It is all technology. Which century are you in?

Let us begin with the obvious (thanks to @tseale via Twitter):

And then bring in Kevin Jennings of Trinity College - The University of Dublin:

"Lets imagine a country which we will call Foobar, where reading and writing don’t exist, but which despite this has managed to develop a sophisticated culture of science, the arts, philosophy and commerce. A bit of a stretch I know, but not entirely inconceivable. All cultural transmission in such a society would take place by oral means and a good memory would undoubtedly be an invaluable asset. Education would probably consist of much rote learning and place a high value on memory work. Now imagine what the impact on such a society and in particular on its education system might be when someone finally invents the pen. Well, undoubtedly a politician somewhere will pound a table and insist that we need a ‘pen in every classroom’. An education administrator will say ‘no, we should have a pen room where children can go once a week to learn how to use these pens’. So, eventually schools will all have pens and teachers will have to figure out how to make use of them. The Foobarian Department of Education will ponder the issue. They will eventually write a ‘pen’ curriculum and issue guidelines on how the ‘pen’ may be used to support memory work and rote-learning in schools……"

There are really no "natural technologies." Even if your method of survival is climbing a tree, it becomes vital to learn how to best use that tree. Do you climb high enough to escape one predator from the ground only to expose yourself to a predator from the sky or a deadly fall? But there is something else - the nature of having that tree transforms you, and transforms your understanding of the world. Once you've climbed that tree, things will never be the same for you, and if someone insists that you may not use the tree, or the tree is taken away, you will be more limited than you were.

I say all this to every educator who says something like this quote from Steven D. Krause's history of educational technology, "All you need to teach English are books, desks, paper, pens, and a chalkboard. You don't need any technology-just use what's there." Krause, of course, responds, "Of course, all of these items "just there" in elementary, secondary, and higher education classrooms are in fact technologies that have had profound influences on how and what we teach, just as profound as contemporary technologies like the World Wide Web."

It is all technology. All "information and communications technology," and if you truly think that there is a significant conceptual difference between (a) paper, pencils, pens, books, and (b) a smartphone or an internet-linked computer, you may really need to go back for a refresher course in human history.

Not only are all of these simply personal information and communication technology choices, they can all be used well, they can all be used badly. They all must be learned - yes - there was a time when dialing a phone needed to be taught...

...though today most of that advice (except the admonition that the "hyphen is not dialed") has become historical trivia.

The chalkboard, the pencil, the affordable mass-produced book - these are the best technologies of 1840. They needed to be learned back then. They were considered disruptive back then. But schools adapted we no longer insist on papyrus-making or quill-cutting in our classrooms.

We've had this conversation before, but let us repeat - rules against specific technology uses in the classroom are simply expressions of social-reproduction power. They never have anything to do with education, simply the 'comfort' of the teacher and the teacher's desire to remain comfortable by insisting that all around them behave as the teacher wishes to behave. That's a power play which ensures that the further the student is from the teacher (or administrator) socio-culturally, the worse they will do in school.

Which might be fine for the off-spring of the teacher, who them have an easier path to inherited elite status. But which does little to make us a fairer, or more successful society.

- Ira Socol

Argument and Belief

What's wrong with this statement?

"Cell phones baffle me. I don't own one. I recognize that they have practical uses, but their ubiquity in the classroom is one thing that almost drove me to quit teaching a few years ago. I wanted them GONE, and pined for the days when the rare student who had one would have been embarrassed if it had rung in public.

"My college has a cell phone policy similar to yours, and the enforcement of it is similarly uneven. What's more, I'm one of the few teachers who refuses to allow laptops unless the student has a certified medical reason for needing one. The laptops are rarely an issue - once they're put away, they're gone - but the cell phones are still a scourge.

"I've also encountered the arguments you mention about how we should really all move into the 21st century and embrace all forms of communication technology in our schools. I have no problem with a teacher who holds these views and applies them in his/her own classroom, but I feel there are many valid reasons not to apply them in mine.

