The Voyage: Transitioning from Student to Educator

Time’s cover story next week How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century is very compelling indeed.  This first paragraph says it all:

There’s a dark little joke exchanged by educators with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices pinned to their ears. Young people sit at home on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Older folk defy death and disability with metronomes in their chests and with hips made of metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls–every place Rip goes just baffles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he is. “This is a school,” he declares. “We used to have these back in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green.” 

Are we, as a nation, truly prepared to reform and revive our public education system?

Can we see that our children are our investment in the future?  The debate over the future of their education should be moved from the back burner to the forefront.  It should be as impassioned as the debates on global warming, AIDS and The War on Terrorism.  I, for one, am prepared to take up arms and join this fight.  The time is now and the place is America.

As I was reading this article I began to realize that my perception that video games are a negative influence on learning was incorrect.  It was my opinion, based solely on my observations of a family member who would play as if possessed, for hours on end, distancing himself completely from the rest of the family.  My feelings were pure resentment for this inanimate box that came into my house and stole away my spouse leaving only an empty, non-responsive shell in his place.  I love to disprove myths so this article spoke to me.  It was a challenge of sorts.    While I don’t necessarily agree that all eight myths were debunked my opinion has changed on a few of them and for mostly the same reasons.  Most notably Myth #7: Video game play is socially isolating.  Yes, it can be but I firmly believe it’s all about balance.  It’s up to me, as a parent, to insure that my child doesn’t spend too much time isolated and alone.  I should limit her time, be with her in the same room while she’s playing and talk to her about her experiences.  Video games are inanimate objects that we bring to life.  They are not meant to replace the human experience.   

Also, Myths #1, 2, 5 and 8 are intertwined.  Yes, there is an increase in violence in our society and yes, our children are being desensitized but neither is a direct result of video games.  We should look to TV newscasts, cable and network TV programming and major motion pictures as one of the largest vehicles transporting violence into our lives.  Video games are an effect, not a cause. It is a giant stride forward for me to admit that I even read this article by MIT Professor Henry Jenkins.  I have been ardently against video games for so long that my intolerance level had even begun to annoy me!  I’m glad that I loosened up enough to give this a read.

With school budget deadlines looming, districts all over the country are scrambling to create viable Technology Vision Statements and Action Plans.  I’ve been surfing around the net looking at other district’s Vision Statements and seeing how they compare to ours which is still work in progress.

One of the most difficult tasks facing ed tech directors nation wide is the mobility rate of superintendents whose average stay in a school district is now 18 months (still looking for that source to cite but can’t locate the link.)  In fact, some contracts stipulate only an 18 month term subject to performance review.  With transitions that frequent a good, solid plan with the school board’s backing needs to be in place in order to implement change. 

Here are links to some of the districts whose tech plans I liked:

http://www.kodiak.k12.ak.us/tec/tpvisbel.html

http://www.lynnschools.org/technology_benchmarks.htm

http://www.bham.wednet.edu/technology/documents/2004Apr28RevTechPlan.pdf

There were many plans out there to consider but some of the things that impressed me the most were the plans that entertained creative strategies for implementing professional development in light of funding cuts.  Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), stipends, technology hardware upgrades for teachers/mentors and PDPs are but a few methods being considered.  There are some great ideas out there.  Here’s hoping our district becomes one of those that implements some of them and succeeds in moving into the 21st century!

The beauty of my role as a technology facilitator in a K-12 public school district is that I get to work with staff members at every grade level, age and technological ability.  It is equally challenging and rewarding and there truly is never a dull moment.  I get to share moments of frustration, embarrassment and triumph, oftentimes in a five minute time span!

Kidding aside, I’m starting to wonder if there should be a minimum level of proficiency required to become an educator.  Who should the burden be placed upon?  Should there be minimum technology requirements for educators before completion of a degree program or should the hiring school district provide a “window” for requirements to be met?  Who decides what the requirements should be?  Should they be state mandated standards or ISTE standards?

I don’t know the legal ramifications of making technology proficiency a part of existing employee’s recertification but I’m sure there are some.  Educators facing the twilight of their careers will most likely want to be grandfathered somehow.  I’m sure it’ll make some folks unhappy.  What are other districts doing to make this a reality? Are they facing opposition or is it being warmly embraced?  Is it attracting more qualified educators?  I wonder about it all and where we will go with it as a district.  How can we expect to teach standards that we ourselves, as educators, cannot meet?

“To be effective, technology certification for educators needs to be part of formal education policy and a required element of school and teacher evaluations. . . . Educators need a system of technology training and certification.”

