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.
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