Ageism is a thing. The progressive ennui caters to the young. Modern technological advances, and the rapid rate of innovation in machines that are used to “get it done” ensure that older folks feel bedazzled, befuddled, and stressed by the constant flow of “new tech.” Education is not immune to this plight. Older teachers struggle to keep up with the latest learning platforms. Fueling this frustration is a tech industry that is never satisfied, but rolls out some new idea almost weekly. But all this innovation of teaching tech is not actually resulting in better education. We seem to have moved from focusing on the skills necessary to teach the soul well to a focus on new techniques or means for teaching that produces a better product.
This post is not a pushback against all the tech. Really, it is not. But it is a concern of mine that as money comes into the equation, we become less objective at evaluating the efficacy of the “new” ideas and objects being poured into our field of education.
Some defining of terms are in order because the terminology has changed over the years. Technology comes from the Greek term, techné, meaning “the art or skill necessary to gain something of value.” For a long time, when the West considered this idea of technique, we were talking about skills in a given art, including the art of teaching. As industrialization convinced man he could save himself a lot of trouble and time by using machines, technique gave way to a newer use of the term, technology which now seems to be used in a wide variety of ways. At a minimum, we use this term today in education to refer to processes (especially automated ones) of teaching, objects (especially electronic ones) used to teach, and knowledge of these processes and objects.
As with any new technique or machine, there is a learning curve. Given that most educational technology is modeled upon the cutting edge products of human productivity it is often true that older teachers feel like they are playing catch up, while the younger generation is more natural with the latest gadgets. The analogy may be that of the carpenter and hammer. The young carpenter grabs the newest, nicest hammer and starts swinging. The older carpenter, after years of using that one specific hammer that is his, will only begin work when he has “his” hammer, the one that feels right and he knows so well. Moving from my analogy back into the classroom, let me ask, “Which ‘carpenter’ do you want to hire?” The younger one seems at ease with the newest, latest, flashiest educational tools, but his artistic ability is way behind the experienced veteran who may still be using “old school” stuff but knows how to use it really well.
Perhaps this is one of the first implications I would draw out of this distinction between skill and tools that I am making is that a tool is useless or even dangerous in the hands of a non-Artisan. With education, we all have basic aptitude for teaching: it is a humane endeavor. But just putting powerful tools of communication or education into someone’s hands does not mean he can use them well. Just swinging a nice shiny hammer around could cause damage rather than building a nice birdhouse. And the solution to this is not professional development classes on using the tech, but on those things fundamental to education that the tech can aid you in accomplishing.
I am suspicious that much of the tech issue I am addressing is just a part of the larger issue of how rich education is today, especially here in America. Even as we spend enormous amounts of money on education, we sink further and further behind less-resourced nations in the actual accomplishments of our educational establishment. I hold to the controversial opinion that money is the big problem in education: too much of it, not its paucity. Every attempt to reform seems to be an enterprise, rather than a grass-roots movement. A new set of curriculum is rolled out (at a significant cost) followed by new ways to assess that curriculum (cha-ching) and then a whole cadre of consultants hit the circuit teaching schools how to implement the reform and game the tests (while charging exorbitant fees and getting kickbacks and incentives from the curriculum and testing companies. The educational technology industry gets its cut by marketing things that will aid the haggard teachers in keeping up with the current reform directives.
Meanwhile, the student has become something for the tech to be used on, rather than being seen as a young and growing human soul. I won’t develop all the thoughts I have about widgets, factory conveyor belts, and the mathematics of efficiency dominating modern education, but the tech seems to be one further layer placed between the human teacher and the human student. It concerns me.
And at the heart of the technological educational factory is a problem of purpose. Are we teaching so as to get students into a great job, or ensure we continue to get our funding by getting a high test rate? Is teaching a matter of means or ends? As is often the case with human activity, we get distracted by the means and forget the ends we are seeking. If I have written it once, I have written too many times to remember: education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue. Those are the ends. That is what all the artistry, action, knowledge, and technology of education should be aiming toward: good people.
There seem to be a lot of questions about our penchant for educational technology. Let me ask the ones on my mind. Is there one or many categories for science? Can we only know material things, or are there immaterial, metaphysical things to be known as well? Recovery of the four sciences seems long overdue. The large expenditures we are seeing on a failing system seem to mostly be going toward the window dressing, not the foundational interests of a good education. I am not pushing back against tech in the classroom. I have it, I use it, I am grateful for it. But cannot distract from the real issues of recovering good education. I wonder if we would benefit from becoming poorer: using our own curricula, assessing in local ways, and firing all these strangers driving by our schools to “consult” during that half-day off school. Solutions to these issues are not out there somewhere, they are here, wherever here is for each of us.