Council on Basic Education, 1998.

“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. “

Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC)

That was the message attached to my green tea bag this morning.  I shared Socrates’ sentiments with my colleague Carl when he came to reheat his coffee in my office this morning.  Carl teaches Greek and Latinat Barnstable High School.  Occasionally we try to solve the problems of the world in the six minute window between  classes.  He shares his love of teaching, learning and life that is very apparent in our discussions.  We cover some very deep, philosophical topics in those brief moments.  He often quotes the wisdom of great, ancient philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and of course, Socrates.  Carl takes pride in explaining his lesson plan of the day and treating me to a translation from Greek or Latin to English, breaking out the root words and coaxing me to figure out the meaning myself. 

Carl is a modern-day Socrates. Yet, unlike Socrates, Carl appreciates the value of the written word and enjoys reading, among other things, blogs.  He believes that in this Age of Information Literacy we are morally obligated to teach the importance of integrity to our students, for knowledge can become evil in the hands of those who haven’t been taught to use it responsibly.

Yes Carl, Socrates was so right!

Even the most seasoned sailor needs to feel terra firma under her feet so this past weekend I drove inland a bit from the Cape to attend my 25^th high school class reunion.  It seems hard to believe but I graduated from Haverhill High School in 1981.  Due to my extensive travel history, I hadn’t seen many of my classmates from the Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts in nearly 20 years.  I was eager to see everyone and get caught up.  I went online to look for some relevant trivia about exactly what was going on in our world 25 years ago.  Here’s some of the trivia I found:

• Chariots of Fire was voted Best Film at the 54th Academy awards
• A First Class postage stamp cost 18¢ (up from 13¢ earlier in the year)
• President Reagan was shot and wounded by John W Hinckley Jr.
• The world was recovering form John Lennon’s assassination in 1980
• Average cost for a gallon of gas was $1.31/gallon
• Valerie Bertinelli marries Eddie Van Halen
• Reggae singer Bob Marley dies of brain and lung cancer at age 36
• Minimum wage was $3.35/hour
• “K” car is introduced by Chrysler
• Ms. Pac Man was a hit in the arcades
• National Debt hits 1.1 TRILLION dollars
• Prince Charles and Lady Di wed
• “Bad” means “good”
• Pink Floyd’s The Wall was the #1 album
• Walter Cronkite signed-off as anchorman of  The CBS Evening News
• IBM launched the PC

I don’t know about the rest of my fellow graduates but in 1981 none of the factoids caused me to step back and take notice except the minimum wage, the price of gas and what was going on in music and the movies.  I had a job during my senior year and it was important that I earned enough to buy gas for my parent’s car so that I could listen to music while on my way to and from the movies with my friends!  Today I’m still concerned about how much I earn and how much of it goes into my gas tank but NetFlix delivers my movies and I plug my iPod full of 30 gigs of legally shared music into my car.  It’s funny how 25 years changes some things and not others.  However, given my current occupation the last factoid stood out from the rest, glaringly so. 

I can honestly say I don’t remember batting an eyelash over the launch of the PC yet now I can’t imagine my life without it, or an Apple for that matter.  How did we maneuver through high school before the PC?  How much time did we have to spend in the library to turn in an acceptable term paper prior to Google?  How many hours did we tie up the family phone (land line in those days) before IM?  Little did we know that when we were taught the “3 R’s” that they would be parlayed into a state mandated test for our children called the MCAS. 

So HHS Class of 1981, what do you think of technology?  Are you using it sometimes/always/never?  How are you using it?  Has it made your life better?  Are you keeping in touch with your classmates?  Let me speak for us by answering a big, fat “NO” that last question.  No offense intended to our class officers who did a super job of organizing the event but our invitations were sent via first-class mail.  (You do the math: 39¢ for each of the 503 class members.)  The turnout for their efforts?  Less than 10% of the class population!  Would we have seen more of each other if we were using technology in conjunction with the mailed invites?  If I were a betting woman I’d bet yes.  Let’s get with the program Hillies!  We have five years to turn the tables and use technology that wasn’t available to us in 1981 to make the next reunion one that none of us will ever forget.  Go to the HHS Alumni page and register today.  Size does matter where class reunions are concerned. 

Despite the low turnout I had a great time.  I indulged more than I should have, stayed out later than I had in years and loved every minute of it!  After a lengthy post-reunion conversation with my faithful friend Kathie we were in agreement: the low turnout and the large room forced us to really see and spend time with one another.  I believe each of us talked with classmates that we may not have otherwise if the turnout was greater.  That alone made it a class reunion in the truest sense.   