"Some argue that in contemporary society, our students need to learn how to multitask effectively. I would argue just the opposite: that today's young people - and adults, for that matter, myself included - need to learn to STOP multitasking, and to focus on one task, with concentration, for an extended period of time. My classroom may be one of the only places that students have the chance, and the obligation, to do that. By forcing them to put their phones and laptops away, I am giving them the opportunity to stop the random, jittery stimulation and instant information that surrounds them at all times, and instead turn their attention to a deep and slow understanding of one specific text, idea or question."

The author of the above is not some change resistant throwback, but an arguably "left-wing" educator blogging, in this case, at Change.org. She was responding to another teacher's complaint about rude student use of mobile phones in the classroom.

A huge argument broke out - please do read it all - but I realize the cause of the battle was all in these four paragraphs, because they reveal so much about how this educator, and many others, view the roles of schools, of students, and of teachers - and thus reveals why educational success remains elusive for most students.

"Cell phones baffle me. I don't own one. I recognize that they have practical uses, but their ubiquity in the classroom is one thing that almost drove me to quit teaching a few years ago. I wanted them GONE, and pined for the days when the rare student who had one would have been embarrassed if it had rung in public."

Perhaps we know right now that the mobiles-in-education movement is not really going to get a fair hearing. The author refuses to even possess the dominant communication device of the age her students live in. She states at the start how she wants then "GONE." She goes on to suggest that she might consider letting a student use a laptop if he/she could prove some kind of medical necessity, but think about it - knowing this attitude would you approach her about this?

"I've also encountered the arguments you mention about how we should really all move into the 21st century and embrace all forms of communication technology in our schools. I have no problem with a teacher who holds these views and applies them in his/her own classroom, but I feel there are many valid reasons not to apply them in mine."

What exactly should education be about? Is it nothing more than a system of social reproduction recreating the society we knew in the past? Let's look at the author's attitude. She wants the right to determine which century's communication tools will be used in her classroom. OK, can I do the same? Can I require that no students use paper for notes and that no students read paper copies of anything? There are, after all, good environmental reasons to do this. Can I go the other way, insisting that students create papyrus from reeds and make their own ink? And if I could require either - would I have any legitimate educational reason to do so?

But this teacher has determined that her mid-20th Century communications tool set is something which she has a right to enforce on her students. I can surely understand this as "project learning" in a 20th Century History course, otherwise - picking your tool century and enforcing it is simply pre-deciding that those students most like the teacher will do best in the course.

"Some argue that in contemporary society, our students need to learn how to multitask effectively. I would argue just the opposite: that today's young people - and adults, for that matter, myself included - need to learn to STOP multitasking, and to focus on one task, with concentration, for an extended period of time. My classroom may be one of the only places that students have the chance, and the obligation, to do that. By forcing them to put their phones and laptops away, I am giving them the opportunity to stop the random, jittery stimulation and instant information that surrounds them at all times, and instead turn their attention to a deep and slow understanding of one specific text, idea or question."

Now we've turned religious. This is not uncommon. Our education system derives from a church-based (a Luther/Calvin-based) origin, and the "missionary position" (I am here to convert these young heathens) is still a dominant thought pattern among too many teachers.

This teacher is talking about nothing here but her own comfort and belief system. She thinks best when it is quiet. She thinks best when focused on one thing. She believes there is a specific way to study a text. And it is her job to bring these students to her beliefs.

The fact that some of us might function best in other ways, that some of us might need other structures, does not occur to her. If we would only "come to the light" - we would understand.

What's wrong?

My goal here is not to pick on this teacher/blogger. I assume, from much that she has written, that she is a great teacher. Nor is it my goal to re-argue this "case" extensively. My goal is to understand how our belief systems impact our view of education, and how we structure education. If we, for example, firmly believe in capitalism, we will design competitive classroom environments in which failure is as sure for some as success is for others. If we believe in evangelism and religious conversion we are likely to design a classroom environment which attempts to "save" the outliers. If we are sure that our learning system is best, any other will be seen as an invader, unwelcome in our classroom environment. If we perceive ourselves as "masters" of the classroom, we will act like "masters."If we see schools as failing the majority of kids - as I do - we will doubt the value of all traditional practices.

