Teacher, Itβs Time to Happily Lose Your Job
by Guy E. White on 19 February, 2015
Teaching like it’s a pre-cellphone world should be illegal.
Once upon a time, a teacher handed me a book. I read that book and found out a bunch of stuff. The next day, he gave me a quiz. This was in 1997, when only 18% of U.S. households had internet access.
This month, over at The Verge, Bill Gates is guest editing and it’s been fantastic.
One of my most favorite pieces of content that has come out as part of this is his discussion of the future of online education.
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Watching this video, a number of thoughts occurred to me:
Many Teachers Are Acting Like It’s 1997
For lots of reasons, teachers find themselves spending huge amounts of class time being the purveyor of facts and definitions to their students. They act like students don’t have immediate, low-effort access to anything they want to know inside their pockets thanks to a Google search. Teachers spend far too much time focusing on the basics, rather than providing kids with the chance to analyze, synthesize, and create using that which is at their fingertips.
I remember taking my first computer class at my high school in 1996. No joke, the class started by the teacher providing a list of definitions that we needed to understand: “(1) monitor, (2) CPU, (3) modem, etc.” I’d owned a computer at home for the entirety of my life. One-third of the class had a computer at home. The rest had easy access to one at a relative’s or friend’s house. We had the basics covered. At a school visit last year, I stumbled upon an intro computer class and guess what: they had a silly list of definitions too and it was 2014.
Kids understand what’s available to them – but so many teachers act like it’s 1996 and the internet is new, unavailable and dangerous. Our kids deserve better. Watching this video, I know that kids have access to the best teachers on the planet for free. What, then, is my role with these kids? I have to upgrade my context to present times.
Many, Many Teachers Treat Cellphones Like Gum Chewing, or Worse
Some school districts have these crazy draconian cellphone policies. For some reason, perhaps because I’m a millennial that’s going to own the Apple Watch the day it comes out, I’ve never seen the problem with a cellphone. Why would I not want every kid in my class to have a computer in his or her pocket? Why would I not want every kid to be able to type, create, share, and discuss his or her work without spending 25 minutes getting every kid logged into the computer lab?
Two objections to cellphones blow me away. First, educators will point out that not every kid can afford a cellphone. I’d like to point out that not every kid can afford the paper they use at school every day, but many of us don’t bat an eye when they have borrowed their 500th sheet from their elbow partner. If it’s an issue for you that they can’t afford things and 50% of your class have cell phones, partner them up. Second, educators invoke the game playing and messaging as a great evil that needs to be avoided. Frankly, I think it’s part of our jobs to help them through that. We can’t do that if we are living in the “don’t let me see your phone” world.
Many Teachers are Not Ready to Compete With the World
Khan Academy is so ‘freakin awesome: Thousands of videos by some of the best teachers in the world. I was watching one of these videos that features Walter Isaacson talking about the Declaration of Independence and I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t this Harvard trained, Oxford educated man probably be a better teacher of this subject than me?” The answer is definitely, “yes.” Kids have access to the best teachers in the world for free.
Where does this leave educators like you and me? You tell me! What is our role in the classroom going forward? I would love to hear from you. In my opinion, given what's available to our students, it may be time to put down the job we thought we had and start openly looking at the job really have.
*Source: “Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August 2000” http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf
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