ProfessorTOSA Blog

The holidays were wonderful. Not only was I able to get out of my routine of clicking and typing for some much needed family time and some well received gift taking, I was also able to put my computers away and power down for a while. Two weeks was a perfect duration to relax. My wife, daughter, dog and I drove ourselves all over, doing the rounds with all of our family units and we made a special trip to Prescott, Arizona, to see my wife’s “Papa” and enjoy the high desert in this chilly time of year. What a wonderful excursion this turned out to be for my family and my work.

Prescott, especially at this time of year, is cold. It sits relatively high above the nearby desert and has trees, livestock, history, and no wireless, or at least not within my computer’s range. I hiked, watched my daughter ride a horse, fed chickens, and shot skeet! I felt rather rugged in the outdoors and found myself very comfortable without the conveniences of technology that I usually enjoy and praise loudly like a gospel. It was wonderful, blissful really, and without my computer I was able to gain the perspective of those who don’t use technology or dismiss it as a convenience or simply a blip on the course of the educational pendulum’s swing. For those five days, I didn’t miss my internet one bit, nor did I wonder who emailed me. I was immersed in hikes and televised football and a computer just wouldn’t have made my stay any more enjoyable.

Prescott isn’t my new home, however, and becoming cognicent of this tech-sobriety, I took the opportunity to speak on the topic with my uncle Bob who worked for an eternity as a principal and outstanding administrator in various areas of Arizona. Uncle Bob is now retired and likely classifies himself as tech capable and certainly not pushing the envelope any further in the area of educational technology. Years ago (15 likely), however, Bob was pushing his district to become conversant in the technology of that day and to get his teachers comfortable using the advancements of that time to better prepare their students for the future. This interested me and our conversation went on a while detailing the programs he became involved in, some of the stumbling points and successes, as well as the phenomenal success the program eventually had. But what I found most interesting was when he described the hesitation by his teachers to accept this opportunity for growth. As Bob spoke, fifteen years has passed since his story had taken place and I realized that the same basic apprehension still applies in our classrooms today. He may as well been speaking about the internet and podcasting instead of rudimentary programing exercises and typing, because the challenges of his job more than a decade previous, were the same as they are now for me. Certainly the technology had changed drastically over the years, but it’s the effort to motivate educators that is the most static and the most concerning and frustrating to me. Although I understood the appeal of “powering-down” and enjoying a life without my digital influence, I was having trouble viewing my position and efforts favorably if after years of work nothing was going to change? How should I feel if the outcome of my assignment was failure based on the apprehension of my peers to trying new things.

My answers have since come in the form of simple acceptance (the final phase of grieving) and I feel much better and markedly more motivated. After speaking to my uncle and after my five days of walking in non-technical shoes I realized a few things, but the most important being that there is little that teachers wouldn’t do to see their students succeed and to prepare them for their future. It’s true, although I often find it hard to see this global picture due to my focused position. Especially within the district I work, no short cuts are taken and no energy is reserved for life out of the classroom. Teachers work tirelessly to refine their instruction and plan their instructional minutes and all the while requirements are continually added, their work tirelessly assessed, and their achievement generally unnoticed. Having been a classroom teacher only months ago, I understand this. Furthermore, in terms of tech integration, I understand that proficiency in technology takes effort and then even more understanding to best correlate those skills with the curriculum. But knowing these things about tech integration and also by having an appreciation for the bliss that can come from “powering down” and living “tech-free,” doesn’t change the advancement of technology. Rather, as scientists speculate, technology is likely to grow a billion times more powerful in the coming ten years. And so how does my techless-living realization and my appreciation for my colleagues’ workload fit in? Well, it doesn’t.

Imagine, in ten years, classrooms will be wired much differently, textbooks will be digital and student access to information will be near limitless. A very modest imagination can create a future in which our world does business globally, communication is effortless to anywhere in the world, and information is readily available from any point on the planet through hand-held super computers. Our future will be tremendous whether we approve or not and so it doesn’t make sense to prepare our students for a future that looks like the past anymore. If we continue to greet progress with hesitation there will be a day where change is no longer an option. We need to learn the language of technology before we no longer can communicate and learn with our kids. If we don’t speak the dialect of our kids, we have little to offer them as educators and we become obsolete – illiterate.

And so my vacation, although peaceful, proved to stir up some professional clarity as well. Indeed, I do see all the sides to this great debate of progress in our world, but frankly I don’t think global perspective helps much anymore, things are moving too fast. Rather, as educators, we need to bite off what we can and let our kids teach us. This will be the only way to collaboratively shape our future and best prepare our kids for their lives in this world where hesitation towards change doesn’t exist and creative forward thinking is praised.