So when we watch a debate like the one at change.org unfold, look for arguments which are logical and those which are not. Always try to make a similar argument from the opposite side, and see if logic holds or disappears, but most importantly, always search for the clues to where people are coming from. No one makes neutral arguments. It isn't possible.

We can only see out of our own eyes.

- Ira Socol

PoliceGate

I have a good friend who teaches Criminal Justice courses at a university near my home, and sometimes she brings me in to give a "lecture" to her "Police Ethics" course.

I pass some questions out to these 'cops-to-be.' Some of those questions are: "Who is driving faster: the white woman in the minivan doing 85 or the black teen in the Honda doing 75?" "Why shouldn't any African-American male run from the cops, even if they've done nothing wrong?" and "Does a police officer ever have the moral authority to arrest someone for something they themselves have done and gotten away with?"

Which brings me to the affair of Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Harvard professor arrested on his own front porch by a Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer for "disorderly conduct."

Let me bring in an extended quote from Ralph Richard Banks, the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School in The New York Times - and let me "mark it up" as I might if I was teaching in a Police Academy:

"The officer approached Professor Gates not as a result of a racial profile, but based on a witness’s account of a specific suspect engaged in suspicious behavior, just as we should expect him to. [This is fine, to an extent. "Behavioral profiling" is good police work. Except that there are all sorts of reasons for people to seem "suspicious" around their home. as I cop I would have approached, certainly with caution, but also with the question, "Some neighbors thought you might need help?" This allows the conversation to go in a good direction. "No thanks, just got back from a long trip and the door is stuck, but we've got it now." "Fine, just so I can say I checked when I report back, can I see some ID so I know it's your house?"]

"What happened next illustrates the complicated dynamics of race, crime and policing. Professor Gates would not have been arrested had he been a white Harvard professor, but for reasons that have as much to do with him as with the officer. [This is absolutely true, but it must always be remembered that we should not be giving legal advantage to those "acting white."]

"Did Professor Gates exhausted after his long flight from China and perhaps irritable after being unable to gain entry to his own home, become outraged when he was questioned by Officer Crowley and ordered to step outside? Maybe. Did the police officer overreact to the professor’s outburst? Certainly. Did race shape their responses? Most likely. [If police want to be seen as human, and thus supported by the citizenry, they must understand that we are all human - we all make mistakes, we all do dumb things, we all get frustrated, and we all get angry. Cops need to cut all of us slack in those situations - and if they don't, they should be fired for any minor mistake.]

"The officer, rather than treat Professor Gates as a respected member of the Harvard faculty, probably expected more deference from him because he was black. Professor Gates, in turn, probably offered more defiance because the officer was white. Just as the officer may have presumed that Professor Gates did not belong in the upscale neighborhood, Professor Gates may have presumed that Crowley was a racist, intent on harassing him. [When races come together in the US under conditions of "authority" things are primed to explode. This is the result of the colonial nature of our society. Blacks are no more expected to contradict white police officers in 2009 America than they were in South Africa of 1970. You can watch, with the naked eye, the attitudinal differences between a police officer-white suburbanite interaction and a police officer-black male interaction. This is true even if the police officer is working in the absolute center of American liberalism - Cambridge, Massachusetts - and the black male is a middle-aged Harvard professor called "Skip."]

"There is no question that the officer overreacted. Professor Gates should never have been handcuffed and taken to jail. But if we are to understand not only this disturbing incident but more tragic interactions as well, we need to look beyond the question of racial profiling. We need to appreciate the myriad historical and contemporary factors that too often poison relations between African Americans and law enforcement agencies."

As President Obama said, the police "acted stupidly." As he inferred, the also acted predictably, and therein lies the problem.

Like the business of education, the business of police work is operated as a system of control. Like education, it is designed to enforce certain "norms" - norms which align with White, Protestant, Middle-Income-or-better, Straight, Typically-abled lifestyles. Like education, when people talk about "standards" in police work, they are not the standards of the mass of people being "policed," but the standards of those in power - who wish to remain in power.

