"It's you, not me"

It’s people, not technology. “It’s people, not programs.” Both these statements, one my own, the other Tim Whitaker’s, go hand in hand. We, the people, have this undoubted belief that if we change the way of doing something by adding technology or implementing a new program, then everything changes for good. This usually works for a while and looks quite nice to everyone looking in from the outside but does this really create a lasting effect on our students?

Whitaker believes that if we “get better teachers” and “improve the teachers in the school” then we’ve got school improvement.

Higher Good Teachers + Improve the one’s you’ve got = Good School.

Could it really be that easy? It seems so, yet logically, this equation hasn’t been solved for most schools. Yes, programs and technology are great ways to create stronger education for students but if teachers and faculty aren’t trained properly to implement technology or programs, then eventually it will fall through the cracks. Today, we are surrounded by research, ideas, innovations and “secrets to good teaching” (open classroom). But no one uses these tools after they have written them down.

I wonder if evaluating teachers would force teachers to improve or bound them by rules/text books/limited ideas? I think this would weed out teachers who need improvement vs. teachers who are skilled at teaching. I don’t think teachers really know how to improve because it always seems like they are attacked and not guided. In other words, the new teacher evaluation hasn’t been introduced as:

“We think you’re being successful as you can be. We believe you have our students’ best interest at heart but we just want to see what areas they need more help in and what strengths you can use vs. things you can improve on to be clearer for your students”

Instead, it seems like we got this instead:

“Here is an evaluation. Students’ aren’t doing well enough compared to Finland, so if you don’t help them improve on state exams-you’re fired.”

This makes me believe more in the idea of “It’s the people, not the programs.” If those who are mandating program changes (state exams/evaluations) don’t change and see that state exams, evaluations, and other things they are trying to push on our students aren’t working, then they’re the ones that need changing.

The Educational Transformation

Collaboration; working together has long been taught to us in our younger years but once we finally grow up, the idea of collaborating and sharing ideas has been dismissed. The one place that it is important to collaborate is inside schools but that’s most likely the least place you’ll see it.

In the “WorldChanging” blog(http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006927.html), edubloggers and Suzie Boss collaborate to explain how teachers can reach out to the cyber world to help create greater connections while instilling project based learning in the classroom. After reading this blog, I thought about what I would do if I were placed in the unfortunate circumstance of working in a school with a lack of colleague collaboration.

Yes, not every school is down for collaboration but I believe every teacher should be prepared for the worse when first entering schools. We can’t always bet on being blessed on having great administration and fellow teachers to work with, therefore, why not collaborate with other peers who may or may not be in the same town let alone the same state?

This is where Web 2.0 technology comes into play. Transforming the teaching world may be simpler (in some aspects) than we think. Techniques like blogs wikispace, and podcasts are a few of many ways that teachers can collaborate with one another across boarders and continents. What stumps me is why teachers and administration have not embraced it all sooner? This is where isolation comes into place. Schools are now being mixed with teachers who have grown up with technological generation and teachers who have grown up with the traditional teaching techniques. Neither wants to teach one another and both don’t want to accept one another’s presence in the classroom.

Yes, I am part of the group that is being taught to teach using technology but that doesn’t mean I (we) must completely reject the traditional forms of teaching too. What use am I if I show a power point on a Smartboard? Is that really improving the learning experience for my students or is that sticking to the traditional form of teaching?

Like Roland Barth says, “If one day we educators could only disclose our rich craft knowledge to one another, we could transform our schools overnight”. In other words, in order to create an educational transformation, we must teach those who are cemented to the traditional forms of teaching, while at the same time, we must expect to learn things from them too.