The real (really big) hidden bully in the classroom

Technology, in addition to being a learning tool, is and always has been a portal into the world of consumerism. Unfortunately, much of modern consumer culture is fueled by a corporate/media oligopoly designed to create insecurities within the general population so that money can be made assuaging the false needs created by the same corporate/media machine. With that understanding, it should be expected that by using its ubiquity, the corporate/media partnership is making meticulous plans on how they can best exploit their corporate partnerships and the education technology movement in order to more effectively bully our nation's youth into consumerist submission.

The situation is already dire at best. With research claiming that the average person sees upwards of 5000 ads a day, and understanding that many of these ads continue to disseminate and reinforce ideas of female objectification and dismemberment, physical male dominance and aggression, unattainable male and female body images, sexualization of increasingly younger subjects, along with ethnic stereotypes and under-representation, it is imperative that teachers and students comprehend the uninvited influences entering the classroom so those teachers and students can effectively combat the media messages and all of their negative effects that increasingly plague our youth every year.

To potentially compound the problem, the Common Core State Standards explicitly include the creation of media as an assessment tool. In most classrooms, it would be a safe guess to say that neither the teacher nor the vast majority of students have a great deal of experience in media literacy, let alone media creation. After all, the students and most teachers have been raised as products of the misogynistic, corporate mainstream media that has only increased its stronghold over public discourse and ideology during the past twenty years of media deregulation.

Consequently, if as a nation of educators, we are going to expect our classroom stakeholders to consume and create media, then we need to do a much better job at training teachers, students, and administrators as to exactly what that means. Otherwise, much of what gets created stands the chance of mimicking the toxic values that already permeate society and youth culture in particular.

This situation is also an important reason that classroom stakeholders need to openly understand and embrace social media in the classroom. For instance, too many teachers and students still view Twitter as simply a gossip or texting site. In doing so, they are missing the fact that social networks are vital in today's world for activities including personal and professional networking, collaborating with like-minded individuals around the globe, fostering and spreading social activism, and combating the mainstream corporate/media  machine by offering massive networks of smaller alternative news sources.

Understanding that allowing and embracing social media in the classroom also opens the door to the dreaded mainstream media machine, makes it all the more apparent that the media literacy piece of the equation be implemented and expanded as quickly as possible. So, if you are reading this blog, let's continue to use the voice that the internet and social networking has given us, so that we can spread ideas to continue making important educational reforms and combat the ignorance, apathy, fear, and negativity that is the bread and butter of the corporate/media machine.

And let's do it quickly because if you know anything about net neutrality, it's pretty obvious that they're on to us.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @mrtessier33

Expanding technology integration - Prove it, don't preach it

In order to celebrate Digital Learning Day on February 5th, I racked my brain to come up with something that would be both manageable and meaningful for me and my colleagues. The staff where I teach and am technology coach spans the spectrum when it comes to technology integration in the classroom.

There are roughly seventy teachers at my site and due to the nature of our campus, student population, master schedule and limited prep time, it is virtually impossible to arrange time for meaningful, authentic collaboration, outside of various mandated monthly meetings. Additionally, our monthly staff meetings are at the end of a long workday and generally filled with administrative news and general housekeeping items, which does not typically promote a captive audience, willing or able to engage in what I think is an amazing classroom tool.

With these challenges in mind I arranged for three activities that are teacher centered, encourage collaboration, foster a sense of community, are simple enough to be used by technology novices, and highlight technology applications that can be easily used with students in the classroom.

The first activity was a TodaysMeet session which ran throughout the teaching day. A week prior, all teachers received an e-mail explaining what we were going to do. Two days before the event, they were e-mailed a reminder with a link to an article titled "20 useful ways to use TodaysMeet in schools". The morning of the event teachers received an e-mail with the link to the specific session, as well as simple instructions for those that had not previously used the site.

Throughout the day many teachers shared ideas, websites, classroom practices, and answered each others questions and concerns about certain struggles they were encountering. Other teachers simply chose to view the conversations as they familiarized themselves with the concept of the online meeting process. As a follow up, I sent an e-mail to the staff highlighting the strategies and resources that were discussed online.

The next collaborative process I introduced was a "Craig's List" of sorts for our campus. I created a Google spreadsheet on which teachers can list items they want or have available. Items can include classroom supplies, strategies, or curriculum.

