Dear Teachers, Don’t Be Good Soldiers for the EdTech Industry

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Dear fellow teachers,

Thank you for coming to this meeting on such short notice.

I know you have plenty more important matters to attend to this morning. I, myself, left a pile of ungraded papers on my desk so I could get here. Not to mention I urgently need to fix my seating charts now that I’ve finally met my students and know who can sit with whom. And I’ve got to track down phone numbers for my kids’ parents and go through a  mountain of Individual Education Plans, and… Well, I just want you to know that I get it.

There are a lot of seemingly more pressing concerns than listening to a teacher-blogger jabber about the intersection of politics and our profession.

Is that all of us? Okay, would someone please close the door?

Good. No administrators in here, right? Just classroom teachers? Excellent.

Let’s speak openly. There’s something very important we need to talk about.

There is a force out there that’s working to destroy our profession.

Yes, ANOTHER one!

We’ve got lawmakers beholden to the corporate education reform industry on the right and media pundits spewing Wall Street propaganda on the left. The last thing we need is yet another group dedicated to tearing down our public schools.

But there is. And it is us.

You heard me right.

It’s us.

There is an entire parasitic industry making billions of dollars selling us things we don’t need – standardized tests, Common Core workbook drivel, software test prep THIS, and computer test crap THAT.

We didn’t decide to use it. We didn’t buy it. But who is it who actually introduces most of this garbage in the classroom?

That’s right. US.

We do it. Often willingly.

We need to stop.

And before someone calls me a luddite, let me explain. I’m not saying technology is bad. It’s a tool like anything else. There are plenty of ways to use it to advance student learning. But the things we’re being asked to do… You know in your heart that they aren’t in the best interests of children.

I know. Some of you have no choice. You live in a state or district where teacher autonomy is a pathetic joke. There are ways to fight that, but they’re probably not in the classroom.

It’s not you who I’m talking to. I’m addressing everyone else. I’m talking to all the teachers out there who DO have some modicum of control over their own classrooms and who are told by their administrators to do things that they honestly disagree with – but they do it anyway.

We’ve got to stop doing it.

Corporations want to replace us with software packages. They want to create a world where kids sit in front of computers or iPads or some other devices for hours at a time doing endless test prep. You know it’s true because your administrator probably is telling you to proctor such rubbish in your own classroom so many hours a week. I know MINE is.

Listen, there are several reasons why we should refuse.

First, there’s simple job security. If your principal brought in a Teach for America temp and told you this lightly trained fresh from college kid was going to take over your classes, would you really sit down and instruct her how to do your job!?

I wouldn’t.

That’s the entire point behind this tech industry garbage. You are piloting a program that means your own redundancy.

You are engaged in an effort to prove that they don’t need a fully trained, experienced, 4-year degree professional to do this job. They just need a glorified WalMart greeter to watch the kids as they push buttons and stare at a screen. They just need a minimum wage drone to take up space while the children bask in the warm glow of the program, while it maps their eye movements, catalogues how long it takes them to answer, records their commercial preferences and sells all this data to other companies so they can better market products – educational and otherwise – back to these kids, their school and their parents.

This isn’t about improving educational outcomes. It’s about bringing the cost down and pocketing the savings as profit.

It’s about replacing the end-of-the-year standardized test with daily mini stealth assessments that are just as high stakes and just as effective at providing an excuse for the state or the feds to swoop in and steal control, disband the school board and give the whole shebang to the charter school operator who gives them the most generous campaign donations.

Do NOT be a good soldier here. Do not just follow orders. Doing so is weakening our entire profession. It is putting our jobs in jeopardy. And it’s about time our national teachers unions figured this out instead of conceding the point so their leaders can keep a seat at the table. Someone needs to tell them they shouldn’t be sitting inside the building. They should be with us, outside surrounding it with signs and pitchforks.

The EdTech shell game is not about improving student learning. It’s a commercial coup, not a progressive renaissance.

Think about it.

They call this trash “personalized learning.” How can it really be personalized if kids do the same exercises just at different rates? How is it personalized if it’s standardized? How is it personalized if it omits the presence of actual people in the education process?

It’s teach-by-numbers, correspondence school guano with graphics and a high speed Internet connection.

