Teacher and teacher trainer David Greene tells a true story about a teacher in an unnamed district.
Read it and see what you think.
“Derrick’s Story”
The other night I had dinner with a couple I’ve known for a long time. Let’s just say that one of these people is not named “Derrick,” but that’s the name I will use. It will be easy to understand why as I tell this story. The facts are correct, but I will not identify him nor identify the school so that I don’t put Derrick in a bad spot.
Derrick is a retired high school teacher who was recently hired as a substitute in an upper-middle class suburban high school whose population is 80 percent white with less than ten percent of students considered to be economically disadvantaged. Approximately 70 percent of students take AP courses. Almost all meet ELA and math proficiency standards.
It is a town similar to several NYC suburban towns. The estimated median household income was about $90,000, which is $30,000 higher than the New York state median. More than half of the town’s population has at least a bachelor’s degree, while more than a quarter has a graduate or professional degree.
In short, this is not your average high school in your average suburban town.
Derrick started by saying he has been learning a great deal of new technology while on this job. Great, I thought, but then he went on.
His story soon morphed into a version of “The Walking Dead” or a parallel of the story of Clarisse McClellan, an unorthodox teacher, in the film and stage version of “Fahrenheit 451” — fired for not believing in Ray Bradbury’s fictional, high tech, book-burning, future society she lives in.
Derrick began to describe how he had to learn the Smart Board, specific tablet apps, Infinite Campus, and Pearson-created, computer-directed curricula for his courses. He was forced to implement a rigid, computer-directed classroom where all students worked in groups, listened to a Kahn Academy-like lecture, followed computer-programmed procedures outlined on the Smart Board, and did assignments on their tablets. Lesson plans were only to be followed, not created, and rigidly broke the period down into timed sections.
Derrick was told not to use the Socratic Method or any kind of class participation where he did anything more than monitor student progress on their work. He became a glorified babysitter. A cog in a machine. An automaton.
A technician, rather than a teacher.
Coincidentally, the next morning I read a New York Times piece related to this issue. Entitled, Lecture Me. Really., it told the tale of a college American history prof who inspected her new classroom and was pleased to see all the new technology there, but was surprised that there was no lectern for her to place her notes. She managed to get one after weeks of telephoning and emailing.
Although she defended lecturing in her piece, of which I am not a fan, the tale is still important to this discussion.
The point is that even if this room was used for a student-centered Socratic classroom, the emphasis was solely on the non-human technology. We need to combine active learning (which can easily be done via low or high tech tools) and the kinds of teaching tools that allow students to “keep students’ minds in energetic and simultaneous action and… a rare skill in our smartphone-app-addled culture: the art of attention, the crucial first step in the “critical thinking” that educational theorists prize.
To quote the author, Molly Worthen, “Technology can be a saboteur. Studies suggest that taking notes by hand helps students master material better than typing notes on a laptop, probably because most find it impossible to take verbatim notes with pen and paper. Verbatim transcription is never the goal: Students should synthesize as they listen.”
Derrick’s story, on its own, is scary indeed, but we also know that this is happening all across the country where school districts, even relatively wealthy ones such as his, are buying into the high tech trend regardless of what it does to the quality of teaching and learning.
All districts want to upgrade their technology, so when giants like Pearson, Apple, or Microsoft tell them they will install everything and provide all students with tablets, many jump at the chance to sell their souls to the devil. The devil corporations or foundations give districts the hardware and software, but they are locked in to using their curricula and lesson plans.
The result? Instead of technology creating great teaching tools for teachers, teachers become the tools of technology!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-academy-charter-school-singling-out-pupils-who-have-got-to-go.html
Eva doesn’t have enough fingers, or hedge fund patrons, to keep this dike from bursting.
This Times article could not have been written without sources inside Success Academy providing such damning information, suggesting that her loathsome behavior is finally catching up with her.
The chickens are coming home to Eva’s roost, and she’s going to be covered in their excrement, as she so richly deserves.
Clifford Stoll – 1995- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Snake_Oil Still timely and relevant
He had many misses but the hype is what I focused on. And if relationship building is the latest fad: How do we do that with the whirl and glare of computers?
