Ryan Bretag, in a recent post in his blog The Four Eyed Technologist, said that NCTE is “moving toward the future,” but then chides gently, “(or is that the present).” Either way, NCTE has its seatbelt securely fastened on the 21st c. literacy skills bandwagon. Now that I think about it, bandwagon may be the wrong word, as it implies that they have joined the popular movement.
I sometimes wonder if what I do in my CE classes (basically having students publish writing on websites) and how I operate in my professional life (I use blogs, wikis, RSS, Google docs, etc.) might be considered affectations of a popular movement.
Is all this techie stuff just the current trend that will, like so many educational trends, fall away in time? Am I, simply because of my relationship with other techies, under an illusion that all this Web 2.0 stuff really matters? I mean, who, besides me and these people I know on the Web, really cares?
Ryan asks if NCTE’s new direction will “stir discussions in English departments and all departments for that matter NOT just for what they need to adjust in their own teaching BUT IN THEIR OWN LIFE AS READERS, WRITERS, LEARNERS, and LITERATE CITIZENS”
An outstanding question. Really. It is.
I began teaching CyberEnglish9 classes at Sheboygan Falls High School in 2001 and my efforts were met, not with resistance from my department, but with a not-that-subtly veiled hostility. I became the alien at that point, the one who pushed the bar too high, the one who made us think more about what we do and why.
Since then, the word on the street, and at NCTE, is, of course, that Websites and Wikis and Blogs are necessary tools for students and for teachers. And while my current English colleagues are much more willing to integrate technology into their classes (my 9th grade colleague also teaches a CE class), there still does not exist in our school culture a fundamental vision that technology tools (more than a keyboard and monitor) enhance learning and meet students learning needs in ways paper and pencil cannot.
I think the problem is that most teachers don’t actually use any of these Web 2.0 tools. They just don’t. I’m the weirdo blogger. I know I am. I accept that. When I try to pull people in, I sometimes feel like maybe it’s a cult that I belong to. It seems I am asking teachers to embrace something not quite right. Of course, I know my perception is not completely true. But I do struggle with how I can help push teachers to embrace the future?
Ryan points out the challenge in getting teachers to integrate 21st c. skills into their own lives as “READERS, WRITERS, LEARNERS, and LITERATE CITIZENS.” He writes,
When I break [it] down . . . , this is no small task:
- Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
- Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and
cross-culturally- Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of
purposes- Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous
information- Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
- Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments
The very first step is to “develop proficiency with the tools of technology.” We cannot teach what we do not know. Teachers must use the tools to teach the tools. And this had better happen pretty quick before all of our students know what we cannot begin to understand.
If I am truly part of a popular movement, all my anxiety about the future is unfounded. All this techie/Web 2.0 stuff will pass eventually, just like every other educational trend.
But what if what I believe about 21st c. skills is true? What then?
1 response so far ↓
1
mercyskye
// Feb 28, 2008 at 12:03 am
For most of the history of mankind, people have existed within their tribes. Whether these be by nation, or ethnicity, or by geography, groups of like-minded/acting/believing humans find a sense of belonging and worth by existing near what they believe to be “their own.” With the advent of the web, new tribes can emerge and form, suspended above nation, ethnicity, and geography… and they can gather around just about any “belief” imaginable. With the web, a person can truly find “their own” and find ways to help the tribe thrive and survive. Likewise, the web helps us more than ever before make contact with other tribes. Groups of people can learn about each other without the nuisances of travel or war…
Only if they want to. Xenophobia can extend to all borders, including the ones between technologies, between disciplines, and between literacies. It’s like cuisine. If you have been told that sushi is horrible because you have been raised on cooked meat and have been told that uncooked meat is bad for you, then you are probably not going to try sushi. You have to reason to. If you’ve been told that blogging is only for the young and hip who don’t have anything better to do, and that it’s all just public diaries and NSFW self-portraits online, and you’ve been raised to keep your life secret and think you’re too old and need to know programming, you probably will not try blogging. You have no reason to.
Who tried blogging? The same people who tried sushi and decided it wasn’t going to kill them, in fact it tasted pretty good, and then tried to make their own at home. I know people who hold those outdated beliefs, including the young and old, blue- and white-collared workers (even in 2008), regardless of the distance that blogging has travelled from online diaries to corporate mouthpieces to sole sources of income (dooce.com, for example). If someone doesn’t think it’s important, they won’t try it.
Nor, do I think, will they bother to teach it. Hasn’t all of the history of schools been about teaching kids what the adults feel is important? Certainly no one asks the kids what they want to learn (okay, special classes with open-minded teachers, but as a whole, the curriculum K-12 is decided by adults, or *shudder* the gov’t). If adults think that the web is important, they will teach it.
But the problem, IMO, isn’t really getting the adults to believe that web literacy is important for kids these days. That’s just the first step. The real problem (as Mr. Bretag suggests) is getting the adults to believe that web literacy is important IN THEIR PARTICULAR DISCIPLINE. This is going to be difficult, because right now, many people consider the web to be a stand-alone edifice, and you don’t go in unless you have specific business in there.
As you and others in your tribe realize, the web is really an elastic and organic structure, forming a WEB (duh) of interdisciplinary opportunities, stretching as far as the users will take it. The technologies made available by the web, such as blogs, rss feeds, and the like, have only the limits of benefits that we ourselves impose. As we challenge the web, it will grow.
And therein lies the rub. If you don’t want to grow, the web probably isn’t for you. With access to the web, there is no excuse for not finding information, finding people, making connections, and forming tribes. It’s not just xenophobia–it’s also complacency. And perhaps that will be the yardstick by which future teachers will be eliminated in the Darwinian rush into the Internet.
Schools have never been very good at the whole “interdisciplinary” thing. Schools are like the industrial food complex: you break things down into manageable compartments and operate under the false belief that this is an efficient system. Cows/English on this farm, Corn/Math on that farm, Chickens/Art on another farm. Sooner or later the organic qualities of the soil break down, species require more intervention to stay healthy, and it becomes unnatural (yet viewed as efficient). Polyculture farms do best, because they mimic the natural cycle of millions of years; truly interdisciplinary schools would do well, also, because one set of disciplines complement all others. [Are we reading "Jimmy Corrigan" in English classes yet? How about ethics texts in biology class?] The web needs to find its way in there somehow. But first the people who can teach it need to care, not only about the web, but about the SYSTEM. You are right, the skills are important, but people have been playing it too safe; take off the seatbelts, get out, and PUSH because for the most part, the bus ain’t goin’ nowhere.
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