Gavin Bristol in 1999 as Odysseus in a Meadow Park Middle School 7th grade languages arts class presentation of
The Odyssey
by Homer
Two articles in today's NYT offer some insights into the challenges lying ahead of a universal education reform:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/screen-time-higher-than-ever-for-children-study-finds.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
2. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/23/us/poverty-in-the-suburbs.html
Access to technology, especially in public schools, is contributing to the American (world?) socio-economic chasm (personified in the “Occupy” camps).
Like a lot of writing teachers, I was already comfortable in my methods when the arrival of the Commodore computer changed the whole process of “revision” for kids. I had to learn and change, and I noticed early on that kids from more affluent families were already comfortable with floppy disks and DOS commands.
As technology became more available in schools, it became apparent that some students already had mastered much of what we were learning. The rest of us, often including me, were dependent on the kids who had the software and hardware at home.
Being human, kids were selective about who would be helped. Teachers were frequently hostage to their own students' technology expertise.
I began my teaching career in the '80's, as an old “Spanky, Alfalfa, and Darla” English/drama guy: Write-yer-own-script, make-yer-own-costumes and use-what-you-already-have to put your best show out in front of people. The advent of the desktop video editing was a paradigm shift for my literature classes—now we could make movies, which played very well with seventh graders...(Example project: We made “The Odyssey” with 120 kids and teachers...whew.)
All of this sounds wonderful except I “earned” myself a job as the video production teacher at Oregon's then-largest high school, charged with the job of converting a small analog studio that served 8-9 kids into a digital classroom that housed 35 students at a time (in a very limited space). I started my year with four MacIntosh G-3's, each with 4 GB of hard drive.
All came with primitive editing software called Avid—not to be mistaken with the professional editing program. The ability to move clips and sound around so easily was amazing, but using that technology as a learning tool added a ton of work to my teaching load. A TON.
And, for some reason, the counselors at my new high school decided my media classes could serve freshmen through seniors simultaneously—we never discussed it but I was forced to create groups according to age and gender. Most teachers did not bear this burden. For equally nebulous reasons, these counselors would also assign repeat kids to a class they had just completed, so I would have them for two consecutive semesters...These were usually kids with special requirements and our program was able to accommodate them. I did not complain.
My personal challenge was to teach visual story telling, sound and lighting, shot composition, etc., to a wide range of kids with all sorts of interest...while using technology I didn't know much about. The technology support person at my new school was a recent graduate of the same high school, a bright and loyal kid who, unfortunately, never warmed up to me.
Time passed with a lot of struggles. Our department made movies for our administration as well as for other schools in school district, for local businesses like Shari's and Intel, ad for almost every sport in our school. Because of a parent's support, we had Dan Wieden from Wieden + Kennedy come to our school to speak to my classes.
And it took a while, but I got more equipment, developed some routines and learned some methodology. Significantly, the damn hard drives got bigger.
Most of my energy in my first three years as the video production teacher consisted of spending a lot of time after school and on weekends, making the computers accessible to the freshmen and less-assertive kids who were often pressured by "big kids" to give up their alloted time during the school day.
(A whole lot of what I did was time and equipment management. These days, I am able to block out memories of a lot of kids' bitter disappointment when they discovered, after hours of hard and passionate work, that some upperclassman had inconsiderately deleted their project to make room for a skateboard or girlfriend video.)
I shared these computers with three or four other teachers, often working in the same room simultaneously, but I was the only one using video--which was hard on the small processors' limited functions. The school technology support guy would get frustrated (and a little possessive) and, in the early going, would sometimes change our passwords without telling me at first.
I would discover during class that my teaching equipment was no longer available to me. If you have never taught, you are probably not able to imagine how frustrating that experience is. Fortunately it stopped after a few months, when the head principal understood the challenges of my job.
(Unfortunately, as soon as he retired, it began again. I was fired for insubordination soon after, in part for an embellished “outburst” about this situation. “Tech Kid” is now a head custodian for the same school district.)
My point is: As technology changes, affluent kids have access to new stuff at home and often find MORE access at school—because they already know how to use the stuff. I worked a lot of extra hours to compensate for not having enough equipment. I am sure that happens to others.
When the NYT tells us how much more time kids are spending on personal technology, we an be assured these are not the growing number of impoverished kids. When the NYT tells us that the number of kids who are poor in the suburbs is rocketing upward, we can deduce that the socio-economic/technology gap i suburban schools is widening.
My effort to teach ALL my students fairly with new technology resulted in unnecessary conflicts with a lot of people who earn education money but don't really understand what is happening holistically in classrooms. Good education is helping someone love to learn...he or she can take it from there.
Good education does not happen for everyone when class distinctions are being reinforced in schools.
The economic principal “Law of the Commons” teaches that, given a finite public space, our more affluent citizens will use more public resources because they inherently have greater needs: A farmer with forty sheep is going to use more of the common grazing ground than the farmer with four sheep.
So it is with public school and technology. A lot of good teachers have had to relearn their jobs for the public good and many of them have not been treated well because of this “Law of the Commons” effect...I am one.
As we go forward with education reform, we need to look at ways to re-design public schools to overcome this disparity in resources. Certainly we can turn existing facilities into (24-hr) computer labs that can be accessed by...the 99%.
www.teachingintheshadowoftheswoosh.blogspot.com