“Personalized” education (ie software mediated instruction) is the darling child of ed reformers – with Tom Vander Ark out in front. Emily Talmadge (http://emilytalmage.com/) has written extensively about this attempt to de-skill the teaching profession, bust the unions and train the students as cubicle drones.
I agree. We all must be aware of the rise of competency-based / proficiency-based learning in which online modules will be used to replace real instruction by actual teachers. Emily’s blog is great. She is right on target I believe.
If the stuff out there was any good it might work, but I have encountered some real horrors:
This is the future….
reading-between-the-lines:Obamas-testing-action-plan/
and here is some research
sciencedaily.com/computers_math
Here are two examples of fairly (very) dreadful ed-tech offerings in math
mathway.com
with a link to one of my posts:
https://howardat58.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/how-to-murder-algebra/
and
http://www.virtualnerd.com/middle-math/number-algebraic-sense/variables-expressions/variables-definition
This last one is either owned or bankrolled by, guess who, PEARSON.
Dreadful is right. They are horrendously bad. Clearly no one who knows algebra or pedagogy had a hand in producing them.
Where does knowledge come from” Humans or robots?
An anthropologist once stated that animals become extinct when they become too specialized. Our society is more and more dependent on computer like “slaves” which do our thinking for us. A GREAT direction in which to move???
The Romans became slaves to their slaves. Evidently it was correct when Hegel said something to the effect that the only thing man has learned from history is that man has learned nothing from history.
They also know when it’s junk, or my son and his friends do. They know. They see a lot of this stuff. They’re 7th graders and they make fun of the inflated claims and hype, and I don’t think these 4 or 5 boys are unusually savvy or brilliant 7th graders. The Common Core testing online, for example, in no way impresses them or makes it more exciting than an ordinary test. Same with the test prep disguised as games. They’re really familiar with games.
I see and hear the same things from m 8th and 9th grade students. They think the online testing and “personalized learning” modules are a joke. They’re smarter than the “reformers.”
Contrast with this: 11th grade US history teacher drops a piece of paper on his desk and leaves the room. Paper says, “Using what we have learned about the constitutional convention, create a constitution for this class. I’ll be back.”
16-year-old said about the ensuing discussion, “I started to believe it was real and these rules would govern the class for the rest of the year.”
That’s teaching.
I love technology, but am not a fan of its implementation in the school setting. Technology should not be used to replace teachers. Videos, online lectures, etc. should be used in conjunction, or supplementally, with a lecture, let’s say.
Khan academy is a decent supplement, but a good teacher can create their own videos (or have students make videos) for students to use. It’s less scattered from a content exposure standpoint, it’s directly related to the resources being used in school, and it contains the subtleties of the classroom environment and teacher (like inside jokes, fun explanations used in class that helps students understand material, a class-made mnemonic, etc). It can become more personalized and relatable for students. Teacher can have their own discussion boards, means of parent/student contact, etc! A cut and dry big tech. giant supplied tech. package can’t include these things in the same capacity a teacher can!
I hate the buzz word “personalized learning”, especially as a way to promote technology. This is a completely different conversation for a different post, so I digress.
It’s a shame what our schools are turning into. And, thought a biased view, many online curriculums I’ve reviewed were of lower quality than many I’ve seen in local schools around here. On the other hand, I have witnessed many teachers not teach enough of the curriculum, water it down, not manage a classroom (and therefore didn’t teach). Although I’m sure this is not the “norm”, it certainly occurs WAY more than it should. It’s a very difficult problem with many variables.
I guess what I’m saying is that technology can provide an adequate education to a student who lacks a teacher (obviously) or who had a bad teacher, or one with low expectations. But technology can’t beat the environment of an average or better teacher (but can definitely be supplemental for a whole new exciting dynamic). This is a loose conclusion, but I hope my points are clear.
What happened to the old adage, “if it is not broken, don’t fix it”. We worship at the idol and temple of futility called the “Golden Hammer of Educational Technology”. In the old days we used the “iron hammer” of textbooks, chalkboards, worksheets, etc. Students learned and did well. Yes, we began with calculators and computers, and CAI, but research was not convincing; students did not learn much, if any, better with these newer “golden hammers”. Now, we have internet “lab simulations” (which replace real science labs, using real lab equipment); we have Kahn Academy (where virtual lessons are somehow better than my presentations, where watching and listening to another person’s instruction via the Internet miraculously transforms it into a “superior learning tool” as compared to my instruction???); we have tablets; we have etc, etc. Yet, research has been unconvincing; all these new golden-hammers don’t produce better learning than older “antiquated” iron-hammers.