As in education, African-American culture is perceived by the "typical" police officer as too loud, too irresponsible, too 'truth-challenged,' too illegitimate to be the basis of any actual "community standard." Just as in the KIPP School theory that black youth must be drilled in white culture, and the Teach for America theory that all minority youth need are white role models, when police bosses talk of "enforcing community standards" they mean the behavior which solidifies the societal structure. When Rudy Giuliani talked about "One City" policing - what he meant was that anyone who wouldn't/couldn't behave like his rich friends on the Upper East Side of Manhattan would be running afoul of the law.

Policing can be a community service, or policing can be a colonial project which maintains the control of the many by the few. Just as schools can be a community learning environment or a colonial system which establishes which few of the many will get to don the powdered wig, show up in the Queen's Court, and live like "white folks."

Back to my questions - when I ask, "Why shouldn't any African-American male run from the cops, even if they've done nothing wrong?" it is inevitable. The whites in the room are outraged. They are becoming police officers to save society. They are heroes. They are good people. Why would anyone feel the need to run.

The blacks in the room react differently. Sometimes they just nod. But as one student said one time, "F*** yes, I'd run tonight." Because he knew who makes the rules. And why they make them.

- Ira Socol

Walter Cronkite and "the way it [was]"

Would Walter Cronkite be happy with the way Walter Cronkite's death has been reported?

And what does that say about the way in which we understand history?

Don't get me wrong. I think anyone would recall Cronkite as a fabulous journalist, one of the greatest ever. The man covered the great moments of history from the London Blitz through the tumultuous end of the 1970s. And he did it magnificently. But was he the most watched newsman in America?

Only after he waited for the most watched newsmen in America to retire.

Anyone remember Chet Huntley and David Brinkley this weekend?

NBC's Huntley-Brinkley report competed with Cronkite's CBS Evening News for eight years - a period covering the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy, the riots convulsing America's cities and campuses, the Vietnam War, the 1968 Democratic Convention, and the moon landing. More Americans watched Cronkite than Huntley-Brinkley for one of those events - the moon landing. NBC won the ratings war for more than six of those eight years.

None of this is to take anything away from Cronkite or his memory. But it is to say that "history" is usually a construction of the present, not a window on the past. Whether Cronkite was the most trusted man in America on that awful day in November 1963 is arguable, but we know more in the nation turned to NBC News that day. The best seller lists of the 1920s were not dominated by Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, or Ernest Hemingway. Lincoln couldn't get 40% of the vote in 1860. The U.S. did not really practice "precision bombing" during World War II.

History is recalled as we wish it had been.

Of course there is no excuse for this kind of history anymore. If your students all had computers or netbooks or smartphones in their hands, every one might look up a different facet of a historical event, might even translate foreign language sources, might watch YouTube or visit museums around the globe, and might share all this via Google Doc or VoiceThread or Wiki, and the community cognition resulting would be something to see.

We might even get away from myth a bit, and toward a reality which really explains things (why were Huntley and Brinkley more popular? what does that suggest about viewing habits?).

So you can surely watch this... and you should

But your students should also be listening to wechoosethemoon with the full, real-time, minute-by-minute record of Apollo 11 communications - because - that's the way it really was.

- Ira Socol

International Space University
Museum of Broadcasting
NASA

Posts at Change.org

My guest blogging week at Change.org/Education continues

1. Counting the Origins of Failure
2. Technology: The Wrong Questions and the Right Questions
3. Today's "School Reformers" vs Real Change for Education - I - Rethinking Schools
4. Today's "School Reformers" vs Real Change for Education - II - Finding Great Teachers

Please join the conversation there, don't miss the previous week's posts from Shelly Blake-Plock, and join the cause!

- Ira Socol

blogging at change.org this week

change.org is a national conversation about the American future, and thanks to Clay Burell, who leads the site's education policy blog, I'll be part of the conversation this week.

My first post there Counting the Origins of Failure looks at the basic need to completely re-think the American educational system (why start small?).

