Aggressors.....why increase in violence?

This may sound familiar in the digital era. According to Palfrey & Gasser(2008) stated how the connection between video games and violent acts by young people is commonplace. More and more young people are interested in violent games and according to the FBI files in 1999, reported one of the characteristics of school shooters is "the ordinate amount of time playing video games with violent themes". Other instances, avatar has become part of the players identity and that has made it difficult for parents and teachers with lack of digital know-how capability to protect young people in our schools. Therefore, as future educators, how do we approach this violent situation which has taking over in the cyber-learning? Not all youth are engaging with the new digital media in the same ways, and some may not even see themselves as part of the Digital Generation. The importance of increasing security tools to reduce violent behavior and continuous alertness will refrain young people from abusing the benefits in all interactive environments.
The things that we think and feel and the ways in which we behave are often the result of a network effect that unconsciously takes place in our brains(Palfrey& Gasser, 2008).
Furthermore, the reality is that the growing importance of the Internet has created a new disparity across class lines in children's access to skills, social networks, and intellectual resources.

The Quest for Identity

According to Palfrey(2008)children make the critical transition through the teenage years, they undergo am number of biological,cognitive,and emotional changes. One of the most fundamental is a quest for their own unique identities. Viewing this habit from the leadership perspective valid that notion of media always have played a major role in the process, exposing teens to a wide variety of cultural role models and enabling them to explore their "possible selves".

Adolescents "use media and the cultural insights provided by them". Media scholars also learned that teens are "active users" of media, choosing from a wide range of music, magazines,movies, and television programs to create their own personalized cultural collages. Teenagers often selectively use media when they are alone to cultivate a "private self." For example, music not only helps teenagers grapple with stress, loneliness, and depression, but also conveys important messages that can help them differentiate themselves from their families and other people.

With the advent of the web,teens had new tools to help them with this essential psychological process. The unique nature of the new digital environment presented an unprecedented array of possibilities for communication, interaction, and expression never before available.

Digital Natives.....indulging diversity

Palfrey, admits that digital natives often connected to educational practices. Schools often feels pretty much as if we have brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them. In today's student have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, not simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornment, or styles, as has happened between generations previously.

A really big discontinuity has taken place. Palfrey continue to elaborate that students born after 1980 represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. Students have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all other toy tools of the digital age. Today's average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading but over 10,000 hours playing video games(Palfrey,2008). The question is what are some of the disciplines that leadership must implement to channel this digital generation's ideas into a practical knowledge base in the classrooms?

Here is where leadership have the opportunity to utilize creativity to indulge this digital natives population by engaging them in a structured learning environment to enhance their skills.

The opportunity also must be focus on cultivating a new trend in merging cultures and promoting methods that worked for teachers to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students.

The Ethical Mind

Among all the Five Minds for the Future that Gardner mentioned in his book, an Ethical Mind emphasize on professional behavior and attitude within the organization.Just taking an accountability of the structure of the school systems, in recognition of standards. Many students within the system face the risk of disobeying the standards and policy established within the organization. Similarly, Gardner(2008) mentioned that many professionals are disbarred from their profession because of substandard performances. As professionals in the education, our involvement is to create an atmosphere of discipline, respect, creative, and synthesis focal points to educate young students the value of good behavior. The appreciation of others and those who are committed in their communities exemplifying the rights to do good within cultures attain the mind of ethics. In support of Gardner's theory, ethics involves both vertical and horizontal support which come from both families and colleagues respectively. But the latter, is much important. In vertical support, it entails parental support and as an evident for children performance at school.

The Respectful Mind

In the world today, one faces different challenges as the nations continue to grow, assume independent and control of its borders. According to Gardner(2006), one nation can no longer draw curtain that isolates groups from one another indefinitely. The challenges in the 21st Century continue to grow in the system of education where public schools in the American Society are expected to represent democratic values and prepare students for the participation in a democratic society. This understanding is so ingrained in the American way of thinking about schooling that it is the “common sense’ but beyond this common sense understanding, the agreement ends. An important issue is whether young people attach moral significance to group membership. Young people in school district face the challenge of implementing common sense when confronted with conflicts. Gardner made it clear that young people respond more quickly when positive labels attached to groups that they respect, and negative labels attached to groups that disrespect. The task for educators becomes clear that student take keen note of how teachers treat one another, how they treat other adults, and how they treat students, particularly those who come from a non-majority group have impact on student behavior with regards to respecting authority.Something is wrong with this picture, leadership have the obligation to implement structures to resolve such conflicts.

The Creating Mind

Living in the world of constant change via technology advancement, creativity becomes the norm in the 21st century trends with respect to human society. According to Gardner (2009), in most human societies, throughout human history, creativity was neither sought after not rewarded. By looking in the past, scientist like Galileo was honored the innovative scientist but was not rewarded but rather denounced and imprisoned. individuals in that era were discouraged and even destroyed at the time of their breakthrough. This is era is so different compared to the past. Innovation and creativity has become part and parcel of the world today. In the school district, evidence on introduction of "Edutainment" environment whereby creating and blending a diverse culture to technology. At the same time, school districts that are unfortunate get muscle out of quality of education. Some schools fell below poverty region and faces the challenges of new creativity and innovations that attract multiple intelligence. Creativity invites the introduction of new commerce in education, reaching for the best and finest instructional materials to embrace the excellence of education. This way of thinking about creativity emphasizes the importance of lateral thinking, the capacity to shift frameworks, change the dynamics of education and strenthing leadership through professional development.

The Synthesizing Mind

Do we know that knowledge was imparted to man-kind through the origins of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden? Yes, that's right! Knowledge worth of information was transferred to man-kind when Adam was enticed to take a bite of the fruit from the tree of knowledge.For generations knowledge accumulated,shared slowly, and in smaller chunks so that it can be translated and interpreted. According to Gardner (2009), the "5 Minds for the future" play an essential role in transforming massive knowledge gained through information through data systems,intelligence, and trying to synthesize the information gives one the idea of looking at the big picture. The challenge is that how can one learn how to digest this information through the brain and allow this information to stay? It's rather impossible to have that much allowable space in the brain to maintain information. Yes, the information can be store in smaller chunks but is this something that leadership want to introduce in the classroom? However to master this challenge, requires a disciplined mind with constant practice. It is doable through synthesizing mind too.