Now, if the owners of the golden-hammer factories (ex. Bill Gates, or Apple) wanted the public and schools to purchase more golden-hammers (which are costly to buy and maintain, and probably drive up the price of education), they might use the public-relations, ad campaign, of creating a scenario of claiming that low test scores are due to the use of iron-hammers, or can only be improved by the use of golden-hammers. So, the public falsely believes the media-spin, assumes more golden-hammers are what are needed. When in fact iron-hammers work just as well, are cheaper and more durable and have a proven history of efficacy.
Buying golden-hammers is useless, because all they do is look good, are shiny and represent “cutting edge” (whatever that means). But, when it come to driving nails into wood they are not as effective and can get damaged (all the maintenance costs of the tech infrastructure, that supposedly will make the long-term costs of educating go down?)
So, because I grew up with iron-hammers, have been teaching science and math for over 20 years, and used iron and golden hammers, I’ve come to these deductions.
What’s wrong with lecture? I happen to enjoy it. Although, I think it’s becoming harder and harder for kids to listen. Most students can’t pay attention anymore. Their lives revolve around their phones and the drama that it brings. Real learning still is what it will always be- patient, focused attention on the material to be learned. You can jazz it up all you want, but it still comes down to sitting with the material and working with it and thinking about it. I’m starting to believe that parents really think all this technology is good for their kids, and that it wouldn’t bother them one bit to have their kids sit in front of a computer all day. If it does bother them, why aren’t they speaking up at this school?
What a good lecture can do that an online lecture can’t is get the students involved in deep (and hopefully inspiring) conversations. A teacher can really understand where students are confused and address and misconceptions students may have. These conversations are what students will take away for years to come.
For example, “Mr., remember you told me that silly story that helped me remember the quadratic formula? I aced your quiz because of it”, or “Ms., remember when I walked into class and refused to work, but you talked to me and made me work. It was irritating but I’m glad because I did all my homework …other teachers would have just let me sleep”.
Two basic examples. Technology is a good supplement, not alternative.
Thank you! A lecture is a wonderful way of providing the same information, with instructor response, to a large group. It provides needed background that the students shouldn’t have to “rediscover” for themselves, and allows them to work on synthesis and critical thought. I also have a lectern that acts as “home base” since I’m rarely at my desk.
My grandson’s school district in Texas just purchased Chromebooks for the entire student body. The students are very excited, but I think they may have bought a lot of expensive “white elephants.”
You and your grandson’s parents may want to read this report from ACLU MA on how 1-1 Chromebooks have been used to surveil and data mine public school students off campus. Heck, everyone may want to read it. If it’s happening here, it’s happening in other places, too.
Click to access back_to_the_drawing_board_report_large_file_size.pdf
I’m no luddite, but children are not automatons either.
Thinking that a software program or Khan academy video can substitute for human interaction is foolish. What’s next? A computer program that takes the place of parents and friends? Who needs a coach when we have computers? An AI band director would never skip a beat or mistake a bad note for a proper one.
Self-directed, computer based learning barely works for the most motivated and disciplined young students. It is a guaranteed bust for the majority of distracted, apathetic, and immature students.
Another brilliant idea brought to you by adults who never worked with children.
The more students use “technology”, the lower their reading scores. There is always an opportunity cost.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/15/how-much-computers-at-school-are-hurting-kids-reading/
I hope you understand the responsibility of teachers in this change. Daily I’m confronted with teacher who want more devices, more apps, more technology. This math software, that reading assessment software.
It does not come from the leadership. In fact, the leadership is used to make the technology dep to toe the line! Gimme this, and kids will achieve! Gimme ixxxx or iaaaa. Forget the fact that I don’t know how to use it; the neighboring district had it, so we must have more!!!!
A lot of us don’t think that way, Rudy. You’re generalizing in a major way. My class does a lot of things by hand that we could also do on computers.
