Getting Education Stakeholders on the Same Page

After just returning from a conference organized by the California League of High School on technology and the common core I am a bit conflicted with excitement and motivation from newly learned ideas and applications, mixed with confusion and frustration by the seemingly contradictory messages many educators are receiving.

As you may or may not know, the new common core standards are linked explicitly to technology in relation to how students access and present information. In doing so, the upcoming standards repeatedly task students with analyzing and evaluating information “presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally” in order to “evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.”

While these are excellent and absolutely essential skills in today’s world, many teachers are being sabotaged by non-classroom policymakers ranging from school administration, to local superintendents, and school boards. Fortunately, I am not one of those teachers but I read about their struggles daily and this past week spoke with many frustrated peers.

As it is, teachers are undergoing a monumental shift as we:

• struggle to learn, understand, and internalize an entirely new set of standards
• adapt years of proven strategies and unit plans to meet those standards
• understand pedagogical shifts in educational mainstays, such as Bloom’s taxonomy, as they are reinterpreted for a technology driven world
• learn and practice a wide-variety of technology based presentation methods so we can  teach students to “Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express  information and enhance understanding of presentations”
• develop meaningful ways to assess media-based presentations, so we can provide timely and meaningful feedback to our students
• attempt to understand the ever evolving social media landscape so we can prepare our students’ to be responsible digital citizens leading a safe and productive digital life.

           

Essentially, in addition to teaching our subject matter, we are now also being asked to teach technology, media literacy, and online awareness. Let’s also not forget that the common core standards are requiring teachers of non-English disciplines to teach reading and writing as well as their subject matter and the skills outlined above.

Couple this with the fact that often times outdated and overly-cautious district and school policies are forcing many teachers to teach without technology, and it is easy to understand why many teachers are experiencing feelings of futility and animosity.

According to a 2011 study by the National Center for Education, 78% of teachers in the U.S. are 30 years of age or older. Understanding that most current teachers entered the profession before the invention of the Smartphone, and some before the internet, it is not surprising that there is a great deal of uncertainty, skepticism, and sometimes mild resentment within educators’ circles as they are expected to do a job that did not exist when they began their careers, and are not being provided with the time or the tools to realistically adapt, even if they are excited to do so.

This is not by any means meant to be a rant about the difficulties of being a modern day teacher or to justify the actions and attitudes of recalcitrant educators. Instead, I hope it serves to: help parents understand some of the modern day struggles teachers are currently encountering, assist administrators in understanding the level of support and advocacy teachers might need within their districts, and allow teachers to accept the overwhelming demands being placed on us so all stakeholders can start working together on implementing the educational reforms we all know are necessary.