development that simply shows teachers a flashy new technology is nothing more than a commercial. What
teachers really need to know is how
the latest research can be used within
their own practices. In my experience,
if you show teachers the tools and give
them some examples of how they are
used, as well as the time to collaborate
and explore with their peers, they
jump right into new ideas and are
excited about employing new techniques and technologies.
It is infuriating that we are still
treating teachers like our students,
deciding what is best for them and
then creating hoops for them to jump
through. It has been my personal
experience in both the public and private educational sectors that the majority of teachers are highly motivated,
intelligent people who are constantly
seeking ways to improve the learning
process.
Professional development should be about supporting the
learning process, and technology is a proven way of doing this.
Therefore, all time spent doing this should be considered valuable.
Time gives teachers a chance to collaborate, reflect, and experiment. This
is necessary in any profession. Would
you ask a doctor if time away from
his or her practice to participate in a
class or discussion or to learn a new
technique is a valuable use of time?
Of course not; if anything, we would
consider it negligent if other professionals did not keep up in their fields.
And yet, for teachers there is a double
standard.
If we continue to preach about the
need for technology in the classroom
but then hold teachers to a standard
that supports only continuous testing
and rote learning, then we are setting everyone up for failure. Learning
should be about making meaning,
creating understanding, and solving problems. We know this. We also
know that the appropriate use of technology supports this process. Professional development should be about
supporting the learning process, and
technology is a proven way of doing
this. Therefore, all time spent doing
this should be considered valuable.
Michelle Podulka has been an educator for 12
years in the public and private sectors. She is
the technology integration teacher at Abington
Friends School in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.
© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/DAVIDFOREMAN
Want to weigh in
on this debate?
teachers like infants in a high chair,
force feeding them the most recent
“dietetic prescription” from external
experts, and those teachers/consum-ers have little or no say about what is
in the feeding jar.
What those teachers need, more
than a prescription, is more classroom time to teach. They have 35–45
students in their rooms and need all
the time they can get! In no way am
I saying that student seat time in the
classroom will guarantee that learning
episodes will occur. But the research
does correlate the amount of actual
time on task with increased learning.
During my career, I have often
heard teachers saying, “I already
know more than I can teach.” I agree
with them. Let’s seek to establish
authentic patterns of accountability
that measure real learning, not just
the quantity of seat time provided or
facile capacities of filling in bubbles
on multiple-choice tests that will show
It is time to give the teachers and students working hard in our classrooms
a chance to feel the sea change beneath them, as well as the respect,
support, and protection they deserve as they go about the critical
business of charting the future direction of the next generation.
only the narrowest, most rudimentary
knowledge in the long path to being
an educated person in our society. Let
the teachers be the creative, transformational intellectuals they are hired
to be, and let them decide what is in
the “feeding jar” set before them.
In the current era of high-stakes
testing, the No Child Left Behind
Act’s mistaken accountability and
scripted curricula offerings have totally emasculated both the learning environment and the teachers charged
to implement it. The lock-step,
one-size-fits-all conditions in U.S.
schools today have wrung most of the
creativity and uniqueness from both
students and teachers as they march
toward unrealistic adequate yearly
progress benchmarks. This has not
been a case of “rearranging the deck
chairs on the Titanic;” it is more like
putting intuitionless technicians at the
helm of a world-class racing yacht.
It’s time to give the teachers and
students working hard in our classrooms a chance to feel the sea change
beneath them, as well as the respect,
support, and protection they deserve
as they go about the critical business
of charting the future direction of the
next generation. To do anything less
is to compromise the promise they are
carrying into the 21st century.
Ron Witort has been a public school teacher for
40 years and is currently a staff development
specialist in K– 12 curricular innovation and
integration of technology, as well as a lecturer
and supervisor of student teachers at California
State University, Stanislaus.
