Is There Social Justice Or just Apathy?

I have come to realize, perhaps a bit late, but still in time to make a difference, that teaching, reinforcing, and providing technology to students is more than an enrichment to their learning. Because of the costs involved, and the ever changing nature of both the hardware and the software, not to mention the complexities of both keeping students safe, and protecting the servers from corruption, schools face a massive expense that will never be satiated. Even in schools that have the money, personnel, and resources to provide technology to all their staff and students, there is no guarantee that they will be able to sustain this from year to year, or even between bonds and levies. So how can they meet the needs of our culture and society? How will they prepare students to be fluent in technology? If they already have some level of technology, who has access to it? And, if they determine that they simply cannot afford to keep pace with technology, does this decision then doom the students to very limited opportunities in the future? I can see now, that this issue becomes a fight for what is right for students. Just as trying to teach all children to read without having access to books is an issue worth fighting for.

Long ago in my early life as a teacher (before NCLB, when a BFA was enough to be a teacher) I spoke with a consultant about the condition of our school facility. She pointed out many many failings; broken lighting in the restrooms, dirty, peeling paint, stained ceilings, and minimal if any working technology. The thing she said that has stayed with me for these past 20 years was her conviction that students will NOT take school seriously until the grown-ups treat the school as a serious place, worthy of care and attention. She said a kid walks down the hall and into a bathroom at this school and all around them they see decay, and apathy. Then that same student goes to the mall, and what do they see? Things are clean, well cared for, and there is a computer on every counter in every store. Then she asked us if we thought our students were going to take school seriously, if it looked the way it did? The answer was a resounding NO! By not providing a professional environment for students to learn in, we are saying it is not important, or at the very least, that it is not as important as the mall. Therefore, schools must find ways to provide a reasonable, and useful amount of technology for all students, or they must admit that they are merely training a generation of unskilled laborers to flood the marketplace. Sure, the students will have to pass the standardized tests, and sure, they will be qualified to graduate. But if they do not know how to use a computer, how will they be qualified to work in a job, or attend a college, trade school, or other higher education establishment, with little or no computer literacy? It will fall to these entities to then spend their own funds to train our students. Some will, but most will not. At that point, only the students who's schools had the resources will be able to succeed. This is a social injustice as profound as the segregated schools of our past. In the article "Social Justice - Choice or Necessity?" by Colleen Swain and David Edyburn, they state,

"Our students will most likely obtain jobs we cannot even imagine. In 1992, the U.S. Department of

Labor’s SCANS report noted that at least 80% of all jobs in the next two decades would require workers

to be technologically fluent. This means if workers are not well prepared in using

technology to succeed in the workplace, they will be forced to take low-paying jobs with limited potential for advancement." They go on to point out,

"At many universities, admission standards for incoming freshman continue to rise. Even if an incoming freshman is highly gifted, if he or she is not extremely familiar with using technology in the learning environment, that student is at a decided disadvantage the second he or she steps onto the university or college campus.

The battle lines are already drawn. I can see why schools struggle to afford technology, and the resources to support it. But I see much more clearly, the cost of not doing EVERYTHING in our power to provide technology for every student. I have fought this fight for theatre technology in many schools in Vancouver. I have pointed out to school board members, facilities administrators, architects, and teachers (with grant money to spend) that we should be ashamed of ourselves for teaching students in this decade/century/millennium on equipment that has been out of date since the early 80s. How can we say we can't afford to upgrade? We got our money's worth out of that old piece of "gear", but it's time for a change. If we do not upgrade, we will soon become known for our policy of cranking out very poorly prepared students. Then I ask two pointed questions: Is this really the BEST we can do? and secondly, are we really SO, SO, POOR, that we cannot afford to prepare our students for the actual, real world, that we are going to send them into in just a few short months or years? If these questions do not, at the very least, embarrass them into action, it often results in starting to turn the great "bureaucratic ocean freighter" to consider it for the following budget session. I can wait, but our kids shouldn't have to.

