Mr. Fuson’s Page of English Enlightenment

I recently read an excellent article by Will Richardson on the ASCD website. The article is called Footprints in the Digital Age. If you have ever seen or heard Mr. Richardson speak, it is an excellent summary of one of his main points about why teaching students to utilize technology is so important.

As I travel around the state this year and attempt to train teachers on how to begin to utilize Web 2.0 tools in their classrooms, I find myself arguing to support this very same view to a number of educators. I am beginning to believe that there is nothing more threatening to a veteran, savvy teacher than to have their methods of teaching questioned in anyway, shape or form. I don’t even think I could begin to describe the outright hostility that some teachers display at the idea that maybe the way we have always done things is not the best way any more.

It truly baffles me that so many teachers repsond this way. And just so I am clear, I am not speaking of older teachers, as age does not seem to play a role in this mindset. In most locations where I present, I find a teacher or a group of teachers whose attitude simply is “I work hard. I care about my students. I went to college and know what students need; why should I do this?” This attitude is pervasive, and I only think I hear it from teachers who are outspoken, so I can only imagine what those teachers who sit in the back with their arms crossed and their lips compressed to a thin line are wishing they COULD say.

The sad fact of the matter is that I really believe what these teachers really care about is their own security and comfort level. As teachers, we may have gone to college and earned our diploma, but most of us did this before the digital age. Perhaps we need to revisit our assumptions of what college still is before we close our minds to the possibilities of the Internet. To imply that a tecaher who lives in the relative seclusion of education can say with any amount of accuracy what busness truly values is, I think, overestimating our own knowledge.

I do not want to appear to be bashing these teachers. There is a time and a place for lecture and traditional teaching methodology, but those should no longer be the only thing offered to students. Most teachers received their education in high schools built to prepare the majority of our population for either college, if you were in the advanced classes, or a 40-hour a week factory job. Factory jobs no longer exist in abundance, and yet our educational system plods along as it always has. Those who have the aptitude for college move forward and succeed if they have the desire to do so; But a growing number of students graduate with no skills whatsoever in the workplace, and these students have been taught with the methods teachers who refuse to use technology so strongly defend. I recall a recent training seminar where a teacher who was visibly upset stated how what she had done for her students had worked for years and she had taught many successful students. If there was less success by students now, it was simply because they did not try as hard. While I tried to convey a sense of calm, a second teacher interrupted and asked the angry teacher what she would do if she was dismissed tommorow. What skills did she have? Where would she work? There was a growing quiet in the room as no one said anything. Then the second teacher stated, “If you have no answer, how do your students feel? And why would you want to pass on your inability to work anywhere else today to your students?” It was quite a harsh exchange, and yet I believe the point is valid.

Perhaps, it’s time we all open our minds, and as Mr. Richardson points out, begin to utilize the technology at our fingertips to reach all of our students and llow them to learn and create their “digital footprints”. It may not always be comfortable for us, but we owe it to them. If we don’t change something, we will continue to produce students who are ill-prepared to enter a workplace with a growing dependence on technology.

Students do have an opinion about how they are taught and how they best learn, and they don’t always involve the statement, “Just don’t assign homework.” The following podcast was recorded at the Open Minds Conference in Indianapolis, IN on September 26th. Seven students from my English classroom at New Palestine High School answered questions concerning their experiences in a 1:1 environment and how that environment affects them both positively and negatively.

Please excuse the quality of the sound bytes, as they were edited in a hurry by someone (me) who is just learning to sue Audacity.

Student answers a question about the drawback of finishing work too quickly: 1st-question

Students respond to how the learning environment changes in 1:1 classrooms: student-response

A student discusses why teachers are still important: learn-the-best

Students compare traditional methods to technological methods witha warning: balance

Students answer a question about the middle level student in a 1:1 environment: middle-level-student

A student responds to the future of computers in the classroom: future

A second response about the future of computers in the classroom: future2

I think these young people did a phenomenal job of answering questions in front of a large group for the first time. Not only did many of their answers affirm what many of us implementin g technology into the classroom do and make our work worthwhile, but throughout the presentation you clearly hear the challenge they put forth to educators to begin to match the expectations they will have to face concerning technology after high school.

Well, according to my personal beliefs and this article at http:/openeducation.net, pretty much everything. This is a view I have long espoused to my students and their parents, surprisingly to their chagrin. It has increasingly been my experience that people do not want to hear that they have control over what happens o them. They would prefer to chalk up their failures to the government, the schools, or mom and dad. Sometimes, when talking with these people, i feel like I am watching a bad reproduction of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo screams “Then I defy you stars….” implying fate has dealt him a dirty hand, all the while refusing to acknowledge the fact that he did, in fact, marry Juliet without their parents’ consent. Of course, this only skirts the real problem as it was Romeo’s choice to kill her cousin Tybalt even when the law would have taken care of the punishment on its own.

