The Clarity of Time

This article has been sitting around for a while unpublished. I decided to give it a whirl and publish it.
It is amazing how time and distance provide sanity in the wake of a heated conversation or passionate comment. Clarity, I've found, is almost always gained in retrospect instead of in the moment. I don't know if that is always true for everyone, but that seems to be the case for me.

Online evaluations are tabulated and in from the November Missouri District Educator's Conference, and it was after reading the comment section that I realized I have developed a pretty short fuse when it comes to personal feedback that I don't agree with.

That was just over a week ago and thankfully I decided to practice what I preach and not post anything while frustrated. Time truly does provide clarity for me, and I think that I just need a little time to process things before I respond.

The area I was most interested in was the virtual presentation on Tuesday morning by Will Richardson. I will not go into details with regards to the half a dozen specific comments, but I would like to share the one comment that garnered the "Did you just really say that out-loud" award:

"I know that going outside of our own "circles" shows a willingness to learn from others...but Will Richardson wasn't just provacative...he insulted much of who we are and what we do. Learning based on "passion"...peer validation...virtual face-to-face over and above the dinosaur in the corner (real life teacher)...my blood was boiling."

I'm not really sure if anything else needs to be said at this point, other than I really pray that this was not what was going through the heads of the majority of teachers last November during the keynote. The comments about a glitchy connection, and wanting to have someone live, or the frustration about fellow teachers not honoring the time by talking over the PA, were warranted, but the above comment is by NO MEANS acceptable (pun intended, the conference theme was "By All Means").

Obviously the person who left that comment wasn't listening. The presentation, more than anything else, wasn't as much about teachers as it was students. If the commenter would have been paying attention, Will's comments were about the shift in our information and media culture and the need for teacher's to examine their practice in light of these changes. And that was the whole reason for his talk. We need to start having this conversation and it's fascinating to me that there are a core group of people who don't want to have it!


William Bennett and his coauthors in his book "The Educated Child" commented about public schools, but I think it could also be said of parochial schools as well:

"The public school establishment is one of the most stubbornly intransigent forces on the planet. It is full of people and organizations dedicated to protecting established programs and keeping things just the way they are. Administrators talk of reform even as they are circling the wagons to fend off change, or preparing to outflank your innovation...."

I'm not exactly sure what Lutheran school teachers are trying to "protect" by not engaging in educational change conversations. Many Lutheran schools are or will die as they refuse to engage the world around them.

The main driving force behind educational change today in America as I see it is the educational technology community. It is through the pedagogically appropriate use technology that teaching learning to students begins to take flight. For in the use of technology, teachers finally have the tools to truly differentiate instruction. It is through the use of technology that teachers can utilize the passions of students to help students learn to be problems solvers and critical thinkers. It is through the medium of the Internet that students can now become world class researchers. So why don't more embrace it?

There are some theories, but in the end I think it's about teachers not doing what is right for students because they are just too afraid to engage the world around them. They hide behind statements about Internet safety and appropriateness. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of bad stuff out there. We don't call the world wide web "The Wild West" for nothing. But when we don't engage this younger generation in this information, media landscape that they are born into, ignorance will only breed more ignorance, and comments like the one above will continue to permeate the public debate about technology and learning in this century and the next.

image: "June 19th, 2009". Flickr user: crookedteethhh .

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Missouri District Educator's Conference Day 2 Take-a-way.

Pretty seamless day. A bit hectic. A little running. A little last minute stuff, but over all it was a great day.

Cindy Lane did an awesome job with her Google Tools Presentation. I learned some of the little things that just makes Google an awesome partner for teachers (Show Options is my friend!). Besides her sectional, I enjoyed just hanging out with her at lunch and swapping stories and sites.

The Technology Open House, I've decided, was a success! After spending forty-five minutes with a teacher getting the Bible on his Blackberry, I feel pretty good. Especially since I don't have a

Blackberry and don't have a Bible app on my phone.

A lot of great questions came our way from colleagues: What firewall do you use? How do you handle content filtering? What websites can I use with my first graders with an LCD projector in my room! We also spent time talking with an administrator or two about how they can incorporate connected learning into their own professional life.

I've also spent more time thinking about value. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that teachers need to find personal value in their own learning, before we can expect them embrace self-learning using technology. That sounds backwards...seeing is how they are teachers...but old habits die hard.

Looking forward to our virtual keynote with Will Richardson tomorrow morning. We'll see how well that will be received. There will likely be some skeptical listeners, but we are hoping that some ears and minds will be open to confront the issues facing 21st century education!

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You can lead a horse to water....

I love the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." It's probably the most appropriate saying for professional development as well. There is no way you can make a teacher want to learn. If they don't want to, then they don't want to! But I do wonder if there is a way to help make them "thirsty" enough to recognize a nice cool "drink" when it's placed in front of them?

Honestly speaking, I'm not exactly sure how to do that! Well, that's not totally true. I do find myself agreeing with Will Richardson's last blog post at Weblog-ed on this point. Will suggests that the best way to engage teachers in learning is to encourage them to first be selfish learners. Selfish not in terms of ignoring the needs of others, but rather, first encouraging them to use tools to learn about something that is of maximum value for them.

In my previous post, I talked about how value needs to be created and engaged before any learning takes place. Inevitabley if you as a teacher do not find value in learning a new skill, then frankly you won't extend the effort needed to learn it. There is way too much other stuff going on to waste time learning something that has no value. But if a teacher can find value (in this case value would be attained by engaging teachers in something non-profession related) that they will begin to use those personal tools in the professional realm as well.

So again, how can you do this?

Besides making learning completely personalized, which I believe to be the best option, I envision removing the stuffines of a traditional learning environment and replacing it with a more relaxed gathering place.

At the upcoming Missouri District Teacher's Conference, which by the way is going to be a drastic departure for us in terms of what we've done before, we are organizing a kind of technology information booth. I got the idea from the work that Amy Vejraska (and other colleagues...sorry I don't remember names) did at the Midwest Educational Technology Conference last year. It seemed like a great idea, so we are going to give it a shot!

The information booth with be staffed with knowlegable teachers who can answer questions about wikis, blogs, Delicious, Diigo, Twitter, Second Life...you name it! Our hope is that the non-threatening, "Hey, come check us out" atmosphere, that most teachers will let down their guard and feel comfortable enough to ask questions, share ideas, or try out some different tools.

Will that help create value? I don't know, but we hope that the relaxed atmosphere will help break down any barriers to potentially finding out if something can have value for them.

Personalized and Non-threatening...I guess you've got to start somewhere!

Image "Thirsty Horse" by Flickr user: [alxandr]

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