I am not generalizing, I am describing MY daily reality. These are people I work with/for. These are teachers who HAVE to have a Smart board in their room because their colleague across the hall has one, or in another building.
I speak multiple foreign languages, none of them learned through computers. The District HAD to have Rosetta. Suggested personal teachers would do a much better job – based on many years of experience. Spent lots of money, and in the end, it became a babysitter. Same with Math, Reading, SS software…
One of the interesting statements in this chain: More use of tech leads to lower achievement… OESD report said exactly the same thing!!
In my experience, it’s how the technology is used that determines its’ effectiveness.
As a Latinist, I think I’ll just keep teaching 1st Century Skills.
A book by Martin Ford is worth reading: “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Economy” (Basic, 2015). On pages 256-257 there is a version of the “teacher as tool of technology” statement:
“Throughout our economy and society, machines are undergoing a fundamental transition: they are evolving beyond their historical role as tools, and in many cases, becoming autonomous workers.”
The author’s thesis is that the “march of technology” is a “relentless drive toward ever more efficient ways to economize on human labor” with market-driven uses of “autonomous technologies” moving into almost every workplace.
Apart from this book, it is not hard to see that the U.S. Department of Education has been a co-sponsor of projects in technology since 2009, in the belief that devices and software can offer better instruction, at low or no cost, in exciting formats. That work began just prior to the Common Core rollout, in 2009 meetings beginning in the Spring and running almost every week through December.
Participants included the lead officials at the National School Boards Association, Achieve, National Governors Association, and Council of Chief State School Officers; and many more through a series of meetings with state and district technology directors; and webinars, convenings, and “summits.”
The “Silicon Valley Industry Summit” included representatives from Agile Mind, Apple, Blackboard, Carnegie Learning, Cisco, Dell, George Lucas Educational Foundation, Google, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, KC Distance Learning, McGraw-Hill, Microsoft, NeXtAdvisors, Teachscape, Oracle, Pearson, Scholastic, SMART Technologies, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, VIP Tone, and Wireless Generation.
In November 2010, USDE published (with help from SRI) a 124-page report titled “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology, with a secondary title ”National Education Technology Plan, 2010” You can read that plan here. https://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf
You can also read about ALEC model legislation for digital learning.
Or see how cleverly Ohio’s Governor John Kasich ”Straight A Fund” is framed to “transform our state’s education system into one that meets the unique needs of every student in every classroom,” “promote academic achievement and economic efficiencies,” “achieve significant funding reductions,” “reduce administrative overhead – or all three.” He allocated funds to “jumpstart the transformation,” $100 million in FY14, $150 million in FY15, $15 million in FY16 and $15 million FY17.
These grants permit “private entities” to partner with schools districts, higher education, and the like, with awards decided by an appointed governing board. Projects are supposed to do one or more of the following: increase student achievement; reduce spending over five years; get more money into the classroom; use a shared “services delivery model” for increased efficiency and effectiveness, long-term sustainability and scalability. Not surprising: a lot of tech and on-line solutions are being offered and jump-started.
And that is to say nothing of the foundations and hedge funds and higher education institutions pouring money into this version of “disruptive innovation.”
I used to work at a school with a heavy focus on tech gadgets. I’m not saying standardized test scores are relevant, but after a few years forced to analyze California Standards Test data, I noticed that the more tech I used, the lower the scores. I began to refuse to use gadgets (which is when admin began a years long failed attempt to get rid of me), and my students “performed” better. It seems current research supports my conclusions. I now believe microchips have no place in education. If I didn’t enjoy working with the children of the working and wish-they-were working class, I would teach at a Waldorf school. Get rid of the gadgets. Get rid of Bill Gates.
I am right with you on Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio. But you are right, public education is the only thing that low income children have, so shouldn’t we be the best that we can be? Throw the tech out, and bring back the big blocks.
About 35 years ago, I read a book by Neil Postman entitled “Teaching as a Conserving Activity”. It was a sequel to another book suggesting that teaching be “subversive” in the sense of running counter to commonly held societal beliefs. He suggested that good teaching carried an element that ran counter to societal trends. Video was all the rage then. Postman suggested teachers should talk more so that students might learn how to do what was disappearing from mainstream society: conversation.