When I think of this issue in education, I always think back to Paul Koch’s brilliant book Doomed to Fail . It makes the extremely valid point that of all “enlightened” countries, only America seems to believe that the person most responsible for the learning of the child is…..the teacher. It may seem like I am putting into practice the exact trait that I am currently arguing against, a so-called passing of the buck. I can only disagree in the sense that a child’s failure to learn is partially my responsibility. I did not find the best method to help them learn or the correct motivational techniques, but then again, if the child set out to learn in the first place, would they really need motivated?

In considering this, I am once again inclined to think about the metaphor of the doctor from my previous post. There are professions where the professional can only do so much, but the onus for change and commitment rests solely with the patient. The sonner America comes to grips with that, the better off we will be.

In order to change up a little, I have some random thoughts I have been considering:

1) Is there any better display of what America’s priorities are than the bailout? Wall Street begins to crash, banks fail, and the economy begins to dry up and we commit 700 billion dollars to saving it. Our schools are in jeopardy, and we get an unfunded initiative like No Child Left Behind.

2) Before I took this job, I went to great lengths to stay off the Internet other than with my students. Now, you can follow me on Plurk which is sort of like Twitter, only different. Why the change? I keep asking myself that very question.

3) Why is it that when my cell phone rings, it is always in the other room?

4) I would like to see the coyote catch the Road Runner…..once.

5) I have come to discover that when teaching, some of our worst days are better than most people’s best days.

6) I don’t fail. I systematically test all the ways not to succeed so I can be sure of my course of action.

Right this moment, I am attempting to critique two classroom management systems which I believe are somewhat new, Quia and LAMS. Both sites are very interesting and seek to improve upon the classroom management systems such as Moodle and Blackboard. The one apsect that truly stands out about these systems is the unbelievable interactivity they afford students in the classroom. They really underline the length to which our society and they way people can interact have changed.

The thing that torubles me, though, is the utilization of this technology. I can remember first beginning to use Moodle in the classroom. Two other teachers piloted this effort with me through an InAccess grant. I was immediately a fan of the students’ ability to message one another even if it was not instantaneous. My two collegues felt quite differently. They wanted the message feature turned off right away, believeing that it led to cheating and students who were inattentive to the classroom. Of course, they have a legitimate concern. Students with freedom will sometimes choose to “tune out”, and while I can’t say that is a good thing, I can definately say that “tuning out” is an indictment of what is going on in the classroom. If the student does not care about what the teacher is teaching, then the tecaher needs to connect it to their life. In order to do that, we need to utilize the technologies students use in order to communicate, which takes us right back to the central problem; Students utilizing the technology to do something other than what the teacher is instructing.

So, is it better to control your environment and block out these technologies, or is it better to open up these tools and instruct students to use them correctly and responsibly? I know where I stand, I’m just wondering where everyone else stands.

I just read an article about beginning to assess teachers by student performance. This country and its politicians never cease to amaze me. When standardized testing first started, teachers were assured that these assessments would not be used to measure performance. After all, that would be ridiculous, right? Assessing one person based off of how another person performs? Let’s see how this works in the real world, since every time teachers complain about this we get the handy statement that we simpyl don’t work and “those who can’t teach” (good one, by the way–Very original, if teachers helped you imagine that one, we deserve to lambasted).

In the context of the medical field:

“Dr. Stevens, thanks for coming to see me today.”

“It’s no problem Administrator Johnson, anything I can do to clear up this situation I am willing to do.”

“Well, that’s just it Dr. Stevens. You’re fired. Furthermore, your license is being revoked.”

(Standing Aghast) “Why?!? What have I done?”

“Well, it’s very simple. Over the last three years you have lost over 100 patients. We can’t have you failing at that kind of rate. It simply is not good for our hospital’s image.”

“But, many of those patients were old and died of natural causes. And some were terminal before I ever saw them. The disease had progressed too far.”

“I appreciate your disappointment, but the facts are the facts. Take the Robinson case from yesterday….”

“I have been telling Mr. Robinson for five years that he needed to stop smoking and start eating better or he risked cardio-pulminary failure. In fact, I wrote him a prescription for medication for his blood pressure last year and he refused to take it. You can’t hold me accountable for the patient’s lack of action on his own behalf!”

“Of course we can. If you were a good doctor you would have explained things in such a way as to make sure your patient heeded your advice and did everything necessary to extend his life. You know, in every patient there is a healthy person who just wants to be set free.”