Thanks to the Marion Harding HS Class of 1981 for the factoids and the tech savvy approach to their reunion.  Here’s hoping that the Haverhill High School Class of 1981will better prepare for our 30^th reunion with the assistance of technology.

Last week I participated in my first MassCUE conference.  It was fun being around educators who aren’t afraid of technology!  I was very interested in hearing David Warlick, the keynote speaker on Thursday.  I’ve been following David’s blog for the last few months (at the urging of my colleague Beth) and really like his point of view on technology’s role in education in the 21^st century.  Through his blog I linked to his K-12 Online Conference and what I learned there just blew me away:  our education system is stuck in irons.  In the nautical world, being stuck in irons is not a good thing.  When you have no forward momentum and are being pushed backward there is cause for concern.  In David Warlick’s mind, we are derailing education.  That is a lot like being stuck in irons and, it too, is cause for concern.

David’s keynote address at MassCUE elaborated on his K-12 Online Conference.  What really hit home for me was his compelling statement: “we need to stop integrating technology into the curriculum and start integrating literacy.”  Stop integrating technology?  What about that hardware we want to purchase for our district?  Has he lost his mind?  In order to get education back on track in our country we have to hold off on technology while increasing literacy.  Hmmm…..  Once I mulled that statement over, it made perfect sense to me.     

Our students are children of the information age.  They’re being raised on technology the likes of which my generation never saw and my parent’s generation never dreamed could exist.  They know how to rip CDs and upload to their i-Pods.  They can help you encrypt your wireless network.  They also know their way around the firewall at school so they can access MySpace.  If they want to know how to do something within the realm of technology they turn to their peers, either in person or online.  Sadly, they don’t turn to their teachers (or their parents.)  They don’t see us as capable of understanding their needs. 

What should the classroom for children of the information age look like?  If we find the answer to this then maybe we’ll find the secret to education reform.  More on this subject later.

“There is nothing — absolute NOTHING — half so much
worth doing as simply messing-about in boats.”

Water Rat, The Wind in the Willows

While I agree with Ratty about messing about in boats it’s not quite the same messing about with technology.  I’ve been struggling with setting up this blog off and on over the last 24 hours.  I’ve been busy but I don’t feel as though I’ve accomplished anything in particular.  Learned something – yes.  Accomplished something – no.  Of course, as I’m typing this I realized that if I learned something I indeed accomplished something.  There truly is only one way to succeed and that is to fail – repeatedly.  Eventually I’ll have my page formatted the way I want it.  Then I’ll look back and laugh at my frustration.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep busy doing what seems like nothing in particular and I’ll always have something else to do.

While my original intent may have been a bit selfish in nature, a career in education has become my persuit.  When my daughter abandoned me four years ago at the age of six to attend Kindergarten full time, I realized that if I didn’t go back to work I’d loose my mind.  I wanted to socialize with adults but didn’t want to give up nights, weekends or school vacations with my daughter.  Substitute teaching in our school district seemed like a perfect match.  I embarked at the elementary level subbing Spanish, Art and P.E. specials and grades K, 1 and 2.  I got a bit cocky and tried a middle school assignment.  At the end of the day, I scraped myself off the floor and vowed never to go back to “those” grade levels again without proper training (and battle gear!)  Was I like that in middle school?

Eventually I got a call for a long-term assignment as a Techology T/A in an elementary MAC lab.  I held five back-to-back classes as well as recess and lunch duties the first day.   The student population included 65% free & reduced lunch and SpED inclusion.  Did I mention I knew virtually nothing about Macs?  Anyway, I was hooked!  The position soon became permanent.  Eventually a district level position as a Technology Facilitator opened up and I applied for it.  Even though it would take me out of the classroom, I saw this new position as an opportunity to expand my tech background while reaching thousands of students instead of hundreds.  Not long after being hired as the TF, I realized that I missed the classroom.  The logical progession seemed to be to enroll in a grad level Instructional Technology program.  Three courses later, here I am!

I always seem to choose the most difficult route, however unintentional.  Somewhere along that route I encounter an insurmountable obstacle.  It feels as if I’m trying to navigate a narrow channel through a treacherous shoal.  Yet I know there is no alternative.  I must raise my sails in order to grow, change and move on.  It will take every ounce of courage, determination and focus that I possess.  And so I plot a new course to begin my journey: the transition from that of a student to an educator.  This metamorphosis will show no outward signs yet I know I’ll never be the same, except for my desire to learn and my love of the sea.  I hope I encounter “fair winds and following seas.”   It’s my wish that you’ll join me in my journey.