Technology in Education: Releasing the Isolated Warrior

Releasing the Isolated Warrior

by Marlene A. K. Goss, Ph.D.

Most teachers in the United States are isolated warriors, struggling to meet their students' needs with an arsenal of tools limited by society and their own reluctance to change.

There is a memorable scene in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. The hero Indiana Jones is running through a busy marketplace when, suddenly, the crowd parts and a large, burly man wielding a sword appears. Blocking Indy's path, he brandishes his sword with a deftness that fills the viewers with terror for their hero. Indy stops short in frustration as he realizes he must fight the master swordsman. Within seconds, however, he remembers his gun and quickly uses it to take out the warrior. Many in the audience laugh as they understand the irony of the scene. How absurd! How outdated the sword really is when you have a weapon with a wider range.

Similarly, teachers who only have chalk and erasers in their arsenal of teaching tools seem hopelessly outdated to those who have incorporated Internet access into their classroom activities. Although a package of chalk can help you communicate important points to a class, can it help you:

keep up with the successful strategies of a colleague 200 miles away?

provide a window through which your students can communicate with other students and experts?

prepare your students for the working world of the 21st century?

Most teachers teach in traditional classrooms. In the beginning of the year, teachers find out what they should teach (which means they find out which textbook they will use) and then remain quite busy with their classes until the school year is over. Rarely do they see another colleague teach or have time to discuss the newest teaching methods, as one day's 25-minute lunch and "free time" evaporate into the next full day.

A teacher's days are filled with increasingly complex demands that were never covered during their preservice studies. Teachers feel obligated to be psychologist, mediator, nurse, sex counselor, ethicist, expert in their field, friend, authoritarian, and statistician. The suggestion that they become computer specialists frightens many teachers, especially those whose most recent technological advance has been receiving permission to use the collating copier instead of the mimeograph duplicating machine.

New Students, Old Methods

The average age of teachers in the United States is 45 years old. Many teachers have used the same materials and methods for years, even as the many reforms imposed in the last three decades have challenged their beliefs and practices. National reforms have swept through entire regions of our country, sometimes restructuring schools literally by tearing down walls to create open classrooms and sometimes restructuring schools theoretically by introducing new models for instruction based on theories like "new math."

Although teachers have tried to incorporate new skills and strategies into their repertoire, studies have found that the effects of most reform movements are short-lived. If you walk down the corridors of most schools in America, you'll be hard-pressed to find teachers behaving any differently than when most baby boomers were in school. Most teachers will be at the front of class lecturing to students.

The situation is dire. More students are from families living at the poverty level. The cultural diversity in schools is increasing, as is the need for resources and student learning. Even as society calls for better education, individuals argue over morality, ethics, and the meaning of a basic education. Communities try to fund education while they worry about America's economic future and safety, crime, finances, and real estate values. Parents worry about job security. Politicians worry about the next election. Businesses worry about profit. School administrators feel threatened by those who appear at school board meetings and demand that schools meet the challenges of tomorrow.

While each educational stakeholder expresses great interest in supporting good education, few agree on what it is. Consensus eludes the committees planning for education that will meet the demands of the 21st century. There is misalignment between what is said and done, what is law and practice, and what is believed and real.

Although teachers will tell you that today's students are very different than earlier generations, most do not want to change how they teach. Instead, they want children, parents, and administrators to change. For their part, teachers lament that things are not as they were when they were students.

The sad truth is that the "schoolhouse" has not changed in over 100 years. The same tools teachers remember are still used in schools today. New tools arrive, but when teachers do not have the time to learn how to use them, lack ongoing technical support, and lack a long-term plan for integration, they will not embrace these tools as their own. Instead, these isolated warriors wield their swords of chalk and shy away from new tools.

Although policy makers may want to integrate new instructional strategies, few know how to understand and support staff through the time it takes to effect real change. Real change takes at least three years before results can be measured. It is not surprising that most teachers will hold on to what they know and prefer to be left alone in their classroom.

The Counterinstance of Lasting Reform

As we move forward into the 21st century, school reform is once again being promoted as the solution to the system's failure to educate our children. The reform suggested now is dramatic and sweeping systemic change. The anticipated result: a shift from industrial, factory model organizations to geodesically designed schools. Evidence of the stress this movement has created appears in our daily newspapers as education reporters describe the local school's struggle to integrate the latest reform strategies.

Access to the Internet is an answer to today's educational crisis. When teachers are given access, the Internet will penetrate the school walls that isolate them from each other and their students from students around the world. Online access brings ideas, instructional methods, resources, and materials into the classroom. When the Internet becomes as common as the chalkboard in classrooms, the moment of counterinstance will be at hand and America will witness the greatest educational reform since John Dewey introduced the concept of public education.

A counterinstance is the moment when new shared beliefs replace old beliefs. Thomas Kuhn, a history professor at Princeton, described the process of "scientific revolution" as a process culminating with a counterinstance. By definition, a counterinstance is preceded by years of collected data, emotional disagreements, frequent activities for consensus-building, and experiential sharing. The moment of counterinstance comes when communities that historically stand divided and function with the old beliefs "suddenly" discard the beliefs in favor of a new understanding.

Over the last 30 years, reform movements in education have prepared the nation for a counterinstance. The years of argument about scientific discovery in education, with communities divided and functioning with old beliefs, continue today in America's diverse school systems. But as those who believe it is time for change begin to share three key beliefs, the momentum needed for a counterinstance will grow and a groundswell of change will dramatically-- and permanently-- alter the landscape of American education.

The first belief is that learning occurs in an appropriate environment orchestrated by an educator who understands how children learn. Such an educator will align his or her intuition, research, experiences, and resources with each student's needs.

The second belief is that organizational change must be systemic. Whole systems need to plan for the consistent, appropriate, and comprehensive development of students from preschool through 12th grade and beyond as they prepare for their roles as lifelong learners.

The third belief is that technology catalyzes the delivery of good education. Telecommunications networks and technology must be integrated throughout learning institutions.

These three tenets are uniting educational change agents online, in schools, and in learning communities throughout the world-catalyzing teachers, one by one, and changing the way education is perceived and delivered.

We cannot forget how comfortable many isolated warriors in the classroom feel as they stand in the front of their students and wield as much magic as they can from outdated tools. Although each teacher needs help, it is threatening to hear that their tools are outdated and that they should eagerly use new technology. The mandate can also be confusing for teachers who have been asked for years to succeed with very little equipment and have done so with excellence and flair.

To some teachers, plans to add technology represent the destruction of the old familiar classroom, even though integrating technology is simply a matter of retooling outdated facilities. To others, technology is just another expensive and inappropriate toy. Add to these perceptions the fact that they must learn skills in an organization that has historically not provided adequate staff development, and you can understand why so many isolated warriors approach new technology with reluctance and tear.

Placing the technology of the Internet in schools, however, has the potential of releasing warriors from their isolation and easing their time pressures by providing a resource that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For such educational reform to be successful, however, each isolated warrior must be given the support and time needed to grasp the new tools and emerge from the past into the future.

About the Author

Dr. Marlene Ann Goss is Director of NetWORKS Program, Strategies for Increased Learning. She can be reached by e-mail at: annie@cyberseedannie.org, or gossAnB@aol.com. Her web address is: www.cyberseedannie.org. Reach her by phone at 215.829.8185 or by FAX at: 215.829.8187.

This article first appeared in
TECHNOS, Vol.5, No.1., Spring, 1996.
Reprints are available for distribution
from Technos Press,
800.457-4509.
Reprinted by permission of the author by
New Horizons for Learning
http://www.newhorizons.org