But we give in. We don’t want to rock the boat. We’re rule followers, most of us. We do what we’re told.

Most teachers were good students, and obedience is too often a defining quality of those who succeed in our education system.

I get it. You don’t want to be a fly in the ointment. You don’t want to make yourself a target.

Me, too.

How dearly I would love to be able to just comply. But I can’t simply go along with something I know in my heart to be wrong. And this is wrong on so many levels.

I sat through a meeting much like this one earlier this year where I was told exactly which programs to force on my students. All the while good teachers whom I respect went through the motions as if nothing was wrong. They talked about how to organize our classes in the system, how to assign test prep and how often, and how to access the data.

But we never discussed why.

We never discussed if doing so was a good idea. That was all taken for granted. It was a decision reserved for someone else, someone from a higher pay grade.

Yet classroom experience is rarely commensurate with salary scale especially once you cross the line into management. Nor is the experience of a handful of administrators equal to that of a plentitude of staff!

No. I’m sorry. At very least that is a discussion WE should be having.

It is the TEACHER’S job to determine what is educationally appropriate. Not the administrators. At most, the building principal should be part of that discussion in her role as lead teacher. But the resolution to go ahead or not should be made together as a staff.

And if an individual teacher thinks based on their own experience with their own students that they should go in a different direction, they should be respected enough as a professional to have the autonomy to do so.

Teachers have to abide by best practices, but test prep in any form is NOT a best practice.

It’s time we stood up en masse and made that clear.

We are our own worst enemy in this regard.

We are too submissive. Too meek.

This world requires teachers to be revolutionaries, to be radicals.

And that doesn’t end in the classroom.

We need to educate parents and the community about what’s happening. The classroom doors are too often closed to the public. The only information they get is from anemic administrators and a mass media that invariably just reports whatever propaganda the corporation puts on the press releases.

We are responsible for our students. We must protect them from the vultures out there trying to water down their educations and reduce the quality of their learning.

We are not the only ones who can take a stand. In fact, IF we are the only ones who do it, we will certainly fail.

But, along with parents, students and concerned citizens, we MUST be part of that resistance.

We MUST take a stand for our children and our profession.

Because without us, there is no hope of success.

So we can no longer afford to be good soldiers in someone else’s army.

It’s time to have the courage of our convictions.

It’s time to rise up, walk hand-in-hand to the front of the staff meeting and tell our administrators:

NO.

Because if we don’t, no one else will.

65 thoughts on “Dear Teachers, Don’t Be Good Soldiers for the EdTech Industry”

  1. Steven, this post is alarming because of the truth in your comments. Thank you for laying out the situation so clearly. I’m in my lat 4 years of teaching, and scared of rocking the boat in my failing district, but I will do my best to do what really is right for the kids I work with and care about.

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    • Be careful. I doubt much has changed there since I lost my job. If I am ever told to teach something “with fidelity” again it will be too soon.

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  2. This is a tough nut to crack.

    You are right but the fake, despicable, greed-is-great, frauds-and-reformers take advantage of the fact that teachers are divided into different labor unions, in different states, and between thousands of school districts and many of them will fear to lose their jobs and that fear will stop many teachers that will agree with you from doing anything.

    Letting that fear control them, will doom them all in the end as public education is swept away along with the U.S. Constitution and the ability to think critically and question those who want to be our overlords.

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  3. Yes! We are complicit if we go along with it. And we need the parents to join us. My daughter was the only one to opt out of PARCC at her middle school last year. I felt so alone. Parents went along just like the teachers are doing!

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  4. My fear is that it’s a few years too late. The warning bells have been going off for a while now. My kids’ teachers don’t seem to care or want to listen. I have been opting out for several years now with my children being the only ones sitting in the office during those testing periods( and teachers questioning my decision). Other parents think I’m crazy, so I don’t even try to explain anymore. I have expressed my displeasure with the IPad program in the school, but the teachers seem to just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. I have complained about the Common Core curriculum to teachers and they have expressed how great and wonderful it is and that it is not just test prep (but it is!!!). I’m angry at teachers. I’m angry that they have allowed bad practices into their classrooms and have not spoken up for children. I’ve tried….I’ve volunteered, I’ve let my displeasure be known. Now…all of a sudden….the whistles are blaring and the sirens are going off, and teachers are now really worried that they won’t have a job? The writing has been on the wall! Where has everybody been? Out for professional development for a few years? I’d like to know why all the teachers are suddenly in an uproar because the school year has just started? Please, kind teacher /blogger, please enlighten me to the new hell that my children will start to experience this school year.