While I may have been able to procure technology used for theatrical productions, I am still working out how I might obtain the technology used in most, if not all companies, universities, and even to access information from public libraries. The fight for this technology needs to happen because students need to be capable of not just understanding how a computer works, but how to use it, when to use it, why one needs to use it, and what other technologies are related, supportive, or parallel to it. And that is just to have the basic, bare bones abilities for the next half of the decade. There are resources available to help schools, but the problem still seems to be solved using outside bandaids, rather than seeing this as a duty and responsibility of the schools themselves. As I see it now, this is a facet of education that has the potential to create a rift in our culture, ironically at a time when we are pushing for best practices to be used in all classrooms, and when our duty as educators requires us to LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND.

My goal for the future is thus: to fight for and obtain as much technology as I can, and to use that technology to prepare students for as rich and exciting a life as I have had. Others may disagree with me, but in my eyes, they are just itchin' for a fight. So meet me out on the "Flanders Field" of this war, the war for our students' future. But before you do, a word of caution; I may have brought my laser guns.

I saw many things I liked, such as Paul's map and bird identifier, or Ian's transformers geometry lesson. Who can forget Mikey's railroad audio clips either? In each one, the information was presented in a fresh way, and kept my attention. To be fair to the hard work of the class, the examples I sited were randomly selected, and there are many more things I could mention here that were examples of strong work.
As with any group, there is always room for improvement. I felt that many felt a bit rushed, so a bit more rehearsal might help. Technically speaking, aside from an occasional glitch, the power points all worked reliably, and were easy to see. Some could have benefited from running their presentation through before presenting using the class system to check for glitches or missing content. Unfortunately, some had trouble with this, and we did not get to hear or see parts of their presentation. Ibrahim in particular, had a problem of this sort, and could not show the video portion to us. I felt badly for him, and in a classroom setting, having a back up plan would help.
I felt that the next time I would use this presentation, I would have better actual examples of what dividing the script into beats looks like, for example, some text, showing the different beats highlighted in some way. I might also spend a little more time with the step on getting into character, and then emphasising how to stay in character while waiting to go on. I did feel well prepared to present, and with more exposure, I imagine I will become more trusting of the technology, or at least know how to fix things when they don't work the first time. Becoming literate of power point in other words.
I really do like it as a way of providing strong visuals, and to organize lessons. I am trying to use it in lessons as much as I can, to get more familiar with the process. I see it has a great strength in connecting a screen to a lesson for the class, who is likely more interested in TV, video games and computers, than in me. One disadvantage of using power point would be if technology fails. Expectations of the students can be dashed and may easily result in students becoming less than focused. For this reason, I would have a plan "B" at the ready, just in case.

Cell phones in CLASS? yes please.

Mr. Brown stands at the front of the room giving his lecture on the stock market crash to the room full of tenth graders. In the third row, Johnny is quickly glancing up and down at his lap. Mr. Brown notices this and calls on Johnny to answer a question. It becomes clear Johnny has no idea what he was asking. Is the cell phone the problem?
In my experience and in the experience of many teachers, particularly those who work at the Skills Center, in the Evergreen school district, cell phones are absolutely not a problem. What seems to work for them is to clearly define what acceptable and unacceptable phone uses are and to establish a series of consequences that relate to unacceptable use. In the research that has been conducted at The Skills Center, 98 per cent of the calls and texts a student receives are from their parents. Also, most, if not all of these communications are about the logistics of safely transporting the student home, or tracking their attendance and school work. They also found that if a student gets a message or call from home during class, they are significantly distracted by it, and will actually perform worse than if they are permitted to reasonably address the call or message. This is not unlike what we as adults experience while on the job, or at any other time in our hectic day. The key is to teach students to be respectful and responsible with their phones.
Let's look at Johnny from the above example. What if he is actually using his phone to take notes? It is better for some students to compile their notes digitally (texts, cell phone photos of the white board, etc.) than to sit and try to write them on paper. Isn't the real importance here that Johnny is engaged and doing what he needs to do for class? In the point counter point article "Should Cell Phones Be Banned From The Classroom?", Liz Kolb makes some strong points against banning them. To me, her statement, "...students do not even need to bring the cell phone in to the classroom to use it as a learning tool. They can use them for homework or on class Field trips." makes a strong case for not banning them as some kind of evil device, destined to corrupt learning, but shows that they can be a reasonable part of our lives.