His view of technological influences on my chosen profession seems even more appropriate today. Students with ear buds wrapped around their ears remind us that some are incapable of providing their own thoughts as stimulus. Kids can have any genre of music they want, any preferred video experience, or any type of written material at any time. Meanwhile, a study of the aged suggested that a major component of a long life was that deep onto their old age, healthy bodies were stimulated by deep conversation.
Perhaps the most important thing we can do for kids is to make them love serious discussion.
Yes! Indeed! Of course! Awesome! Amazing!
I agree, but it brings to mind my au courant education school and several professional development sessions in which we were told that talking is the worst form of pedagogy (seeing and doing are allegedly superior). Never mind that talking is how parents educate their children, and how griots and other story-teller teachers have operated in traditional cultures from time immemorial. One of the reasons I despise most self-styled education experts these days –they are charlatans. They just repeat the fashionable drivel and sneer at anything old or simple; yet they really don’t know anything.
Love this link embedded in Greene’s piece. Molly Worthen has intelligent things to say about pedagogy!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/opinion/sunday/lecture-me-really.html?_r=1
Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death is great, too.
I have often thought the same thing, but there are voices of reason within the teachers of education advocating things like the Socratic Seminar that have good ideas. We all can use various technological devices to bring knowledge to our students, if we approach our techniques with a wary eye. How often have I seen the teacher so much in love with the latest tech thing allow that thing to drive instruction rather than letting interaction with the students drive instruction.
But here is the problem: if we let interaction drive instruction, our students need to be more or less homogenous in interest and ability. This demands a small class, which is expensive, or a very stable culture in which all students come in prepared to interact with grace and harmony. Perhaps this is why the testing we do seems only correlated to family stability.
Tech stuff can enhance classroom exchange, but the exchange should drive instruction, not the testing.
Good points.
Probably nothing new to you, but one solution to the larger class setting is to split them up into groups. Each group with varying skill levels. Each group member with a different team responsibility which changes from week to week. Kids can help each other out.
The Smartboard makes for a great hook to unify the class with the introduction of the lesson. Show them an example of the finished product. Then the board gets turned off and the kids get to work within their groups, using real time tools. Smartboard gets turned on at the end of the lesson so the kids can share out their work. The work groups change into video crews that tape the presentations. Create a film project from the different group’s works. Music backgrounds. Stills and movies. Cross fades/dissolves. Captions. Kids love that stuff.
The teacher can walk around the room while the groups are working, taking movies of the kids while they work. Asking questions in the form of mini interviews. This is one way of keeping them on task, but it adds an element of fun to it as well, because it’s a reminder that they’ll be included in a video, later on.
The key, as with any lesson plan, is to make the project interesting and fun. Give the kids a blueprint and let them fill in the rest. With an advanced class, you can give them the basic of what they need to do and let them create their own group ideas of how to go about it. Create individual group video projects.
Smartboards can be very cool in that way. Everyone wants to be the Star of the Show. If not: let ’em work behind the scenes. Props. Production. Director.
My concern here is not about the technology. Technology is a tool. To make an analogy, a teacher is like a cook. A cook can create a delicious meal, whether she uses a hand-held whisk or a food processor to do certain tasks. However, she is free to choose a recipe, adjust a recipe, or create her own recipe. The problem in the scenario described by David Greene is that the cook is being told to follow a certain recipe and use certain equipment, as if he had no wherewithal to manage his work. This is not what a skilled, creative cook would be asked or expected to do. We are skilled, highly-educated, creative professionals, not trainees.
Well said. I spent over an hour this afternoon in an extremely boring Professional Development concerning Imagine Learning. Though it is only licensed for 180 ELL students we all had to sit through it even though our technology did not work very well and, well, in my room I have one old XP computer. That’s it. If I were to do everything they try to sell to us, my special students would be in front of a screen all day.
Too much for my tired eyes. Tomorrow, we will carve a pumpkin with no technology!
