After my last post Mr. W directed me towards a post called "why wireless", and I really liked it. The one thing that jumped out the most though in the post was this:
"Our philosophy at Arapahoe is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don’t, they know we’ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don’t assume they are going to mess up."
I think this is a very important philosophy, there has to be an element of trust that goes along with this idea. I know that in some cases this can be difficult... with some of those "trickier" students, but I don't see why this trust can't be bestowed on the rest of us. After all, it's these years in Secondary/High School that prepare us for the outside world, and as you know, responsibility, independence and expectation are of course some of the things students are met with once they leave the safety of the school gates and venture in to the big bad world. Schools do give students good experience with this though... at least my school does. As each year has passed I've gotten more of a sense of independence and more responsibilities have been given to me and my peers, but the one thing that hasn't changed over the years is the sense or independence and responsibilities in the classroom. I think it is something that would benefit students of any age greatly, if a teacher was able to put some faith in the class and say "ok class, this week we've been learning about the American Civil War, now I want you to split in to groups, write a script for a podcast then we can record them and put them on the school website." without thinking "oh, but what if they just sit there and mess about", because at the end of the day, most students wont.
I know I keep coming back to this fear thing but it really is a major factor. There can't be trust while fear exists, meaning that if teachers are afraid that their students will either mess up or mess around when faced with this sort of technology in the classroom, then there wont be an element of trust there, and surely there's someone else out there who believes that students can be trusted? As Karl Fisch says, if/when students do mess up, or behave in an untrustworthy way surely they can be pulled aside and be talked to so that they can learn from the mess up? I'll set that question to the teachers among you... the one thing I will say though is, School is just another place of work, for both students and teachers, and a sense of trust, responsibility and expectation are major factors of success in any work place.
I really do believe that more of a sense of responsibility and trust in the classroom would benefit everyone, because at the end of the day most students are willing to learn and will live up to expectations without messing up. The main benefit of this in my eyes is it makes using technology in school a lot more comfortable, and I think it really opens up the concept of School 2.0. However, you may disagree...
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1 comments:
I wanted to respond to this post, as a teacher.
It is frustrating that this 'fear' of technology or more so the fear of relinquishing control and letting students thrive in an element that is natural to them is the major driving force in limiting technology adoption. Far more so than money or access to resources.
It is interesting too that this idea is largely coming from the top down - or rather sideways across - from those employed to ENABLE technology to happen in our classes. Those being the people (often older and not actively using the new web as it is used today) employed as ICT managers within schools. These are the people advising the management in schools and controlling the access to on-line resources.
A podcast I was using this year all of a sudden became blocked even though it was on my moodle and had been for over 6 months. Why... they had noticed a lot of students were heading there and weren't sure how appropriate it was! Of course they were listening to it... their exam was in 3 weeks and they were studying!!!! gggrrrrrrrrrr......
The only thing I can come up with is the idea that a little knowledge is dangerous. So many teachers are unwilling to experiment as they have heard once that the internet is bad.
I don't think that it is the fault of teachers. I attribute it to the fault of ICT managers with limited knowledge of WEB TECHNOLOGY which is vastly different from site licenses for software and hardware issues of which ICT managers are often more experienced in. But more importantly, that ICT managers are not familiar with the pedagogical underpinning of education. On the whole, they are not trained in education, they are not trained in the curriuculm. They do not UNDERSTAND the educational processes and thus are influencing teachers from a position of power which they do not rightfully deserve.
Woah... didn't realise I had that in me and realising that I am probably going to come under fire from ICT managers who vastly disagree with what I am saying. I am also sure there are ICT managers working in schools out there who do a great job and really get it... However, I am yet to meet one.
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