Think Like a Teacher

A new school year provokes two conflicting impulses: to survive on the tried-and-true or to seize the chance to change. Teachers everywhere feel the push-me-pull-you of these two forces every fall (at least I know I did for 27 years).  This week I enjoyed reading about the changes one of our TeachersFirst review team members made. It got me thinking about the energy and courage required to change, especially in isolation. I am not sure anyone can go it alone.

A  base-runner deciding whether to go for another looks to a coach before changing his/her path (Little League world series in my mind…).  A widow or widower after the death of a life-long spouse must decide what to do the same way and what to change– and friends support them in the process. Middle schoolers decide where they sit for lunch on the first day of school: last year’s friends or new ones? They are steered by peers.

Where does a teacher get the support to change? For some risk-taker teachers, it happens every year, but they are most likely the minority. Risk-taking personalities don’t usually choose teaching as a career. For many, “change” is thrust upon them by the latest initiative from the top, leading to performance of the same script in a new costume, a teacher exercise in “let’s pretend.”

Teachers are usually left to find their own support if they elect to try changes. They use peers, online communities, resources from web sites, and their own inner strength to guide the decisions and test new ideas. The courage they show is heroic. No wonder so many turn away and choose to remain in safe sameness. One person has only a finite amount of energy, and this heroic effort is exhausting.

Pro-Keds (ROYAL COURT BOMP POP)Originally uploaded by linguistone

If I could wish teachers one thing as this new school year begins, it would be the smell of new sneakers and the jungle gym we had when we were seven: the feeling that we could jump higher and climb anything this first day of school. Being on the playground with so many others  AND my new sneakers made me feel safe enough to risk things I had never tried before.

Once again I find myself (as TeachersFirst editor) and our entire web site playing the role of a utensil, in this case a sifter. We just completed a “chunk” of new content for the site on Internet filtering in schools: Sifting Through the Filters. Why? because we see a need to help “sift” the information about filtering into a teacher’s context and experience, perhaps providing ways for teachers to open dialog about it “within the system” they deal with daily. I especially like the section on “Key Issues About Filtering” for providing a variety of perspectives. I hope it will help some folks who are trying to make changes to the way their students learn.

I don’t think any topic was more vehemently discussed by frustrated educators at the Princeton conference, NECC, and TF’s most recent advisory board meeting than filtering. But I rarely hear any “average” teacher do more than express frustration and  occasional confusion about web filters and why they seem to do everything except HELP students learn wise use of the web. Some teachers erroneously believe that the filters will prevent any “bad” stuff from entering their classrooms. Others simply have no idea what the tech magicians behind the curtains do or think in setting up this “filter” and how it blocks certain content. Just about every savvy teacher has encountered the dowsing of fired-up lesson plans that comes from finding a terrific site at home on Sunday night, then discovering (in front of 30 itchy sixth graders) that it is inaccessible in school. Shame on them for not checking, but come on…sometimes we get so busy we forget.

I hope TeachersFirst’s role as a utensil is exactly that: useful, practical, and accessible. We know our audience pretty well: willing teachers who may or may not be “cooks” with technology on their own but who constantly seek new recipes and who learn from each time they cook up a new way to use technology as a learning tool. We do not seek to inspire the most chic technology chef, but we know our utensils well. And we know good technology cooking. Eventually anyone can create a master recipe with the right utensils and some practice.

Bon appetit! I’d love to hear your reviews of this new utensil.

I can’t help thinking that perhaps “quarantine” denotes disease instead of wellness, and therefore Scott McLeod may have chosen the wrong word. Nevertheless, his advocacy for an ed tech “quarantine” to sort out meaningful technology innovations from the latest “tech toys” is dead on.

I note with some humor that my busy life prevented me from READING his post for 6 weeks, but such is the speed and volume of technology. No RSS reader can really allow me to “catch up” or “stay abreast.” Time is often my ed tech quarantine.

But back to the concept: Teachers don’t have time to play with toys– ANY toys, including the latest way to twit, tweet, snick, bleat, or whatever a developer in Romania or the Bay Area calls its latest doo-dad. But there are early adopters willing to waste a Friday night figuring them out and ready to come into school Monday morning after redesigning an entire marking period’s goals to use the innovative tool so intriguing. Without the adventurers, we would still eat library paste and chalkdust.

Scott’s commenters add dimension to the concept, including the need to include practicing teachers, even students into the “quarantine” process to figure out if/how/under what circumstances the tool might actually be useful for learning. I regularly look for these people to join the TeachersFirst Edge team: to play, review, and imagine with new tools. They experiment, imagine how the tools might fit into their classroom context (these are “real teachers,” after all), and add the dimension of managing within the dreaded school policies and filtering. In the end, the review process takes time- a temporal “quarantine” before a TeachersFirst Edge review appears. Does the TF Edge review process meet Scott’s specifications for the quarantine and the additional recommendations of his commenters?

Pilot-test-experiment? Yup.

Identify mainstream uses? Yup.

Pilot-test-experiment again? Yes, some. Sometimes by sharing a useful example as part of the review.

Identify best ways to train/introduce staff? Well, we assume that our teacher-friendly way works at least with the willing followers who come to us as a trusted source (yes- we still “push out” info…). We could do better here.

Include students? Sometimes, depending on the reviewer. Would LOVE to do more!

Translation into language that makes sense to teachers? Absolutely.

Answer essential questions:

Why should I do it, is it worth it? (What is the benefit to me and to my students?)
Can I do it? (Where do I use it and how do I use it?)

Definitely! 

Sure, even the Edge team is occasionally guilty of getting too excited too fast. Our mistakes are marvelously balanced by the financial realities that make both good and bad web tools disappear just as we become excited. I always figure that’s our reminder that our TF Edge “quarantine” will never be the panacea for moving education forward, just another positive force.

Anybody who would like to join our disease-free quarantine will contact me, I hope. Think of the TeachersFirst Edge as an edtech petri dish, allowing ideas to grow in a healthy lab setting.