November 27

A friend of mine just got a Nintendo Wii. Now, originally, this did nothing for me. Having been out of the gaming community since my college years – I really did not care. Then I saw it. It is an incredible piece of technology. My wife and I started thinking about getting one. As the conversation continued we reminisced about Atari 2600 and Colecovision and Qbert and Pong and all our favorite games. It was then that she said the thing that absolutely floored me. She said, “You know, our kids will be talking about the Wii the way we are talking about Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. Can you imagine what their kids games are going to look like?” I couldn’t even respond. Can you imagine that? Will a robot literally come out of the TV and challenge you (that is to assume we are still using TVs).

I guess it is with this thought in mind that the North Carolina State Board of Education adopted a new set of Professional Teaching Standards along with a new mission. Their new mission states, “ Every public school student will graduate from high school, globally competitive for work and postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st century.” I have to tell you, that is a far cry from the three R’s we grew up with. It entails leadership skills, collaboration, research, critical thinking, and problem solving. It is actually pretty exciting and a very interesting read. There is a very interesting document and information at the following web-address: http://www.ncptsc.org/. I challenge you to read it and see how dynamic and fascinating your child’s education will be for the rest of their lives.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is ready to get back into the swing of things. It is hard to believe we only have a month left in 2007! Until then, here’s to dreams of that Wii showing up at the Argent household – and even better dreams of the next generation of technology to come.

Jim

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