Leading by Example... But What is the Example Again?

In my typical ‘blocking‘ style, I have been going through a few of the 21st Century Learning podcasts, and was I should comment again – this time on Episode 10: SLA, Education Bridges, Info Literacy.
I thought it was interesting that almost three times in this episode, the guys mentioned doing things that they had specifically told their students should not be done.

The first was travelling on a train to meet a guy he had ‘met’ on the internet. The second was peer pressure – “me pressuring you into doing this podcast”. In the third case, the presenter almost mentioned where he lives, but caught himself and instead mentioned the general area.

I’m not shocked and outraged or anything, I just think it is a funny/interesting situation. The guys were aware of it, and if anything, it stressed how easy it can be to do these things. One of them mentioned “adult social pressure is better than teenage social pressure though”, which I can understand – (some) adults understand the deeper implications and risks of what they are doing and manager those.

However, it does pose a problem for teaching younger people these things, especially if you prefer to ‘lead by example’. On the other hand, maybe it just shows that we can’t be simply teaching children by rote (to always do x and never do y), otherwise they may never find their lifelong partner on the internet (probbaly not the most solid example I’ve ever given, but never mind). I guess this leads into “don’t teach a child facts, teach them how to learn”, which was a very clear message from a tour I recently had, and will cover in the next blog entry (Discovery 1).