Outlaw Teachers — Outlaw Learners

I can’t believe that my children are begging me to let them write.

Even when they’re out sick, students work on their blogs.

I’ve got 6th graders coming in during their lunch and after school to add articles to their blog and to respond to their classmates’ articles

Why would my students want to write on paper for their teacher to see, when they could write on their blog for the whole world to see?

In fifteen years of teaching, I have never seen anything come along even CLOSE to motivating students to write – like blogging does.

Would good teachers be able to watch learning practices like blogging be banned from their classrooms. DOPA, in a effort to gain political mileage, seeks to return these classrooms to what must certainly seem like The Dark Ages of teaching and learning, and I don’t think that teachers could let go. They’ll become outlaw teachers.

• They’ll create a secret handshake for conferences and code symbols on their business cards making other knowing teachers aware that they are seeking online communities for their students to use as learning environments.
• Tech-savvy students will be covertly commissioned by their teachers to hack the school’s network and mask blog and community correspondences as Student Information Management data destined for the state’s legislator bean counters.
• Small wireless computers with folding keyboards will be smuggled into classrooms inside of hollowed out textbooks.
• The interface of Class Blogmeister will be changed so that it looks like a math facts drilling program rather than a blogging engine.
• Pictures of 1950s style classrooms will be downloaded from the Internet, enlarged, and then attached to the inside of class door windows, so that passers-by can fell more comfortable about their school.

OK, I’m having a little too much fun with a dreadfully serious issue. Go to the ALA web site this morning and write to your congressman. Then call and fax.

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