators blogging about education, but the students won’t. We may still blog, we may even still blog about education, but we will be college students, musicians or businessmen/women blogging about education. I suppose the point I’m trying to get at is this: will this perspective matter to the edublogosphere?

Personally, the only time I can think of our future opinions being directly applicable is when we become parents. But does this mean our opinions will cease to count from after high school until we have children? I’d hope not, because education is universal. Everyone is constantly learning and has opinions on education, even those who have no connection to a school building. I suppose I can can relate it back to a T.V. advert that was running a few months back in the U.K. saying “if you don’t do politics, you don’t do much.” In a lot of ways if you don’t do education you don’t do much. The world is all about constantly learning something new and passing on your own knowledge to others, a school is just an institution that brings order to the process. Basically, all views on education should have some degree of importance, even if some have a greater value. It just depends who you believe is worth listening to.

As for us, it’s up to you, our readers. Do you carry on listening, and taking notice regardless of our position in society or do you move on and put full faith in the next generation?

Your call.

The Bass Player.

1. Photo by Misterteacher on Flickr