The Lazy Teacher False Dichotomy

Are we doing what is best for our students, or are we doing what is most convenient for us?

This question was recently raised by Scott McLeod at the blog Dangerously Irrelevant (side bar, I had to look up the meaning of the blog title and was interested at the response:   Our intelligence tends to produce technological and social change at a rate faster than our institutions and emotions can cope with. . . . We therefore find ourselves continually trying to accommodate new realities within inappropriate existing institutions, and trying to think about those new realities in traditional but sometimes dangerously irrelevant terms. (War: The Lethal Custom, p. 441). 

I can't say that I was surprised by either the question or many of the responses.

Why blame the teachers?  That is always the easiest path and interestingly one typically taken by the parents and the politicians; the two groups that rarely get examined yet have an equal stake in our student success.  I haven't met a teacher yet who goes into the job for the easy paycheck and yet, we are constantly arguing over tenure for those horrid old ninnies we can't get out of the schools and pay for performance testing to weed out the slackers.  This kind of questioning feels like education's answer to reality television.  It has little to do with real student outcomes but is so distracting that we seem to forget to focus on the real issues. 

They dont have enough at their disposal, they aren't paid well, they are at times ill-supported, they have tough goals yet we seem to hold only them up to the light.  Why not consider the students and who they are when they come to the teachers.

An interesting video from Kansas State begins that conversation, it is called A Vision of Students Today and you may have seen it already.  If not, it is worth a few minutes.  This video, along with another one, called Iowa, Did You Know? both examine what kinds students and life situations these students are facing these days. 

How can we really know if we are doing what is best for our students if we do not know who they are and attempt to meet them within their comfort zone?  How are we preparing them to be competitive and to move society forward if we are always meeting our students in their comfort zone?

Our students crave challenges and yes, some teachers do not create those environements for them.  I would like to think that is more due to a stringency of expectations from policy makers and administrators than it is from lazy teachers.  I also think our teachers' hands can be very tied to create robust learning environments when they are presented with ill-fed, ill-mannered, ill-prepared students.  Whose fault is it that they come to schools this way and why should the onus lie with the teacher to be their savior?

Technology as the Newest Fronteir for Education and Freedom

fron·tier (frn-tîr, frn-, frntîr, frn-)

n.

1. An international border.

2. A region just beyond or at the edge of a settled area.

3. An undeveloped area or field for discovery or research

That education has a unique power to transform a person's life seems to be a universally held belief.  Yet, we as a culture and society continue to question how best an education might be achieved or imparted upon a person. To someone who has spent the majority of her life embedded within the American educational system as a student, educator or administrator, it has always baffled me that we seem so lost in this pursuit.   While research, history and common sense all dictate the importance of education on societal gains, Education (capital E) hasn't been made a national priority for quite some time.  Why? 

When faced with such an important question, I find it helpful to consult some leading thinkers on the matter.  Below are a few of my findings:

“To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.”

- Paulo Freire

“To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

- E. E. Cummings

"The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone would be interdependent."
— John Dewey

"The most extraordinary thing about a really good teacher is that he or she transcends accepted educational methods."
— Margaret Mead

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
— Rudyard Kipling

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others."

- Matthew 5:14-16

Upon consulting some of the great historical voices on the matter, a few thoughts bubble to the surface.

1) Education and freedom are interdependent
2) To see something unjust but do nothing about it is ridiculous
3) It is a rebellious thing to want to improve the lives of yourself and others
4) Uniqueness and/or self-discovery are worth the lonliness they might create
4) Society would rather you shut up, do what you're told and eat a cookie

I clearly have strong feelings on the matter.  I am fascinated by the current state of our educational systems because of the aforementioned reasons but also because we seem to find ourselves in a very distracting historical time frame.  The question of the teacher's place in society is difficult enough under normal circumstances.  When brought up at the "dawn of a new fronteir" when new technology is available in just about every form, the heart of what it means to educate feels murky at best. 


Are we just distracting ourselves from the meat of education in America with a multitude of new ways to "improve" and "succeed" or is this the beginning of a Rennaissance in educational reform?