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    • Lisa, I do see where you’re coming from. Your frustration is justified. However, we’re all in this together. It’s not too late. We can still turn it around. My daughter is only 8. I have to believe there is still hope. Moreover, the false consensus you often hear about Common Core, testing, corporate education reform is often pure media propaganda. In private, most teachers hate this stuff. The problem is that they’re too scared to speak in public. Just as it’s teachers job to gain the courage to speak out, it’s your job as a parent and a citizen to provide them the safe space to do so. We have to be together in this. We have to be there for each other. Otherwise, we will lose.

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      • Sorry, but I am bitter about what my children have received in the way of good education. There is no “WE” anymore, meaning that I am done defending teachers…. I certainly won’t try to take any down, but my days of trying to help them are over. It is all about MY kids now, and I have to do what is right for them. I’m tired of waiting when I have let my displeasure with ed rephorm be known. The teachers will have to fight for their profession now. I am tired of hearing the same old line of being blamed for all of society’s ills…it’s gotten old. I’m tired of hearing that teachers don’t like to “rock the boat” because they are conformists. I’M TIRED! Fight for what you believe in and maybe then the parents will start to listen.

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    • After I lost my teaching job, I started substitute teaching (again; then the district I was in decided to institute a one-to-one computer program. It changed the dynamics of the classroom. Instead of actually teaching, I was a glorified (well, not even glorified) computer monitor, who was not even allowed access to the computers! I had to sign their tech usage policy even though I couldn’t use the computers unless a teacher left it running for me. The whole experience was mind numbing not only for me but for the kids. I quit subbing.

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  5. In the days of punitive evaluations where the outcomes cannot be challeneged, teachers have become more suppliant to the demands of administrators over the reality of losing jobs. Speaking out and asking questions in staff meetings and bs professional development sessions label staff as negative and insubordinate. Been there, done that. That is one reason I retired, ineffective administrators and punitive evaluations based on bullshit data.

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  6. “Do NOT be a good soldier here. Do not just follow orders.”

    I call the vast majority of teachers and adminimals that implement the various malpractices of this century, sad but yes this whole century, Go Along to Get Along (GAGA) Good Germans. According to Hannah Arendt the massive killings, attempted genocide by the Germans was not the result of the vast majority being “evil”. No, on the contrary! Somewhere around 12% of the population were Nazis, add in a lesser number of SS and perhaps there were at most 20% of the population that one might consider as evil. The vast majority (hey didn’t I just say that above?) of Germans were GAGA either turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed or were using the excuse of “just following orders/mandates” of those “above” them in the social structure of 1930s Germany.

    That vast majority allowed the atrocities to happen, many were afraid of losing their possessions, home and life. Why is it that the vast majority of GAGA teachers and adminimals comply so rapidly and willingly with educational malpractice mandates when they don’t have to worry about their own skin?? Willing abettors? Or perhap as stated from one of America’s premier writers:

    “The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher

    Do not GAGA teachers and adminimals take a professional ethics course these days? Do they not know how to resist and cease doing harm to students that the GAGAers do everyday in instituting the standards and testing malpractice? I’ll let someone far more intelligent than I comment:

    “Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Andre Comte-Sponville in “A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues” [my additions]

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    • Duane, I do see where you’re coming from, but you can’t blame it all on teachers, either. We’ve been abandoned by the majority of society. Every social ill is somehow our fault. No one wants to properly fund public schools, many want to destroy the very institution of public schools, and the teachers are the major factor holding it all together. What you describe is a sad truth about human nature. Teachers are trying to find the road of least resistance. They’re trying to find a way to keep their jobs and do what they can to help kids. I, too, think we need to take a stand, hence this article. But it can’t all be on the teachers. Society owns a huge share of the blame. My point here is just that teachers do, too. It’s time to take a stand because pretty soon there won’t be a profession from which to do so.

