"Enraged" by Marc Prensky

I'm enraged by Marc Prensky's article "Engage Me or Enrage Me": What Today's Learners Demand. A quick look at his background tells me that he not really an educator at heart: his endeavor is to develop and sell online games, and his clients (with the exception of Nokia) have some of the worst repurtations for exploiting people and the planet: IBM, Bank of America, and the Department of Defense ?!

Prensky makes a number of blanket statements which I'd like to see backed up with solid evidence. Some examples:

(In the 60s)....."those kids lives were a lot less rich." Numerous studies have shown that the happiness levels of Americans have declined steadily since the 1950s.

"Today.....all the students we teach have something in their lives that's really engaging - something that they do and that they are good at, something that has an engaging, creative component to it." He also implies that all students (in the US) have cell phones and ipods and Internet access. What about the poor in America? Perhaps he should read Barbara Ehrehreich's "Nickel and Dimed." Or read statistics like one in a recent issue of TIME magazine: One in eight Americans sought emergency food assistance last year. Or just take a walk outside his sheltered, game-filled life.

"Their short attention spans......are only for the old ways of learning." How will their short attention spans serve them (or us) when they are airplane pilots or surgeons or farmers or engineers or teachers? LIFE is not an online game.

This blog isn't meant to fit the rubric - it's meant to be a rant, because that's exactly what Prensky's article is: unscholarly work, fit for the trash bin.