One word: smart toys
The new Barbie can carry on a conversation for half an hour……
Here is something I find completely appalling:
Quinnipiac, a small university in Connecticut, is offering an online (but of course) Master’s degree in Instructional Design; i.e. designing digital teaching materials. I suppose it’s better than leaving it to Pearson and their ilk, but I remember learning to design lessons to teach kids, based on interactions among the members of the class. I thought that’s what teaching was about.
https://quonline.quinnipiac.edu/online-programs/online-graduate-programs/ms-in-instructional-design/classroom-technology-specialization.php
Oh, and here’s Arne’s deed of the day:
TRANSITIONING FROM TEXTBOOKS: Education Secretary Arne Duncan today will urge schools and districts to ditch the traditional textbooks and try openly licensed digital educational resources instead. He’ll make his remarks at the Open Education Symposium in D.C. He’ll also talk about federal efforts to ensure all students have access to such resources. Duncan starts speaking at 3:30 p.m. ET at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2015/10/senators-push-for-perkins-renewal-2016-fact-check-pennsylvania-schools-feel-budget-pinch-transitioning-from-textbooks-210992
This sets him up nicely for a plum job with a tech company somewhere down the line.
Am I the only one who considers the economics? $100 textbook lasts avg ten years. Drop it – dust it off, read on.
Electronic device anywhere from $300 up. Three years, buy new one. Ten years $1,000 costs.
Drop it, sweep it up.
Where does the money come from??
Just as important, Rudy: who does that money go to?
I mentioned this before: they’ve got to find a way to offset these additional costs. Enter cheap labor…aka TFA and other non-union teachers. Experience doesn’t count if you’re told to just monitor the class…or does it?
Suggestion: Please do not equate teacher union membership with quality of teachers…
Well said. It’s just that there are a lot of teachers who belong to a union. And the majority are hard workers who deserve what a union affords them. But, yes: the wording of my statement wasn’t well thought out.
Rudy –
You might be interested to know that the states with the highest numbers of unionized teachers are also those with the highest test scores. (I don’t believe student test scores are an indicator of teacher quality, but many do.)
Gitapik’s comment was: “Enter cheap labor…aka TFA and other non-union teachers.” The comment wasn’t about quality, it was about pay. Unionized workers are indeed likely to be paid a higher wage. They are not, however, likely to be of a poorer quality.
Thanks, Christine and, yes: that was my thought process. I’m wondering if the people pulling the strings are planning on spending less on the teacher salaries in order to offset the large increase in funds that will be necessary to buy, maintain, and, dispose of this technology hardware that’s becoming “necessary”. I’m aware of the costs and they are very high.
And, yes, again: unionized states record better test scores than non-union. One reason for this could be that the teachers, making a better salary and enjoying more comprehensive benefits, stick around longer and, as a result, benefit as professionals from the expertise that can often be found through year to year experience. There’s a lot more to teaching than just reading a script or monitoring a class.
As in most social service enterprises, somewhere north of 80% of the costs of running a school system are due to personnel. Unlike a factory where the overhead is due to raw materials, most money goes for teacher pay, including benefits such as health care and pensions.
The reformistas are hell bent on lowering those costs to free up capital for products such as testing, technology for testing, texts for testing and consultants for curriculum for testing. The demonization of lazy, greedy, union teachers demanding perks like pensions and health care; and the attempts at deprofessionalization such as alternate certificates like TFA are quite obviously tied to the goal of reducing personnel costs in order to maximize space in the budget for those more profitable ventures. How else to get more private fingers in the pie paid for by public monies?
Balancing act – Please help me understand the situation. Every year, the DEA (Our local teachers union) asks for more money for salaries, asks for improved benefits at lower cost (For which teachers pay next to nothing, unlike our non-bargaining group and administrators), and demands more technology in their class room.
Exactly where is that money supposed to come from?
And again I see the equation: More money better teachers makes. “And, yes, again: unionized states record better test scores than non-union. One reason for this could be that the teachers, making a better salary and enjoying more comprehensive benefits,…”
You either are a professional, or you are not.IF you are a professional, you do the job to the best of your ability for the price agreed on at the beginning. If you do anything less, you are not a professional, no matter what your job is.
“You either are a professional, or you are not.IF you are a professional, you do the job to the best of your ability for the price agreed on at the beginning. If you do anything less, you are not a professional, no matter what your job is.”
Sure…and you keep your eye out for another job that might better help you to pay the bills and give you a little more free time to spend with your family while you’re doing the job to the best of your ability for the price agreed upon at the beginning.
