So here I am. Thanks to John Toth and Gina Foster I’m feeling my way along the
polished walls of the 21st Century. And you, friends, are my hand-grips, the rough
surfaces that will allow me to dig in and find footing. Writing is intuitive for me,
but blogging isn’t. It’s felt like a pen I couldn’t uncap, a book I couldn’t open, a
computer or even…gasp…a typewriter without any keys. Should I be admitting
this? I’m not a Luddite and I’m not…well…I’m not THAT old. I can still walk,
anyway. So what does this have to do with the Lives of Teachers? Everything,
really. In trying to find my place on the continuum of technology–which tools are
important to use, which ones are less so, which ones fit and enhance what I’m
trying to do as a teacher, which ones I should be using in my methods classes, I
think it’s important to have meta-conversations- about technology.
So often it looks to me like the tail wagging the dog: “Ooh, look at the shiny Smart
Board!” Well, that’s fine, but you can still be an unimaginative bore with the
fanciest of new tools- or you can be riveting and life-changing with nothing but
a piece of chalk. Well, this much is obvious. But the question is, if you are the
kind of teacher who can be riveting with a piece of chalk, might you be even more
so with technology? Or, might the attempt to incorporate technology for its own
sake be a distraction to pull our gaze away from shallow questions and a paucity
of interesting ideas?
Most of the young teachers and future teachers who are my students are more
immersed in a high-tech life than I ever hope to be. I do have a cell phone, but
some of them never put theirs down. When did this become a world in which
everyone walks the streets with his or he gaze fixed on a three-inch screen?
What is the place of technology in the teaching and learning of my field, which
is English education? I know it’s there and it’s integral to teaching, but I’ve seen
too many aspiring teachers mumbling up their sleeves in the dark as they click
through slides and their adolescent students are already a generation ahead of
them, even if they’re not that much younger. The world is accelerating, but I
believe there is still a place in if for great stories and poems.
Here is what I think: most of the time I get by as a low-tech thinker, being able to
use the tools that I can use that have not required a wholesale rewiring of my
brain, but there are times that I wish for more facility. But I can still hold a
roomfull of kids in the palm of my hand reading a poem aloud.
Technology is not instinctive for me, but I am learning the languages
phrase-by-phrase even as they keep evoving, and they won’t stand still for
a minute. This year I switched from a PC to a Mac and my head almost exploded.
I may not have a website yet (working on it- I swear!) but what I’ve got- language, poetry, compassion,
questioning, humor, the willingness to know my students andwhat they care about–I’ve still got all that.
So, thank you all for this forum. It’ll only get better.