What to do with a Cyber-bully

The news stories of mothers impersonating young boys on the Internet to get back at a daughter's classmate, which ultimately leads to the classmate killing herself, or a teen murdering another teen over an Internet fight, are becoming sadly, far too common. School districts have applied their muscle, in a legal sense, with only limited success. There seems to be a grey and fuzzy line where school related bullying and off campus, non-school related cyber-bullying exist as far as the courts are concerned. Districts enact anti-harassment policies in their schools, and can discourage this sort of behavior with strict consequences, but as the student leaves the school, the difficulties of enforcement become evident.

As Lynn Wietecha discusses in the point-counterpoint article "Should Schools Regulate Off site Online Behavior?", the notion of what is reasonable for a school to do is at the heart of the issue. I tend to agree with her side of the debate. I feel that while schools must encourage a moral climate and hold students to treating each other with respect and decency, they cannot police the student's activities outside of the school walls. This seems to be a job for the actual police. Just as a teacher or staff member must report physical abuse of a student to the authorities, so too, must they report any suspected cyber abuse to the same authorities. The law enforcement agencies have the resources, staff, and permission to investigate the abusive bullying. We, as teachers, do not need to be responsible for what people do outside the walls of the school. That is the job of many other people. Our job is to ensure the students have a safe learning environment, and that each and every student be educated about respect, and citizenship while they are within the walls of the school. If a student is bullying another student in any fashion outside of school and it is affecting that student in a negative way, or if an adult is doing the same, we must report what we see as soon as possible. But, we should not be held responsible for all that takes place beyond our school that we are not aware of. Our job as teachers is to teach, not to be law enforcement.

Having said this, I want to stress that bullying is often done in a covert manner. Those that bully and those that are the victims of this, are motivated, for different reasons, to keep the silence. Fear and intimidation are the principles of this interaction. Keeping out of the bright lights of observant adults, or in some cases, law enforcement, is the key to this disturbing relationship's success. How, then, can we as teachers, help those caught in this web, both as aggressors and as victims? Teaching respectful behavior, tolerance, and the consequences of disregarding these, will go a long way to stemming the behavior. Thomas Lickona is right in his assertion that building moral character and values is the ingredient needed in schools to stem cyber-bullying as well as other forms of disrespectful behavior. But schools cannot be the scapegoat for any one's behavior outside of school. If we do not recognize this, we might as well accept that if someone steals our car, and is subsequently caught, that a reasonable defense for this violation is that the thief is just a hapless victim of society. Does this really address any of the issues?

Cyber-bullying is a real threat to everyone. It can happen to adults, children, even those who have passed away. Schools have an obligation to address the issue with policies that parallel those of any other abusive situation. But schools should not be inserted into the position of law enforcement, and must not be held accountable for things that occur within the realm of private individual technology use. If it turns out that this is an unfortunate aspect of our culture, perhaps then, it is time to create a governing body that is charged with addressing the issue head on. That body is not our public school system.

IN REGARDS TO ONLINE ISSUES-In doing this exercise, I notice that we can sometimes loose our anonymity in cyber world quite quickly. While there are always things I wish I could do differently, there are also many things to be proud of as well. Should all these things be part of public record? I am not sure about that. As teachers, as has been discussed in several classes, we are already held to a high standard, and even a higher standard here on the Northwest than we might be in the South, or Midwest. However, I am struggling with this as we learn about it because there seems to be an infringement on our rights by the way some of this scrutiny is done.

The article "have You Googled Your Teacher Lately" Brought to light the complexity of this notion. While, clearly, public servants need to be more ethical than the "dude" who works at a tile factory, it is quick to point out that the line of what is misbehavior relating to social networking sites, is hard to nail down. Some teachers feel it is absolutely not alright to "friend" students, and to publish things that have anything to do with work, while others see it as am embracing of current tool and technologies, and connect about class content in a meaningful and non-chronological way

Of course, there are implications for those that try to control others as well. For example, in one case an art teacher was fired for posting images of work he had created, that the district( or other entity) found unprofessional and inappropriate. He is not suing them in Federal Court for infringing on his rights to free expression. It is not known in the article what the outcome will be, but the fact that it went that far indicates to me that there is not a universal understanding of the implications of these sites and our expression on them.

