POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: “Why Haven’t Schools Kept Up With Changes In Technology?” REALLY???????? Who Would Ask A Dumb Question Like This!

Using the Programme Guide of the World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki Finland in August 2017 (to which I will be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Programme Guide. The link is provided below…

Why Have School Systems Not Kept Up With the Changes in Technology? Technology changes rapidly, school systems not so swiftly! What technology should schools - of different levels - be using now and how could the teachers be prepared to face the changes?

Sandra Manning: High school math and science in the bush of Alaska…she "loves science fiction".

Nick Falkner: Director of the Australian Smart Cities Consortium at the University of Adelaide and a member of the Computer Science Education Research Group…award-winning teacher…with a focus on increasing student participation, retention, and enthusiasm…education beyond the traditional borders of the University…support teachers across Australia

Carl: Instructional Designer (No idea what this is or what his qualifications are, if any…Without a stated last name, I couldn't check his credentials. I could call myself an “instructional designer” as well…)

Juliet Kemp: writer whose stories have been published in various anthologies and online magazines

I’ve written about this before and like Sandra Manning, I’m a public school teacher in a different kind of “bush” – I’m at a suburban district that shares a border with the toughest part of Minneapolis Public Schools. One in ten of our students come from a neighborhood where shootings are a matter of course and gunfire happens without comment:

“I’ve commented on “education” in the past: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2011/09/possibly-irritating-essays-educating.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2014/10/possibly-irritating-essays-science.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2017/07/slice-of-pie-another-stab-at-teaching.html, https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2016/08/slice-of-pie-does-science-fiction-still.html...the aim of a corporate school would be to create educated workers, so the curriculum would be slanted at an angle designed to produce the best employees. This…is no different from the stated goal of public education as condensed by Mortimor Adler in 1982: “to the develop citizenship, [stimulate] personal growth or self-improvement, and occupational preparation.”

“Is that what we SHOULD be developing? Or should we be working to create men and women who can think for themselves? But THAT wouldn’t be testable, would it?” (http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2017/10/writing-advice-what-went-right-41.html)

The push now in the state of Minnesota where I live and work, is to create “The World’s Best Work Force” (http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/dse/wbwf/) and as far as I can tell, we are the only state in the Union that has such an educational goal.

So – the answer to the question above is that it’s a stupid question.

Truthfully? Schools are daycares for the “real” adults in the world (those who make “real” money making “real” decisions in “real” jobs; ie: the ones who make over $200000 a year in insurance, real estate, or investment. All other work is incidental.) Schools are places to warehouse children and feed, clothe, and teach them manners and appropriate respect for “real people”.

At the same time as they demand that schools do everything from clothe to medicate their children, they complain bitterly that schools are a waste of money and don’t create anything useful – these are the same people who love to share, support, and promulgate the aphorism, “Those who can, DO; those who CAN’T, teach.”

Because the children in the schools are not “real”, and the teachers in the schools aren’t “real”; the money in the schools isn’t “real” either. Education budgets are cut seemingly at random. When the buildings cannot cut any more teachers because crowd control would suffer, they are left with the least-expensive technology.

“Technology changes rapidly, school systems not so swiftly!” Duh! (or from the Simpson’s (I guess) “Doh!”) You can’t change technology without money. If the legislatures don’t appropriate enough money, then the technology will follow the dollar – balance what you WANT with what you can get. 

“Real” people will scream, “We’re giving you enough money! You’re just wasting it!” On…what, please give me a line-item veto for what we need to get rid of. (Besides superintendents and other “district office personnel, who are often paid some whole number of times more than the people in the schools who have a direct influence on the lives of the children who are supposed to be in this “World’s Best Workforce”…) I haven’t seen a whole lot of “waste” in the classrooms I’ve taught in over 30 years – oh, our counselors get cut back (in 2013-2014, Minnesota had the third worst student to counselor ratio: 1 counselor to every 743 students. That’s partly because unlike our sister-state, Wisconsin, most Minnesota schools don’t have primary school counselors.) because, you know, they’re totally useless dead weight. Music and Arts teachers as well. English (except what someone needs to DO THEIR JOB!) should stick to the basics. Math – who needs anything beyond add, subtract, multiply, divide? Basic checkbook math, get rid of anything beyond that! Same for science. What do kids need to know about science – certainly not biology much past how to keep the environment clean; chemistry? WTH is that good for? So really, public schools are a waste of money – at least as far as people with “real jobs” are concerned…

The end result is that very little, I might even say “no”, up-to-date technology reaches the schools, at least not the school I work at. That’s reserved for, you know, the schools supported by people with “real jobs”. You know, the dirty-word “p” ones.

So this “discussion”, I would guess (as I wasn’t there) focused on colleges and on pie-in-the-sky “wishing” about what we could do “if only” schools would correctly answer “What technology should schools be using now and how could the teachers be prepared to face the changes?”

By “face the changes”, I am going to make an inference based on the tone of the question as it was expressed in English. I infer the question to mean that technology will replace teachers and that we should “be prepared” to be replaced.

If that wasn’t the inference, then I’d love to know what the intent of the question was. If it meant “Will teachers be able to adapt to new, innovative technologies?” I can only speak of the time I went from using transparencies on an overhead projector to using a Smartboard^® over a period of three months and after two weeks of intensive training and tech support – and answer that I made the change after using first a chalkboard, then a white board, then overheads, I skipped PowerPoint presentations and went directly to the Smartboard^®. I was 54 years old and had been in the classroom for twenty-plus years. I think I can confidently answer, “Yes, they can.”

If they meant “Get out of the way, Meatbags, ‘REAL’ technology is here!” then I’d have to respond, “Hmmm. Who’s going to show student what to do, deal with broken hearts and frustrations, feed them, clothe them, take care of them from 6 am to 6 pm and provide direct policing during all hours of school operation? Oh, and train them to be athletes, good citizens, and fine people?

I wait with “real” bated breath to hear THAT answer.

Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/worldcon75/en/w75/schedule

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Chalkboard.jpg/220px-Chalkboard.jpg