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      • Not just on the teachers, Steven, but I put more blame on the adminimals*. I cannot call them administrators as that requires thinking, knowledge and ethics, three areas quite lacking in adminimals. And the vast majority of administrators are adminimals.

        *This definition was written for an Australian audience but holds equally true here in “Gringolandia”:

        Adminimal: A spineless creature formerly known as an administrator and/or principal. Adminimals are known by/for their brown-nosing behavior in kissing the arses of those above them in the testucation hierarchy. These sycophantic toadies (not to be confused with cane toads, adminimals are far worse to the environment) are infamous for demanding that those below them in the testucation hierarchy kiss the adminimal’s arse on a daily basis, having the teachers simultaneously telling said adminimals that their arse and its byproducts don’t stink. Adminimals are experts at Eichmanizing their staff through using techniques of fear and compliance inducing mind control. Beware, any interaction with an adminimal will sully one’s soul forever unless one has been properly intellectually vaccinated.

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  7. The first argument shouldn’t be job security. If it is, no one outside of the field will listen. They will just assume those selfish evil teachers are yet again looking out for number one cause that’s all they do. The truth is it’s bad for kids. They need interaction, problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, cooperative skills. Those skills need interaction with other people to achieve. Not a computer screen. Technology is a slippery slope. It can be beneficial if used correctly. It can be detrimental if used too much- especially in primary grades. Teachers should stand up because it’s not what’s best for kids, not for so called job security.

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    • Kate, you’re right. The most important thing is the students. But that’s why most teachers enter the field – to help children learn. I just think many teachers go along with some of this EdTech crap because they think it’s moderation. Do this and you can still help kids learn around the edges. The problem is that doing so is dismantling our profession. Giving in is not the middle ground. It is giving up. If we keep doing this, we won’t be there to help around the edges. We’ll be gone.

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  8. I agree with your argument, but I have to say, I wish you didn’t have to bash Teach for America in the process. Sure, some TFA teachers leave the classroom but so do many new teachers who enter the profession from traditional teacher preparatory programs. And many TFA teachers stay. Like myself. I entered the teaching profession through TFA, which allowed me to teach on the Navajo reservation. And I’m still here, 10 years later, after receiving my masters from Vanderbilt university. I now work as a literacy coach in an urban school district. Please don’t place me, and those who joined TFA to fight educational equity with me, with the educational bullies you fight.

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    • Annie, I’m sorry but I have major reservations about the Teach for America program. I’m glad it worked out for you and you have become a career teacher. However, having a 5-weeks training crash course is not equal to a four year (or more) education degree. TFA is used to push out more experienced teachers, slash salaries and benefits and bust unions. It degrades the profession and hurts kids. You are the exception to the rule.

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    • 60-percent of TFA’s 2-year wonders (combat recruits) leave within 2 years vs teachers that go through traditional urban residency teacher education where 80-percent are still teaching 5 years later and are highly regarded by their principals.

      In her heavily researched book “The Teacher Wars” Dana Goldstein covers this issue in one of the chapters and reported that TFA has the worst results when compared to all other traditional teacher training programs.

      Read her book.

      It’s obvious that if you stayed in teaching, you are the exception, but the facts speak for themselves. TFA is a horrible teacher training program and it was created as a tool to destroy the teachers’ unions and traditional, community-based, Democratic, transparent, non-profit public schools.

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    • “…who joined TFA to fight educational equity with me….”

      Freudian typo there? Because fighting educational equity is exactly what TfA does. Educational equity would mean that poor and minority kids could have qualified, veteran teachers who have themselves had a full education in the teaching profession. Forcing five-week wonders with no teaching experience or education on poor and minority kids is most definitely fighting educational equity. Ask yourself what kind of teacher do you want for your children? I’m betting five-week wonder isn’t it.

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    • Annie, I agree with Steven. You are an exception and a rare success story. Look at how many TFA teachers move up to powerful ed rephorm positions – Michelle Rhee, etc. (Did you know that Rhee taped children’s mouths to be quiet and when they took the tape off there was blood? She has told that story in public and laughed about it. Imagine a teacher doing that to your child?) They are in it to make money and to make money for the investors. It’s disgusting. They are not authentic educators like you. Public schools have no need for TFA.

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  18. “This world requires teachers to be revolutionaries, to be radicals.”

    I love your thinking here. But I haven’t found many, if any, radical teachers. In fact, being radical makes you a target–gets you fired. And that puts you (and your loved ones) at risk, in regard to future employment. How many can afford to take these types of risks in this economy? I know one and let me tell you, my life has been a struggle because of it. “Struggle,” is me horribly minimizing the situations in which I have been.

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  20. You pretty much have to toe the line, or else… Sad to see my own kids on their google chromebooks, “bought by the district” and then students typing away. Makes my blood boil that as parents/teachers we have no idea, where, what , how this info is being used. My younger daughter a less talented writer than the older due to all this tech… 😦

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  26. Hello Steven,

    I stumbled onto your blog through another post and found this one. I agree with most of what you are saying and the general feeling behind it. Programs like Lexia, Dreambox, MAP, Successmaker, MobyMax, etc. are what I picture when reading this particular blog post and like you I concur that these types of software-based intervention programs are largely digital test prep (insert vulgar word here). I hate them with a fiery passion. They are (in most cases) essentially the equivalent of a digital worksheet and absolutely NOT how technology should be used in school. They also come at the price of not using technology the way it should be used in a school…creating.

    Students should be creating their own books, films, and music using technology and in my classroom they did. That’s where I think the sentiment of this blog post goes a little south. After 10 years in the classroom I took a position last year as a district technology resource teacher in one the largest and most diverse public school systems in the country. I see teachers on a daily basis with the attitude that all edtech is BAD edtech.

    I see teachers that are reluctant or that downright refuse to use things like Google Classroom or Drive with their students. I see teachers that are still using the same ditto sheets and file cabinets the same way they were 10, 20, 30 years ago when they first started teaching. Students and teachers should be using technology in 2018. It’s not acceptable to pull out the notebook paper and take notes or recycle the lecture or assignment you’ve been doing for 20 years. That’s not teaching. It’s not growth and it happens A LOT. Learning to use the tools of today effectively has to be part of our profession.

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    • Davis,

      I think we pretty much agree. I don’t think teachers should avoid technology if it serves an authentic academic purpose. I agree about the potential of technology to allow students to create new things. My students often make iMovies, infographics on Pages, plays or advertisements on Garage Band or even presentations using Keynote. But that is not the way most administrators are pushing us to use the new tech. It’s the number crunching data worshipers. I’m merely advising caution. Look before you leap.

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    • Davis,

      Please identify where you “see teachers that are reluctant or that downright refuse to use things like Google Classroom or Drive with their students. I see teachers that are still using the same ditto sheets and file cabinets the same way they were 10, 20, 30 years ago when they first started teaching”

      After all, there are about 3.5 million teachers spread out over 50 states in more than 15,000 school districts. How many of those classrooms have you seen teachers doing this?

      And also explain how community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public school buys that “necessary” technology if their budgets keep getting cut.

      Here’s what I saw during the THIRTY years I was in the classroom. I saw the district I worked in from 1975 – 2005, buying technology. Without enough money to buy a computer for every classroom or student, the district set up a computer lab in the schools’ libraries and put a classroom set of laptops on carts that could be checked out and rolled to classrooms. Some teachers, including me, bought computers for use in our classrooms costing hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of our pockets.

      But in no time, most of that technology was outdated and the districts could not keep up with the constant improvements that were coming out annually. It takes only a few years for tech to become obsolete.

      The district I worked in set up workshops the teach its teachers about the new technology. Teachers with the most skills were promoted to be in charge of helping other teachers get up to speed with costly tech that was soon outdated. Then students were coming in that couldn’t believe they were working with such outdated tech when they had the most up-to-date tech at home.

      And I retired from teaching in 2005. By the time I retired, there weren’t any more ditto machines in the school district where I worked. They were gone having been replaced by more advanced tech, like copy machines that the schools had trouble finding the funds to keep them operational.

      One year, the high school where I worked was awarded a grant from IBM that brought in the most up-to-date computers for a computer reading lab with cutting-edge reading programs. A few years later, that lab was outdated and worn out and ended up gathering dust in storerooms and the teachers were forced to return to boxed, printed reading labs they were using before that daunted tech arrived.

      And, WOW, the old printed, boxed reading lab material worked just as good if not better than the costly, difficult to maintain and operate IBM computer lab that was a nightmare to keep working. The printed material never broke down or was easily sabotaged by a student that was a challenge to work with.

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      • Lloyd,

        You hit the nail on the head with several of your points. However, one major innovation has come along since you retired that is effectively solving all of the issues you list. I’m talking about the Chromebook. Chromebooks are finally solving the access issue for so many districts that operated in the way you described. Schools used to spend anywhere between $600 to $1000 per device and like you stated, they quickly would become outdated. Chromebooks can be purchased at around a $200 price point and they have the ability to be online in a matter of seconds instead of waiting minutes for costly, inefficient desktop and laptop machines to boot up.

        From my experience in dealing with administrators at the school and district level, Steven is 100% correct in stating that most technology is used only to serve the “Data Monster”. It’s an unfortunate and disheartening thing to walk into classrooms only to see students using technology for digital test prep and I do believe that if teachers stood up and said “NO” as Steven is suggesting to this type of EdTech, school would be a better place for all involved. What would impress me more is if a principal would say “NO”. Unfortunately, most admins build their careers upon being “Data Monsters” and lack any real vision for technology outside of those purposes.

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  27. Yes, for a decade in one of the largest public school districts in the country. I’m also someone that values my career, which is why I will not disclose the exact details of where I work. Getting blacklisted is a very real thing.

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    • Thank you for answering your own question with the main reason why so many teachers fear rocking the boat and possibly losing their jobs or ending up with a shit assignment like teaching five preps in five different classrooms. Due Process rights that are also known as tenure does not protect a teacher that refuses to do with they are told.

      Dismissal for Cause

      A school must show cause in order to dismiss a teacher who has attained tenure status. Some state statutes provide a list of circumstances where a school may dismiss a teacher. These circumstances are similar to those in which a state agency may revoke a teacher’s certification. Some causes for dismissal include the following:

      Immoral conduct
      Incompetence
      Neglect of duty
      Substantial noncompliance with school laws
      Conviction of a crime
      Insubordination
      Fraud or misrepresentation

      http://education.findlaw.com/teachers-rights/teachers-rights-tenure-and-dismissal.html

      Do you speak out publicly against the orders of your administrators? Have you refused to do what the administrators tell you to do in your classroom? Have you stood up and protested the ed code in your district and/or your state when it obviously gets in the way of education?

      I did all that stuff repeatedly when I was teaching and was warned by friendly administrators (VPs or lower) and by the union that I was risking my job. I was outspoken and verbally combative. I put my criticisms in writing and sent letters to all of the district’s administration and to every PTA president for each school in the district. When I was ordered to do something as a teacher that I didn’t agree with the union told me to not defy them with spoken or written words. I resorted to passive-aggressive behavior — stealth teaching.

      Because I was a high profile, award-winning teacher the district administrators were afraid to fire me without cause and had trouble coming up with cause because of what I had accomplished during my decades in the classroom.

      And technology is not the end-all of education. Technology is not the magic bullet that will lead every child to learn. The main goal of educating students should be to teach them problem-solving and critical thinking skills and that can be done without a computer. A secondary goal should be to teach them to love reading for fun and learning.

      Just like every child does not need a college education, every child does not need to learn how to be a programmer. In fact, I’ve read there is already a glut of programmers and for every job that requires a college degree, there are almost three candidates.

      In fact, I think the schools should focus on weaning children away from the internet, texting, video games, porn, etc. and focus on teaching them to love reading books instead. To learn about the world around them instead of how many friends they can gain on Facebook or another social media site. They should learn social skills and spend more time outside with those children who they will never meet in person.

      Children will learn from dittoed worksheets. Children will learn from textbooks. Children will learn while reading books for enjoyment. Children do not need computers or the internet that is destroying famlies and entire cultures.

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  36. […] In general, I think we have become too reliant on technology in schools. We’ve welcomed and incorporated it without testing it, or even reflecting upon whether it promises to offer better pathways toward student comprehension and discovery or whether it merely offers flash and novelty devoid of substance. And perhaps even more frightening, we have not investigated the ways in which using these technologies actually puts student privacy an…. […]

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