I envision it will be a place where art teachers can request egg crates to be used as paint cups, History teachers will be able to find a film they need for an upcoming unit, or a new teacher may request classroom management strategies for an overly chatty group of students. In order to encourage regular usage and familiarize staff with the idea, I will be sending out weekly e-mail reminders with newly listed items until teachers incorporate use of the list into their regular routines.

Lastly, I am creating a padlet wall on which teachers are encouraged to post notes detailing what they are working on currently, as well as units they have planned for the near future. In doing so, as a staff we can begin realizing more authentic collaborative opportunities that had been previously missed due to the fractured nature of our school design.

The thought process behind these activities is to enrich the school's professional environment by introducing teachers to authentic technology driven solutions that can also be used in the classroom. Many teachers in the midst of their day-to-day teaching lives are reluctant to introduce new technology because:

• it might not work as intended
• it might encroach on valuable class time that has already been meticulously planned
• the time it takes to learn might infringe upon impacted prep time
• their lack of experience with it might negatively impact the student experience   

With that in mind, by highlighting these technologies in a way that showcases the collaborative benefits of specific technology solutions, technology coaches can simultaneously strengthen the teaching community at their site and introduce their colleagues to classroom technology in a way that is specifically targeted, and far less intrusive than the "you should use this in your classroom" approach.

How professional sports sabotages students' futures

Taking a break from the technology focus this week:

I teach high school to an under-served almost exclusively Latino community in which a great deal of my students have ambitions of becoming professional soccer players. In fact, many of them are so convinced of their impending stardom that they ignore serious academic pursuits, as well as the warnings of their teachers. Unfortunately, due to their socioeconomic situation and the overall lack of formal education within the community, unbeknownst to them, my students have little to no actual hope of achieving their dream.

Now, this is by no means an indictment of my students' abilities, ambitions, or desires. It is more so a result of the illusion created by sports media and the culture of idolatry deeply embedded in modern sports culture. Mainstream media is masterful at glamorizing hardship while spinning the tale of the downtrodden youth that beat all the odds and made it to the top. It is the drama that sells the championship match-ups, gets made into feel-good movies, and gives us all hope in our mundane lives.

Consequently, many of the platitudes and cliches associated with sports culture permeate society, including the classroom. Analogizing athletic practice with writing practice is certainly one of my staple motivational starting points. However, in doing so, I am starting to question its effectiveness. I am beginning to understand that by casting life in such a simple light I am doing my students a disservice by failing to provide a larger context for these simple motivational one-liners.

This realization started taking shape when my students began developing personal inquiries for a research project and ten of my male students, in two different classes, chose to research "What are the different pathways to becoming a professional soccer player and which pathway provides me the best chance of success?"

In an attempt to provide my freshmen with some context for their dream I looked to the local Major League Soccer team, the San Jose Earthquakes, and focused on one player in particular: Sam Garza. As a youth and college player he was highly decorated at the highest levels of the game. Last year as a pro, he played in five games and averaged just over eighteen minutes of playing time in those games. My point in showing this to my students was to illustrate the level of dedication and commitment they would need to develop instantly, in order to have realistic hopes of just becoming a professional bench-warmer.

In order to make the example even more authentic for my students, I attempted to get someone from the Earthquakes organization (even a teenager from their developmental academy) to Skype into the classroom for a brief session regarding the demands and competitive nature of pursuing such a pathway. As a fan, I was incredibly disappointed by the Earthquakes' response that as an organization, they have chosen to decline such requests.

As far as I am concerned, flatly declining and choosing not to even entertain a simple Skype, so some students can obtain a realistic perspective and save four years of aimless academic endeavors, makes the Earthquakes complicit in the future struggles of not just my students, but students all around the greater San Francisco Bay Area that are under the same illusion.

Keeping in mind, this is a professional team that plays a relatively minor level sport in a college stadium, this problem becomes exponentially greater when applied to the more popular sports in the U.S. The question for me ultimately becomes, how can I support a team, a sport, or an industry, that is unwilling to find authentic and meaningful ways to help younger members of their fan base gain a pragmatic perspective and improve their chances for the future?

Understanding all the positive aspects that school athletics brings to the lives of high school students and campus culture, it is important to make sure we are balancing those benefits with the hidden false promises that are derailing our students as the sports media machine grows stronger every year.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @mrtessier33