You Better Keep Up!

…You better not cry. You better not pout; I’m telling you why…

Photo by Geekstinkbreath

So you’ve been teaching math, grade 4, or [insert specialty here] for many years, keeping up with best practices and trying your best to make your lessons relevant to your students’ lives. You’ve been considered a good, caring and hard working teacher; kids love you …but lately, you see a new trend developing. Studies are showing that students are not being prepared for the future and schools need to change the way learning is happening. As this trend gains momentum, you start to worry: is your job going to be affected?

Let’s imagine, for the sake of argument, that this new learning involves speaking Chinese. (Bear with me.) That’s right, futurists are predicting that half the business, commerce and communication in the world will be done in standard Mandarin in less than 20 years. Anyone involved in manufacturing, finance, medicine, science…pretty much all higher education careers, will need to be able to communicate in Mandarin to be successful. The experts say that having pocket translators will not cut it since workers of the future will have to understand the language automatically to work quickly and efficiently, and will also require familiarity with etiquette and be culturally sensitive. But that is not all! Pedagogical brain science has demonstrated that the best way to teach a language is to integrate it across the curriculum. That’s right, as a science teacher you will need to find a way to teach your student the Mandarin vocabulary of your subject. In math, students should be able to use Mandarin to expain how they solve equations. Grade 4 teachers will need to integrate Chinese culture and language into the core subjects, such as social studies and language arts.

“Wait one cotton picking minute!” you protest. I never signed up for this when I got my teaching certificate ‘x’ number of years ago. I specialized in [math], I love teaching [math], and I believe my focus should remain on teaching [math] skills and content. If they want students to learn Mandarin, they need to give a separate language class. Tsk tsk – you hear back. Look at all the young teachers graduating from teacher’s college these days; they’ve been studying Mandarin and are already conversant. They’re not complaining about integrating Chinese in their classes. And what about all your colleagues who saw the signs and have been practicing Mandarin on their own or using their PD money to take intensive courses during their summer break? They love practicing with each other in the teachers’ lounge, carrying around the latest Beijing Daily. And then one day your principal gives you the new ISME-NEMS (International Society for Mandarin Education – National Educational Mandarin Standards) and mandates that you post them in your classroom. Oh, and could you include one of these standards in your professinal goals for the year? Next you hear that your school has just hired a new ‘Mandarin integrator’ that will meet with your grade level or subject team once a month, look over the curriculum and make suggestions as to how you could be integrating this foreign language into your teaching. Fed up with the way things are gong you think: maybe I’ll just go teach in a more ‘traditional’ school but a quick check online shows you that most job descriptions posted these days are starting to add ‘enthusiastic Mandarin integrator’ to the lists of qualifications.

This Mandarin I know!

I know by now you realize the analogy I’ve been trying to build. I decided to do this for two reasons. First, I realized that being part of CoETaIL can make you, well, hmm, a bit… techno-centric. Don’t get me wrong – I love connecting with folks who are just as excited as I am about the possibilities of technology & education. I can talk for hours on end about how Google & DropBox are already changing the classroom, the way students interact, and the endless possibilities of streamlining … well, everything! But being constantly immersed in a digital world can create blinders on self-proclaimed geeks – blinders that make us forget that not everyone understands or agrees with you. Or worse, we lose respect for those who aren’t keeping up with us. Having a righteous attitude about educational technology will not win over the people who need your help the most. Not everyone takes to computers just as some folks don’t take to foreign languages. Not everyone can be comfortable at a keyboard. Not everyone likes computers! I’m not saying they don’t need to try and give it an honest go; however, even when trying your best you might require a lot of help.

