BISBEE — The room was hushed as faculty from all the schools in the Bisbee Unified School District watched a YouTube video.

The short documentary without spoken words was written by students at Kansas State University. Students reveal their minds and offer facts about themselves and their view of education through signs they hold up. One states: 18 percent of my teachers know my name; another, my average class size is 115; a third will read eight books over a year and 2,300 Web pages and 1,281 FaceBook profiles; and a fourth will write 42 pages for classes in a semester along with 500 e-mails.

Others show their conscientiousness through writing such things as: I’m one of the lucky ones; I did not create the problems, but they are my problems.

In a takeoff on the college video, another YouTube production was created by students in kindergarten through 12th grade, who offered their view of education and the lack of engaging them.

Bisbee Schools’ Superintendent Gail Covington talks Monday to teachers about technical challenges facing the district. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review)

A young girl writes, “Parents e-mail, I text.” A teen holds a sign saying, “I’ll have 14 jobs by the time I’m 38.”

Bisbee Schools Superintendent Gail Covington pointed out throughout the morning at the in-service seminar that the faculty must develop new ways to reach students, hold their attention and prepare them for the ever-changing world. Today’s students will face many problems in the coming years, and school curricula and teaching methods will have to change and adapt as well.

But, Covington wants her faculty and staff to dream for the children and teens who will walk through the doors on Wednesday ... to have a vision for their success no matter the obstacles placed in their paths.

“What are your dreams for Bisbee students,” she asked. “What is your vision for them? We have to look ahead beyond the time they are here with us. We have to look at what their lives would be as adults preparing to enter a world we won’t even know about.”

The college video, she said, gives a view of college life — huge lecture halls and impersonal professors. Some believe that what they are learning will be useless in their lives.

“Kids admit to spending more time online or listening to music than they do on their studies,” Covington said.

Bill Jarboe, Bisbee schools’ technology coordinator, said he thought the community colleges were a good first step for a student just out of high school.

His children attended Cochise College, and he believes the smaller class sizes there are a benefit to students because they get a more personalized education.

“It gives them a chance to acclimate. They can go on to the larger universities, but that can overwhelm them at first,” he added.

Covington asked everyone to dream for a student and write that dream down to share.

“I would want Manuel to have the skills to engage with the world that he will meet,” began Jo Thompson, K-8 computer technology teacher. “He would have learned in Bisbee to search, collect, analyze, interpret the massive amounts of data he can access. He will have practical discernment and judgment and be able to apply these skills to life. He will have thinking skills honed here that will serve him anywhere. He will need imagination to work at jobs we can only guess at. He will be confident in his creative abilities.”

Some of the teachers who offered their dreams for certain students wanted to provide them with an outlook for the future that did not revolve around crime. They wanted to show them that there were other options and that they could succeed in the world.

But as the videos showed, today’s and tomorrow’s student will have far more access to information and distractions due to the digital world. They want to use computers more than books, be engaged with more electronic interaction. The age of electronics and the information highway has arrived long ago and they want the educational system to get on board.

“We probably won’t get to the point where books aren’t used at all,” added Thompson. “We need to be aware of how different their perception is from ours. We need to give our kids and teachers the right tools. Keep our computer labs updated.”

Learning the in’s and out’s of computers starts in kindergarten, she noted. There they begin to learn about the mouse and keyboard. Computer literacy continues through all the grades.

Though no steps to accomplish these dreams were proffered, Covington got them all thinking.

“The vision you hold drives everything,” Covington said to the faculty. “It’s what binds us together. We have a mission.”

To watch the YouTube videos go to: youtube.com and in the search box type “Kansas State University” or “A Vision of K-12 students today” to bring up the videos.

Herald/Review reporter Shar Porier can be reached at 515-4692 or by e-mail at shar.porier@bisbeereview.net.