Some days I’m tired of “making do.†My school is definitely in the middle. With only 51% Free & Reduced Lunch, we don’t qualify as a Title 1 school. We do not have the highest economical level parent group and community support. Many federal programs are not available to us because we are in the middle. We write grants, beg, run bookfairs and fundraisers (including the cookbook I wrote 2 years ago), and hope we can meet everyone’s needs. Our equipment is bare bones. Our iMacs are 6-7 years old and running MacOS9.2.2 since we don’t have enough RAM to host OS X.
Deep Thinking :: Making Do :: November :: 2006
Be assured that these are not the words of a whiner. Diane Chen is one of the most dedicated, accomplished, and articulate librarians I know. I met her and watched her describe her vision a few weeks ago at the SLJ Leadership Summit, and I was entirely impressed. I must say that I am surprised that she has cultivated her reputation with such a school in need.
But, of course, this is not an uncommon story: schools with six-year-old technology, little or no staff development, tragically too little time for planning, reflection, and retooling in a time of such rapid change, over worked technical staff (if any), rising expectations and demands for accountability, and a workforce, a large percentage of which will be retiring in only a hand full of years.
I come off harsh sometimes, demanding that teachers self-develop (when there’s no time), integrate digital, networked information into their teaching (when they have only one or two old computers and no classroom display), with reliable and abundant technology (when tech staffs are overworked and dwindling in numbers), so that students can attain a higher order of literacy and a richer understanding of their world (when they are being measured on how many of their students can read and do math at grade level).
I sound like I’m blaming teachers and tech directors. I am not. There are some teachers who want things to stay the same that they were in the 1950s, and there are some tech directors who care more about protecting bandwidth than seeing information-rich schools — and there is no excuse for either. But most teachers and those who support them and their classrooms care about their students and their future, and they understand what and how kids need to be learning. It’s just that we seldom ask for it.
I had a conversation at NCETC with a woman I have a great deal of respect for. We got to talking about 1:1 initiatives, which she said we didn’t need. She mentioned handhelds, probes, and a whole string of other technologies that can be brought into classrooms to accomplish the learning. She said something like, “We can provide the technologies that are best for the learning at hand, without putting a laptop on every desk.”Â
My objection? This is scarcity-based education planning. It is an education technology vision based on the constraints that come not from some weather pattern we have no control over, but from the decisions of men and women who are not citizens of the digital nation. They are immigrants. We must start talking about education from the perspective of digital citizens, our children, and the learning experiences that they need right now, to be ready to succeed and prosper in a world that is changing so fast that we can’t even describe it.
This is why I keep talking about teachers who should be retooling their classrooms every day, and students who should be learning to teach themselves within rich and practically unlimited information environments, and tech folks who should be resourcefully providing that practically unrestrained access to information. We want get there unless we talk about the education environment that our children need, not just the one we can afford to provide. We have to tell a new story and tell it loudly and at every opportunity.
There are a lot of teachers out there who are blogging. They should be picturing their students leaving their classrooms at the end of the year as more curious, more energetic, more knowledgeable, smarter, and more skilled at learning than when they came in; picture the classroom, technologies, and learning experiences that would result in these eager to learn students, and talk about that classroom, its teachers, and the support that makes it happen reliably. Talk about the learning your students deserve — in your blogs.
2¢ Worth!
technorati tags:warlick, education, technology, dianechen, flatclass, 1:1
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I think it is important to have a “no excuses” mentality in our teaching and with our students. This is an attitude of “OK,we can’t do that with this software, how else can we get it accomplished” or “OK, we have older computers, how can we do this anyway.” There is an old saying, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.”
So, yes, we should tell the story — the story of such people as Diane who have a “no Excuses mentality.” It is inspirational.
I’m at the other end of the spectrum from Diane, and things are far from perfect. I work in a school that has 93% free and reduced lunches, so we are Title I and have a wealth of technology. In my classroom I have two laptop carts with 8 computers, 4 older imacs, a newer PC and a smart board.
The problem I have is getting software installed on the computers to use, or even getting the computers to work. The laptop carts were purchased last year before spring break. They were not set up until about October of this year. One of the carts in my room is just being stored there because the laptops are not set up to connect to the wireless network.
Yesterday I had an assignment that I could have had 1:1 computing, but because of technology not working or not being set up, I had 3 students per computer. Still not bad, but not ideal with the technology I have. (The students did a great job though finding information on wikipedia, google video, united streaming, a myriad of seach engines, etc. I had given them four questions and two web links as a guide to start looking for their information.)
Your point of the IT staff being overworked and understaffed was driven home to me during this lesson. I requested Google Earth & SketchUp installed over a month ago (and I had to write a two page request) and have yet to hear anything back.
Even when you have the technology you have to keep the “no excuses” mentality.
David, Thanks for the pep talk.
This is what I see lacking in the national conversation–an excitement, not just about the basics, but about how we can get more money and more technology and twenty first century tools into the classroom.
It’s really unconscionable in our country, with the wealth it possesses, to have schools doing without decent buildings and decent tools and decent up-to-date technology and enough staff to maintain it. How would businesses and government operate if they have to jump through the hurdles we do to get new technology or to get software they need installed?
I agree completely that this needs to continue to be talked about. Even in a school with a fair degree of technology, I still hear teachers every day frustrated because they bumping against the limitations of the hardware and infrastructure that is provided in our school.
It’s a real shame to have teachers “ready to go” with 21st century tools and not be able to–and that is a national problem. I’m very glad to hear you comment that you, too, feel that many teachers are listening to this national conversation and are motivated. I would like to challenge business leaders across the country to follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates, and support the vision of changing education.
Part of the problems I see with teacher in particular, is that many of them see the problems in education and identify them correctly, whether it’s lack of technology, out of date curriculum, or any number of burning issues. But since they believe that the “men and women making decision” need to lead the change, they choose not to respond in any way. As Vicki states,If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.â€
When it comes to ideas of large sweeping changes, I’ve adopted a 90-10 rule. I spent 90% of my energy focusing on change I can control and influence directly and 10% advocating change at higher levels. Depending on your sphere of influence this number may be different but the point is while we still need to be advocates for change, we can’t expend all our energy hoping someone else will change.
Diane Chen, although I don’t know her seems to be doing a pretty good job of this. However, I hope that in an effort to vent frustrations and point out inadequacies in the system, it doesn’t give teachers excuses.