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Let's leave no one behind!

I know some of the staff here at PHS has become a little weary about all the talk about change and the integration of technology in the delivery of our curriculum. Some have mentioned that they feel left out as technology is distributed as it is acquired. Some say that they feel what they do is not valued. Others mention that today's students simply do not want to learn and are too lazy or disinterested to be taught.

It is true that new equipment is being put in rooms where teachers are demonstrating that technology is a useful tool to engage students. There are still many teachers that do not have an interactive white board that have demonstrated that they would use one. We are trying to acquire them as quickly as the budget will allow. I do not want to do like we did about 12 years ago and put technology in every room and have it sit unused. (How many TVs and VCRs did we put in?) It is a simply cost benefit issue. Some of the teachers who engage our students day in and day out do not need a Smart Board nor do they want one.....yet!

I believe that most of our students learn what they need to learn to pass tests and do one time projects. My observations lead me to believe we teach too much superficially and the students never have a chance to demonstrate a deep understanding of concepts. That, in my opinion, is the way high school has always been. The schools we teach in were designed to be like an assembly line. Get as much general knowledge to the masses as we can, in the most efficient way we can. That was the design of the modern high school at the turn of the century....19th to 20th century! We are no longer the repository of information. The information revolution has changed that. Today's students need to apply knowledge. We need to teach them how to work with information. How to determine if it is correct, how to manipulate it, how to collaborate with it and create, persuade and demonstrate with it. I took every science class my high school had to offer.....ask me how an atom works. Do you think I remember? I can look it up in no time flat though. Please do not take this as an indictment on how and what you teach. I know you challenge our students. The conversation I am trying to start, the changes I am trying to catalyze in no way should be taken as "he does not value what we do." I simply believe that in many ways we, and I mean "we"(I included), can improve how we do things and better challenge our students. Technology is not the answer. It is simply a set of tools that we need to use to engage our students.

Today's students are different. They come to school with different experiences than the previous generation. The technological/information revolution has changed all that. Their phones know the answers to most of the knowledge based multiple choice test questions we give. What good does it do them to have them memorize endless facts? We can continue to belabor the fact that today's students are different, teach them the same way we always have and hope for better results next year. I think we all know what Einstein has to say about that.

I know that we are trying hard. I know you do not have enough time to change overnight. Teachers are hard working people that care about kids and they get defensive when they are told they aren't doing a good job. Please do not think I am saying you are not doing a good job. It is just that things are changing rapidly and I believe we must change or become irrelevant.....or worse yet....LEFT BEHIND!

A snippet from my PLN (personal learning network)

Blogging has allowed me to form a personal learning network (PLN) through online interaction with other educators. I have several blogs that I subscribe to and read on a regular basis. Most of these blog authors in my PLN reference other blogs and ideas that are of interest to me. I have found that I spend more time now reading about educational issues than I did when I was working on my Masters degree or my Specialist in Ed. degree. One particular item that i read this past weekend has me thinking about our particular place in history. Clay Shirkey writes in his book Here Comes Everybody (referenced at Weblogg-ed):

For us, no matter how deeply we immerse ourselves in new technology, it will always have a certain provisional quality. Those of us with considerable real-world experience are often at an advantage relative to young people, who are comparative novices in the way the world works. The mistakes novices make come from a lack of experience. They overestimate mere fads, seeing revolution everywhere, and they make this kind of mistake a thousand times before they learn better. But in times of revolution, the experienced among us make the opposite mistake. When a real once-in-a-lifetime change comes along, we are at risk of regarding it as a fad.

Is the current wave of using technology in education a fad? Or is it a revolution? Many argue that education is the first to grab on to a passing fad without really understanding the long term relevance to making changes. The evidence, to me, indicates a real shift that moves beyond fad. Every bit of media is changing. Many of today's most popular shows use at home audience participation. Youtube is becoming as popular as many of today's television media outlets. Music can be bought a song at a time and downloaded in a minute or less......all things that seemed implausible only ten or fifteen years ago. Today's students are growing up with a fundamentally different world outside of education that their parents did. They are texting, networking on social websites, blogging, playing on-line interactive games, using television systems with 100+channels....etc... Yet their schools are fundamentally unchanged....pedagogy, curriculum, delivery systems have not changed significantly. What do we need to do to stay relevant?

Some questions about 21st Century education

The 21st Century is no longer the future...we are creeping up on being through 10% of it! Does it look like it should? Should 21st Century methodology be photocopied papers with pencils and erasers? Should it be dominated by chopped up time blocks where teacher directed learning is the key component? Are day after day of lecture and rote memorization the modes by which our students are best served? Is it ok for today's teachers to be complacent at best about integrating new technologies into their delivery methods, or at worst unwilling to do so?

On a larger scale, why do the state and federal governments continue pork barrel billions of dollars for pet projects while schools are only funded for 180 days (three months off makes lots of sense in today's world right?) of an outdated agrarian school school calendar? Our classrooms need to be air conditioned. They need to be wired to accommodate today's new technologies. Our computer labs need to be kept up to date. Our students need to have access to wireless laptop labs that can be brought to the classroom when needed. Teachers need to have time to integrate new methodologies into their curriculum delivery. They need to be supported by curriculum technologists who can help them in their efforts with expertise in best practices backed by research. We talk about leaving no child behind....I am wondering if we will ever catch up!

NCLB and mandated testing

No Child Left Behind has certainly made its mark on U. S. education. It is a noble goal to have every student meet minimum standards by 2014! NCLB is a very complex law. It is much more than AYP and testing, although those are the most visable aspects. Our students here at PHS are talking about the law and are posting their reactions on Mr. Doughan's Room 27 on the Web. I encourage you to read through their comments and perhaps join the conversation!