“What do I do now? Where do I go? Being a physician was my life!”

“Don’t lose hope, Stevens. You could still teach. You know what they say….”

OK, so this is a little over-the-top, but my point remains the same. America, in all her substantial glory, is at serious risk. Just as I stated that we were holding kids back by our actions concerning technology, we are also holding them back by stating that a teacher is responsible for their learning. I have had both skillful and not-so-skillful teachers in the past. Ultimately, I could still learn though because it was my desire to do so. Only in America do we point at parents, teachers, and society for the failure of students.

We fail students in that we imbed the idea that they do not “own” their failures. Someone else does. Compared to other nations who have “passed” us in the education of their population, this becomes even more clear. In Japan, students who do not pass the national test given at certain grade levels are not permitted to move forward and are instead re-directed to trade schools. Sound sharsh, but keep in mind that these trade schools are more difficult than the average high school classroom because the students are simply expected to learn.

Why is this important? Well, our current economic situation is a direct reflection of this “It’s everybody else’s fault” mentality. For 20 years people have been warning of an impending credit crisis as we rapidly approached the point where the cumulative debt of the people of this nation nearly matches the gross income. Of course, our government has not been a good model, racking up trillion of dollars of debt themselves (which is also ours, so we’re pretty much screwed), and yet very few people have curbed their spending. In fact, we have increased the rate at which we use credit. America as a whole is repsonsible for this problem, not just the politicians, investors and bankers. Seriously, it never occured to anyone that 0% down on a house could be just a little shaky?

Again, I digress (why not, it’s one of my favorite things), but my point is this; Personal responsibility has got to become a priority in this country once again! Blaming teachers for the failure of students doesn’t make sense. We can evaluate teachers on a number of criteria, and I think it’s important we begin to define those criteria and revamp them to the needs of today’s students soon, but we simply cannot look at students performance, particularly on a standardized test, to assess teachers. It just doesn’t work.

No, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go fire my dietitian as I have gained five pounds the past week….

after I eat these two foot-long chili-cheese hot dogs and loaded french fries.

I get this questions quite a bit. Whenever I tell people I am a tecaher, they immediately puff out their bottom lip, and adopt the half-lidded sympathy eyes and quickly express “I don’t know how you do it.” They quickly follow up their display with the words, “What is wrong with kids today?”

My answer is simple; Nothing. There is nothing wrong with kids today. They are fine….in fact, they would be great if we didn’t stand in their way. As a society, we put every possible hindrance into their path to keep them from accomplishing their goals. Further, we try to reprogram them to make their goals more like ours.

It’s really quite funny. Look at the current situation in our economy. Kids today didn’t create these problems. We did. The adults. Those of US who seem to think we know better than THEY do. Now, THEY are going to have to clean up OUR problems. Think that’s overstating it? I don’t.

Yesterday, I spent the day at a conference where the focus was how to make technology useful in the classroom. We showed teachers wikis, blogs, podcasts and other assorted activities that would change the way tecahers tecah and students learn. The general consensus at the end of the session was that none of these thigns were useful. Seriously! 10,000 podcasts published every day…..100,000 YouTube videos….and teachers can’t think of a single use for them?

Now, I admit, there are some aspects of technology that are still too rough. Why people continue to post pictures of themselves drinking, partying, and half-clothed on MySpeace is beyond me. I mean, you do realize that the first thing admissions and employers do when they hear about you is Google you, right? That means, if your MySpace page pops up, that will be the impression they get of you. Is that the image you really want to project? Oh well, I digress. The point is that schools everywhere are blocking students from accessing these tools rather than teaching students how to use them responsibly and effectively all because of fear of what the student might do. It’s sort of like not teaching a child to swim because they could drown in the water. Well, what the heck happens if that child ends up in the water anyway?

It simply seems to me that a school should strive to prepare its students for what they will be doing in the future, not preventing them from using those tools? Am I alone in this? Have I finally lost my mind (in as much as I ever had one to lose)? I guess I am going to put those questions to you and see what you think. What should teachers be doing with technology today and how much access should students have?

is probably the beginning. I have been saying for three years that I need to start blogging and give my students another vehicle for reaching me, communicating with me, and keep in touch. Unfortunately, I procrastinate and procrastinate, and at times, even procrastinate about procrastinating. Therefore, I have been extremely lax in venturing into the blogosphere. Now that I am spending a year away from school, travelling around the state and trying to assist teachers, I realize that the best way for students to keep in contact is to set up a blog. So here I am!

If you’ve had me in class, or simply have a question you want to ask. Fire away! I will be sure to try and respond!