Learning should be messy....right?

Well, I read on one of the blogs I am now subscribing to about a sign that hung up in the entrance of a media center at the school. No cell phones, no iPods, no CD players, no Food/Drink, etc. The reason why? For a neat and quiet media center. What??? That was my reaction, as was many other people who followed this guy's blog and twitter account. Welcome to the 21st century my friends! Is learning neat and quiet? The classroom of the 50's and 60's with the teacher at the front of the room and all students seated quietly in their seats giving undivided attention is gone. The 21st century is all about collaboration, group work, innovation, experimentation, discussion, participation, gone are the days of the teacher knowing everything and passing it onto the students. Our global society has eliminated that. Our students will be competing not only against those in their hometowns, but also students across the nation and the world. If we subscribe to the idea that we have everything that needs to be given to our students we are fooling ourselves and doing our students a great disservice.

As the guy who blogged about this here said - "
When I was in the classroom, my room was rarely quiet and rarely clean. In science, we had experiments continually going, data collection all over, papers, books, technology stations. But it was controlled chaos." That's what I feel my classroom is like a lot of the time. Sometimes not as controlled as other times, but still- things are happening. Students moving throughout the room, discussions being held, media production happening, its great!