Where the money comes from to pay a fair salary with good benefits and the supplies/equipment (tech and not) is an entirely different story, Rudy. I’m not an economist, so I’m not going to get involved with that. I would say, however, that much of this would have to do with priorities on the local, state, and national levels. We make room for that which we deem as important to us. Leaders and constituents.
BTW: we aren’t far apart when it comes to technology, you know. I’m not happy at all with the way in which it’s being rolled out. Putting the cart before the horse…both in terms of training and financing.
One of the first rankling comments that I read when he was first appointed was a rant against the idea of “going back to the days of paper and pencil”. Sneering. I knew we were in trouble then.
The rigid scheduling goes right down to kindergarten. 45 minute periods, and that’s not always enough for math! My schedule looks like it is for a high school freshman.
I think computers are great for higher level math classes. I think how much easier calculus would have been if we had Graphing Calculators similar to the free ones you can get for your phone. Beyond that, the only other thing I see as an advantage is the ability for a teacher to put supplementary material and a web site, and a tablet or kindle for the luggable paper text books – again, for the high school level. Let the kids who want extra time use khan academy as a resource, as well as other web resources on you tube. But to replace the classroom teacher and environment, especially in the lower grades, is dumb. How else can you pass notes around ( or texts ) saying that the girl sitting two rows across is cute! I mean, let’s not forget what school is for! 😀 It’s learning how to interact with your peers and people younger and older than you. As a software engineer for 30 years, in my experience in the workplace, a guy/ girl may be brilliant, but, if they can’t work and play well with others they will probably get tossed ( unless they are a founder). And being a jerk CEO is easy. Steve Jobs was a jerk but was also brilliant in many respects. Most CEO jerks are just jerks.
Good points Rick, as a science teacher for over 25 years I agree the technology has made abstract concepts easier to model and understand. However, “easier” is not better, in terms of cognitive development and true conceptual understanding and synthesis. My dad, as a Lockheed engineer in the 50-60s used a slide rule, and I remember using them briefly, before the advent of calculators (the early HP in mid 70s). In a graduate stat class students were complaining that using the SPSS software was “hard”, when in fact its GUI driven. The professor said, “you all have it so easy, just clicking icons to execute programs. Back in the days of punch cards and Fortran we wrote the code behind the GUI. So, don’t speak to me about “hard””. So, easier is better if the tool allows one to understand better and produce more with the tool, but not if the tool substitutes for the necessary “brain workout and sweat” that really burns the concepts (writes the code unto the neurons and form the conceptual schema. Without, this the machine becomes a substitute, a surrogate brain, of which then user then does not have ownership over mental development.
I grew up several blocks away from Apple Computers first building (on Bubb Rd in Cupertino CA); I went to Monta Vista HS. I remember seeing and reading about a “special school” in Palo Alto, where all the top-dogs of Silicon Valley (ex HP, Apple, Maxtor, etc.) sent their students too. In this elite and expensive school (some up the hills from Stanford U) student DID not use technology. They played and learned with physical objects and manipulated objects in real life, not virtually. When interviewed the parents said that their children did not need technology, but real experiences with real objects. Then when they came home from school where real learning took place, they could play with their technology. Interesting, that some of the tech top-dogs have come to this realization; that what they had when they grew up in school (in the 50-70s) is what they believe is best for their own children now (ie. in the elementary levels).
“The Master Plan”
Initial step‘s to break their will
The second step’s to tame
The final step’s to work the mill
With robots, all the same
“Pearsonalized Learning Aids”
When teachers are all gone
The bots will teach the children
Shock them when they’re wrong
Like Dr. Stanley Milgram
“Seri-ous School Relationships”
Relationships with Seri
Are Seri-ous and very
Good for learning stuff
In schools, she is enough
The teacher isn’t needed
She really has been beated
By Seri and her kin
The best there’s ever been
Nah, I don’t think that’s the master plan.
I think once the teachers are replaced by bots, the next billion dollar idea© will be to strategically replace the kids by bots as well.
Then there’s no problem with discipline, or short attention span, or whiny reactions to standardized tests. No need for breaks, weekends; graduation rates will have no limit.
The simplest, most economical schools ever.