"Our American public education system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It is separating “winners” from “losers” and it is reinforcing our economic gap. The system was designed in the 1840s and at the turn of the 20th Century to separate society into a vast majority of minimally trained industrial workers and a small, educated elite. It was designed to enforce White, Protestant, Middle-Class, “Typically-abled” standards on an increasingly diverse American population."

Please come join the conversation.

- Ira Socol

Refusing Free, Depriving Students

On one of the Becta lists a conversation broke out regarding solutions for visually impaired students who use Microsoft's Internet Explorer. CleanPage was suggested, and Keyboard Shortcuts noted. And this was all good to see, good to know.

But I commented to a teacher on the list that I still thought FireVox, the 'blind browser' add on to Firefox, would be a more effective solution for her students, because it is a full, robust browser which can be operated without sight, and with the many other supports available in Firefox.

"Yes," others told me, "but Firefox just isn't available in many schools, libraries, etc."

This is undeniably true. True in the United Kingdom, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand (to name a few English-speaking nations), and even 'more true' in the United States (to name another).

Firefox - entirely free, totally accessible, far 'safer' in terms of web browsing, far more supportive of differentiated instruction - remains a rarity on the computers used in schools, in public libraries, in adult education programs. And thus students, and others, are denied the ability to learn and use essential tools such as FireVox (the blind browser), Click-Speak (FireVox's cousin for dyslexia and other print disabilities), gTranslate (right-click translation), Dictionary Switcher (a fabulous tool for ELL students, Second Language Acquisition, and all those who communicate outside their home nation), and many more.

The result? Students do worse in school than they need do, they struggle more, they even drop out more. All because schools won't take the two minutes to download something free.

Google Apps for Education - entirely free, with no advertising - is available to every primary, secondary, and post-secondary school. It provides a highly accessible and organizable email system, student calendars which teachers may share, word processing which can be used singly or collaboratively, spreadsheets, presentations, and much more. Combined with, say, Click-Speak (above) it provides reading and writing support for a wide range of struggling students. But most schools refuse to use it, choosing to spend (at least) cumulative hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars (quid, Euros) operating third rate email systems.

The result? Less money for the important technology investments - netbooks and wireless, high-level disability supports and alternate keyboards, tablet PCs and polleverywhere licensing. And thus, higher rates of student failure and disengagement, all because schools won't send an email to Google.

From Ghotit (the world's best English-language context-based, text-to-speech Spell Check system) to WordTalk (turns Microsoft Word into a talking word processor), from OpenOffice to Linux (stop paying for Microsoft licenses), from Google Earth to GraphCalc (free complete graphing calculator), from Click-N-Type (the best virtual on-screen keyboard) to PowerTalk (reads presentations outloud), schools could be providing their students with a world of software and supports at zero cost, but are refusing.

The result? Rich, white, Protestant, normally-abled students get what they need at home, and vulnerable students fail.

Why?

I keep struggling with this. I can really no longer accept the answer, "ignorance." At some point being completely ignorant of the tools of your trade becomes either "willful ignorance" or simple "stupidity." These tools have now been available for too long, are too easily 'discoverable' for this excuse to hold water anymore.

And I won't accept the answer, "fear" anymore either. If an electrician was too afraid of electricity to touch a wire, he'd be an electrician no more. So if an educator is afraid of the information and communication technologies of his/her age, then he/she can no longer be an "educator" in any meaningful way.

I have come to suggest that the answer is actually political, that too many in charge of education do not want universal success, do not want the increased economic competition which might come from those who are currently excluded from educational success. Many people have been shocked when I suggest this, but few have offered a coherent alternate theory.

So, why?

Why, when schools cry about a lack of funding do they spend more to exclude students? What is it about administrators, policy-makers, educational technology workers, which causes this bizarre, and socially destructive, behavior?

Not a rhetorical question - I'm getting desperate to begin to find an answer to this question, so we can start to work on a solution...

- Ira Socol

next up: Why would schools purchase the iPod Touch rather than (less expensive) netbooks? Why would schools propose Apple-based handheld solutions rather than universal solutions which could be used on the students' own phones in school and at home? (a related question)