Teaching Tip #159

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #159

A final thought from Dr. Tim Elmore: Think about the S.C.E.N.E. in your classroom.

Now that acronym stands for

Speed

Convenience

Entertainment

Nurture

Entitlement

Our students have grown up in a world full of Speed (think how quickly they can learn anything via their phones), Convenience (the speed of their world causes them to live a life of convenience.  If they want something, Amazon Prime will get it to them the very next day. If they want to watch something, Netflix has it and they can begin watching it immediately.), Entertainment (students are so wrapped in entertainment in everything around them – apps, games, TV, books . . . it is impossible for them not to be entertained!), Nurture (thanks to parents, students are being not only being nurtured more but longer than ever before.  Hence helicopter parents), and finally Entitlement (think about how parents are enabling their children because they are nurturing them so much more than ever before. Here is a link that illustrates my point.).

Now the danger that Dr. Tim Elmore notes is that because of all the speed, convenience, entertainment, nurturing, and entitlement that young people are exposed too – there are corresponding messages sent that can have disastrous effects.

Here they are –

Speed (anything “slow” is bad)

Convenience (anything “hard” is bad)

Entertainment (anything “boring” is bad)

Nurture (anything “risky” is bad)

Entitlement (anything that involves “labor” is bad)

Now if you look at - slow, hard, boring, risky, and labor - aren’t those some of the key features and skills necessary to master things?

What message is being sent to our students about these things?

How can we balance all of the speed, convenience, entertainment, nurture, and entitlement with things that are slow, hard, boring, risky, and labor intensive?