“The result? Instead of technology creating great teaching tools for teachers, teachers become the tools of technology!”
This is a very important topic and, once again, you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head, Diane.
I’ve been giving formal and informal professional development classes to teachers regarding the use of technology in the classroom for some time, now. It’s been my job to teach both how to use the particular technology and how to realistically incorporate it into the daily classroom routine.
Time permitting, I’ll include a whiteboard with a pad and markers to the side (chalkboard if available, too) along with manipulatives in these presentations in order to give examples of how to incorporate the technology into a standard lesson plan. A lesson plan that will keep the students both engaged and working with an awareness of their immediate physical environment. The teacher/student and peer to peer social and academic interactions are always stressed in these PDs, regardless of the type of technology being employed.
Also highlighted in every PD is the need for a backup lesson plan, using only real time components, in case the technology fails. You don’t want to be at a loss when the power isn’t working or your bandwidth is maxed out.
Over the years, it’s become more and more apparent that the fairly recently introduced, scripted out, book centered curriculum which happily boasts, “And you, the teacher, don’t have to do ANYTHING!!” is now being transferred to the screen. Smartboard. Computer. iPad/iPod. iPhone.You name it. And, yes: the teacher’s role is gradually being shifted towards that of a monitor rather than a central person who the students can look to for answers and guidance.
At first we were told to integrate the technology into the classroom. Now we’re seeing the opposite: the integration of the teacher, students, and classrooms into the technology. It’s a reality. I know there are some companies who want the technology to work for the teachers…but there’s definitely a move which favors the teachers working for the technology.
As a side note: This move towards a centralized technology driven delivery system is an expensive one. How will we offset these additional costs? Lower paid teachers, perhaps? Who needs teachers? Just hire someone to monitor the students and pass the data on to a central data bank for processing and directives for the next step(s).
Can you think of some people who would be very pleased with these developments?
“The result? Instead of technology creating great teaching tools for teachers, teachers become the tools of technology!”
This is a very important topic and, once again, you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head, Diane.
I’ve been giving formal and informal professional development classes to teachers regarding the use of technology in the classroom for some time, now. It’s been my job to teach both how to use the particular technology and how to realistically incorporate it into the daily classroom routine.
Time permitting, I’ll include a whiteboard with a pad and markers to the side (chalkboard if available, too) along with manipulatives in these presentations in order to give examples of how to effectively mesh the technology with a standard lesson plan. A lesson plan that will keep the students both engaged and working with an awareness of their immediate physical environment. The teacher/student and peer to peer social and academic interactions are always stressed in these PDs, regardless of the type of technology being employed.
Also highlighted in every PD is the need for a backup lesson plan, using only real time components, in case the technology fails. You don’t want to be at a loss when the power isn’t working or your bandwidth is maxed out.
Over the years, it’s become more and more apparent that the fairly recently introduced, scripted out, book centered curriculum which happily boasts, “And you, the teacher, don’t have to do ANYTHING!!” is now being transferred to the screen. Smartboard. Computer. iPad/iPod. iPhone.You name it. And, yes: the teacher’s role is gradually being shifted towards that of a monitor rather than a central person who the students can look to for answers and guidance.
At first we were told to integrate the technology into the classroom. Now we’re seeing the opposite: the integration of the teacher, students, and classrooms into the technology. It’s a reality. I know there are some companies who want the technology to work for the teachers…but there’s definitely a move which favors the teachers working for the technology.
As a side note: This move towards a centralized technology driven delivery system is an expensive one. How will we offset these additional costs? Lower paid teachers, perhaps? Just hire someone to monitor the students and pass the data on to a central data bank for processing and directives for the next step(s).
Can you think of some people who would be very pleased with these developments?
I am not sure in what sense you think, teachers had a difficult time behind the iron curtain. They taught 4 classes a day. Each class was 45 min long with 15 min breaks in between two classes. Winter break 2 weeks, fall and spring breaks one week each, summer break was 3 months.
The restrictions behind the iron curtain were political. It was not a great idea to loudly criticize the political establishment.
This was a reply to Jack’s post.
That’s very interesting. Thanks for the info, Mate!
Well, I messed it up. It was a different topic I wanted to make the comment on. For some reason, I was taken to this one.
Understood and understood.