Does it Hurt the Profession

This continues to be an amazing trip — if only because I left home last Friday and have yet to get on an airplane.  I love it.  Yesterday, I was lucky enough to catch the Acela high speed train back from Boston to NYC, arriving at 8:00.  The hotel is on a fairly shady street, so I stuck to my room last night, forgetting to e-mail my brother with a breakfast restaurant suggestion.  A little surprised that a New Yorker would ask a North Carolinian for restaurant suggestions in NYC.  I’d caught sight of a dinner on my walk up from Penn Station, but couldn’t remember the name this morning.

The Tick Tock Dinner, as seen from Google Street View.

So, and this is a first for me, I pulled up Google Maps, found Penn Station.  Then I switched to “Street View,” retracing my walk, and there it was/is the Tick Tock Dinner, just beneath the Hotel New Yorker.  It’s OK.  I’m not ashamed of being old enough that this stuff still AMAZES me.

It was an excellent day at Nobles and Greenough School yesterday for their Emerging Technologies Conference.  I was a little intimidated by the fact that their last two keynotes were Alan November and Will Richardson.  But the day went off well, made new friends, and was very pleased to witness Liz Davis’ first large audience presentation/keynote, which she did with Tom Daccord — obviously seasoned at this sort of thing.  She was at ease, funny, highly expressive (which is important on a stage), and passionate.  She did GREAT. 

However — and the point of this blog — during my afternoon session about on-demand, in-time, on-going, and casual professional development, a young man, from the predominantly private school audience, politely interrupted to ask,

“In our efforts to improve the community’s image of teaching as a profession, does it benefit us to openly utilize this social information environment, which is not formally published, is un-vetted, in unrespected in some communities.” (a liberal paraphrasing of the question)

There was a lot that I could spout from the Web20 koolaid.  But what’s tricky is that we all have our own vision of the profession and makes it a profession — and it isn’t right for me to intrude on his vision with my own.

So what does this messy new information landscape that I’m suggesting we make significant use of, do to the profession?  Please comment!

But here’s a paraphrasing my answer — or what I was trying to convey.

“I believe that the professional educator, today, must engage in this open and global conversation.  We should blog (or whatever), reflecting on our experiences and our profession. We should actively and generously share what we’re learning, contribute to the conversation and the the growing body of knowledge, and we should invite other stakeholders into the conversation where appropriate.  Our professional and personal image should become dependent on the quality of our communications, the logic and validity of our ideas, the threads of connection with the ideas of others, and our knowledge built from success and failure.

Powered by ScribeFire.

7 thoughts on “Does it Hurt the Profession”

  1. It occurs to me that along with all the other changes, we have to restructure our evaluation of the education profession. In academia it has been “publish or perish” far too long and in the connected world in which we live and utilize a myriad of technologies, that just doesn’t hack it any more!

    If we want classroom education to utilize 21st Century tools, it should also apply to education institutions. What that could mean is mind-boggling! Wish I had a crystal ball. What would a 21st Century central office look like?

  2. If we don’t use these tools to share what we know/what we do, we’re in danger of making our profession look archaic. I think the knock on teaching is that many haven’t changed what they’ve done in 10-20-30 years and what is being taught is becoming irrelevant. Some more conservative types already want to replace us with computers…if we don’t embrace new tools to communicate and show what value we’re adding to the education of children via technology and personal interactions, we’ll become extinct.

  3. If by professionalism, the questioner means secretive, private, and unapproachable then he is on the right track. I don’t need my work to be critiqued published in a journal or other medium by other “professionals”. Honestly, I trust my network to tell me when I am full of it. The feedback is more honest, quicker, and meant to help me, not hinder.

  4. David – Thanks so much for your kind words about my presentation. I’ve learned so much from you over the past few years, that means a lot!

    With regard to the question you were asked – first I don’t see myself as trying to “improve the community’s image of teaching as a profession.” I’m not worried about my image, I’m worried about my students’ learning. But, if I was trying to improve my image, there would be no better way than to publish and share all of the amazing things we are all doing to help our students learn. These “unvetted,” formats reach the largest audiences!

  5. Your response to his comment was spot on. This reminds me of an admonishment that Scott McLeod received once for not “formally publishing” more often in peer-reviewed journals (before relocating to Iowa State). To this day, I remember his story (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/11/i-said-they-said.html) and also another of his posts comparing the reach of “formal publishing” and the instant publishing that occurs via this new personal printing press we call Web 2.0 (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/01/do-the-math.html). But Scott puts it best when stating, “The fast pace of change in the world of technology and a few other fields is ill-served by the traditional publishing paradigm.”

    PS – Way to go Liz!!

  6. I was in the audience at that afternoon session and I was mildly surprised at the question. After the presentation, I had a discussion in a similar vein, with the educator sitting next to me. I was glad they were both thinking critically and trying to fit the presentation into their existing frameworks. I trust that if they keep attending such really good sessions as yours, their framework will shift. I know mine always does!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *