I can’t SEE it
I can’t see 3D movies. I mean actually, physically will never be able to make the neuro-messages from my two eyes converge into a three-dimensional experience. As far as I know from talking to ophthalmologists for decades, there is nothing in current medicine that will change this.
As I read all the hype about Avatar in 3D and the possibility of 3D television and more and more 3D movies in theaters, I am downright resentful. How dare they leave me behind as someone who will not be able to see any movie or show projected or broadcast in this fuzzy new medium? Don’t they know there are people like me who will be abandoned as lost?
My reaction bears a strong resemblance to some we as teachers and/or technology “leaders” may have passed by as we jog ahead. Learning support students have always felt abandoned and resentful during lessons taught through means they cannot “see.” When the faddish, highly patterned posters with hidden images first came out over a decade ago, some of us could not force our eyes to decipher the hidden images. My most empathetic teaching colleagues finally understood how their LD students felt and changed their lessons to include multiple approaches to concepts. Just as those posters were not the only things available to hang on the wall, however, finding other options for teaching was similarly easy.
Now , with people marveling at Avatar and promoting the prospect of ubiquitous 3D, I am experiencing my first near-terror at technology “progress.” For the first time in my tech-loving life, I am not an early adopter. I am negative and angry that I could be considered “challenged.” I do not know of a way to “fix” it and am secretly afraid that NOT welcoming 3D will make me less of a an innovator-teacher-communicator. I don’t want to be the old person who doesn’t try the new thing. This is not my role, and I resent being pushed aside.
pause for Aha moment
THIS must be the way some teachers feel as technovations beyond their vision whizz through their worlds like hummingbirds on steroids.
I have the luxury of time to play and commitment to make the effort with every new technology, always excited to figure out how it could fit into learning. Like many edtech leaders and willing educators, I continue to add, adopt, adapt, and build my PLN with new tools. In two years, Twitter has cycled from a curiosity to a regular part of my day/week. The difference between my initial Twitter reaction and my 3D reaction is that I can’t see 3D.
If teachers truly believe that they are similarly hampered, organically or logistically, they must be feeling the same resentment and embarrassment. Can’t See It empathy must be part of planning for all of us who lead and teach our fellow educators, even those who simply teach alongside a peer in a similar panic.
I know I have written about the issues of technology adoption, fear, and teachers’ professional obligation to grow and change before. But now I am living Can’t See it, and the intensity of my reaction is the perfect fuel to do my job better.
[…] Think Like a Teacher » I can’t SEE it blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2010/01/14/i-cant-see-it – view page – cached Filed under: about me, edtech, education, learning, personal learning network, teaching — Candace Hackett Shively @ 11:24 am […]
Pingback by Twitter Trackbacks for Think Like a Teacher » I can’t SEE it [teachersfirst.com] on Topsy.com — January 14, 2010 @ 8:48 pm
So, why cant you see it? You failed to convince me, as an open minded reader, of any problem with the new form of media, because you failed to explain your “disability”.
Comment by Andy — January 19, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
Andy,
Without getting into the medical reasons, trust me that my eyes do not “converge” into the necessary signals to allow my brain to “see” in 3 dimensions. The result is that all I see is a flat and fuzzy image with a tint to one color (whichever one is supposed to be in your left lens of the 3D glasses).
Comment by Candace Hackett Shively — January 19, 2010 @ 7:13 pm