The second reason I concocted the ISME-NEMS story was that I had to answer the question: Who’s job is it to teach the NETs standards to students? I used to think – boy do I feel silly now – that tech facilitators, IT folks and maybe the librarian were primarily responsible for this, but a week of reading documents through and through set me straight. No matter which section you look at, the responsibility always falls squarely on the classroom teachers’ shoulders. Just look at the NETS for Teachers section on modeling digital-age work and learning that teachers are expected to: “…demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations”and that’s just one of the many bulleted points. Even the TDSB ICT Standards that we are looking to for inspiration at SSIS, are heavily reliant on teachers to be the ‘technology experts’ responsible to deliver the tech skills our students need. (Yes they are guided by the ISTE NETS, but we liked their document’s organization because it was efficient and user friendly for non-tech teachers.)

Every school differs in the amount of technology available, but among educators, tech skills & training vary even more. At my school, there are teachers who struggle with basic skills I take for granted, such as saving files, uploading photos, or using MS Word’s formatting options. Other teachers are so far ahead of the game they lead workshops at tech conferences. Yet we expect all their students to be learning and applying tech skills in their classes. In the elementary, we don’t have an educational technologist (a.k.a.  tech teacher, tech coach, tech facilitator, tech integrator, etc…) yet, so at the moment, the amount of tech skills students learn depends largely on whose classroom they are assigned to at the beginning of the year.

But wait, you say, aren’t  there NETS for Administrators to help address teacher development and promote professional learning? You are correct. In fact it states that administrators are expected to:

Is this happening at your school? If so how? It clearly states that we need to train the teachers who are responsible for teaching the students? We are all aware that accountability and decision making trickles down from the top. Did you notice that the latest NETS for students came out in 2007; the teachers’ version in 2008; and the administrators’ in 2009. Isn’t it ironic?

But never despair, you say. Schools can hire a tech facilitator to smooth out the uneven distribution of digital savvy and take some of the burden off teachers’ plates (read, teach some of the tech skills to the students) or at least ease them into the role. Well, reading the fine print on the ISTE site reveals that when they refreshed the NCATE ‘Technology Facilitation Standards‘ they changed “Technology Facilitator” to Coaches because as they explained “ISTE is considering changing the name of the Technology Facilitation Standards to NETS for Coaches to reflect the broader scope of responsibilities for working with teachers” which basically ensures the burden is shifted to the teachers.

Reading this you might be wondering what stance I take on the whole thing. Is she pro-teachers becoming digitally literate or is she saying they have enough to teach and keep up with without having another chunk of expectations thrown at them? Oh, I am definitely for teachers becoming more technologically proficient. I am positive that everyone will benefit from this. However, I do think we are in a period of transitions [ISTE likened it to transitioning from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age - which I found more than a bit insulting to my hard working non-tech savvy colleagues who might do brilliant stuff without cutting edge technology] that is exciting for some but terrifying for others. Before schools can expect teachers to effortlessly integrate the best practices of technology integration they need to give support and training, which includes an educational technologist – a person who will treat educators with respect – even the ones who hide under their desk if a tech coach walks into their class, get tongue tied  when students ask the difference between a jpg and a bmp, or are feeling less than collaborative when you join their team meetings.

The good news is that learning basic computer skills should be easier than becoming fluent in Mandarin. At this point in time, a quick look at some technology integration exemplars shows that if teachers at least learn how to use Microsoft Office Word & Powerpoint, as well as uploading images from a digital camera, the Internet and a scanner, they would be proficient in 50% of what is ‘expected’ at this point and time. I believe it is possible to make this happen. I was really inspired by the mapping out (see below) of the role of an Educational Technologist by Drea Marks.

But knowing how to use or teach your students some technology is only part of the job. The real challenge rests in the integration of tech tools into the curriculum in such a way that it enhances learning (but that’s another post altogether).

One day, if I’m lucky, I might be in a position to support teachers as an educational technologist. I hope I will be able to put myself in their shoes – no matter how far along they are on the spectrum of digital literacy. I don’t expect unbridled enthusiasm from every one, but I hope to be seen as a facilitator (no matter what the title I’m given) rather than a threat.

If you were kind enough, and patient enough, to read all the way to the end of this post I believe you deserve a treat! Here’s my one of my favorite songs by Alanis Morissette called ‘Excuses’ which we can all learn from. Here’s to getting past the ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ and start focusing on the positive!