For my part, I am now very careful about what I say, who I friend and, what I do on these sites, such as Facebook. I also am not willing to do much in the way of "edgy" art at this time, until I am sure of my own rights and convictions regarding this new realm.

Digital Ellis Island or native

When I consider the notion of my being a digital immigrant versus a native, I realize I must be one of those who came to the new country and by luck, sheer will and curiosity, managed to survive and even thrive better than most of my countrymen. This is in part due to my background and training, and partly due to my having a teen-aged son. He is absolutely a part of the digital native population or N-gen/D-gen people that Mark Prensky discusses in his article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". He and his friends spend many hours engaging with the world via various technologies, and have a non linear approach to the world. As Prensky notes, "Digital Native are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task."I am an artist who has spent his life as a highly trained theatrical technician. My world involves some of this digital country's coolest innovations to make the productions I work on exciting and expressive. However, I am not a native. I exemplify that which has put the human being at the top of the hierarchy on earth. I am adaptable.

Because my profession utilizes a good deal of technology, I have already had the wake up call to integrate it into my classroom. The students I teach stagecraft to come in hungry for knowledge, and familiar with what the technology does for entertainment. I am very comfortable with how this specialized technology works, and how to use it for creative ends. I have enjoyed showing the possibilities of it to students, and to let them get their hands dirty using it. What is so cool about theatrical technology is that it still incorporates a lot of analog technology to make it work. It therefore, has a unique ability to bridge the gap. This may be why it worked for me as well. As new equipment comes on line, and we find interesting ways to incorporate it into theatre, I am just as excited as the students. I just don't text my friends about it. I may call them instead.

When I went to high school, the Apple 2-E was just rolled out and my school got a grant to purchase six units. All juniors were required to take one semester of computer programing as part of our civics class. We took turns waiting to do very simplistic programs that would show our name across the screen over and over in long rows. Forever. In college, new theatre technologies were just starting to arrive, and personal computers were very slowly replacing typewriters. I happened to be arriving right at the start of the digital nation's birth. I would, however, not be able to afford the technology as it changed. The first cell phones were over a thousand dollars (in 1980 dollars!). Compact disc players were several hundred dollars. My access to technology was acquired through schools and professional theatre companies that were able to purchase it. The difference was, I wanted to know about it, not resist it. In his article"Do They Really Think Differently?" Prensky identifies a similar characteristic among the digital natives. "And now things have changed yet again, and our children are furiously retraining their brains in even newer ways, many of which are antithetical to our older ways of thinking." As newer technologies come on line, will these natives become more, or less adaptable? It seems to me, the people who are able to adapt in some way will do just fine.

In the classrooms of the future, I will continue to use the technologies that make the art form exciting and relevant. Students, like my son and his friends, expect to see a light show each time they go to a performance. They expect to see large multi-image screens and hear a wide array of sounds mixed from a multitude of sources. And, they want to run these shows themselves right away. In his article" Engage Me or Enrage Me" Prensky alludes to this by pointing out that all students have "something that they do that they are good at,something that has an engaging, creative component." My stagecraft students come to school ready to know how to make super entertaining shows. My mission is to show them how, and help them decide if this is appropriate for the piece. I get to show them how to do the work stripped down, and then to add technology to support the work, not just because it's cool and exciting. This is a key component of making art. It must serve the artist's intent. This is along the lines of Prensky's idea of what is lost with the digital natives. Reflection. By looking at the artist's intent, it gives the young theatre technician pause to reflect about what would best fit the piece. They must consider the author, or the director's vision. Then, they are welcome to bring in as much technology as will fit! The trick is to find a balance.

So what if I am an immigrant? My experience tells me that if we respect the fact that students are already natives, and that the technology is already part of their lives, we can use this information to help them learn, and to find value in the times when we do not need to use technology. Maybe we will someday use cell phones in classes to support learning. Maybe we will all have access, instantaneously, to everyone else, all the time, and can use it all the time in schools. I will adapt as well as I can. My main mission, though, is to teach.

Introduction of the bloggings

Look at these huge cats! They are hungry. Hungry for knowledge. My name is Andy and I am working on my MAT to become a fine arts teacher. In this way I will be able to feed knowledge and understanding to students as we explore the arts.