The "Natives" Are Restless

The title of this entry links to an article that brings to mind all of the conversations I've had with friends, family, and co-workers about the idea of "Digital Natives" and "Digital Immigrants" that was first presented by Marc Prensky. Chris Betcher of Betchablog makes a great point that stands alongside other comments made by those, like myself, who are not sold on the idea of a digital native as someone who has a natural ability to use technology in ways that are above and beyond their poor hapless teachers.

I particularly enjoyed his examples of students, as well as his own children, who would be considered "digital natives," but do not live up to the level of expertise ascribed to "natives" by Prensky and others. The most frustrating conversations I've had in the last couple of years have been with other teachers or those within the field of education who just can't believe there are children out there who aren't excited by or aren't experts on technology. They might be able to out-text me. They might have an iPhone and an iPod Touch at age 12 (which I still think is crazy, but I won't rant on that just yet), while I own an iPod that's already 2 generations old. It really doesn't matter. They might know what a thing is, but they are certainly not light-years ahead of me in terms of understanding it or applying their knowledge to other uses for their technology.

I does bother me when teachers assume they are in a losing battle against the digital natives because everything they read tells them they will always be behind the times. Everything I've read or been told, by people who keep up on these things, has been pretty discouraging. It makes me feel like I'm not doing enough to keep up with the students. Then I'm shocked when we can't even create an iTunes playlist for a class project!


I'm not even sure what I would be considered. I'm old enough to remember a time before the Internet, but since my dad worked at Texas Instruments, we always had some kind of computer or technology in the house. I'm not sure if I'm a native or an immigrant. Does that make me "undocumented"? I've decided to give up on these labels. Most times they aren't even true, which makes them even less helpful.

So, take heart "digital immigrants," and move over "digital natives." We're all in the same boat... but it's the immigrants who have done more traveling and understand how to steer.

Performance Anxiety

When I was a young lad, I was usually a good student. Straight A report cards were regularly stuck to the fridge. When there was a problem with my performance, however, the first person my parents questioned about that was me. Had I not studied enough for that test? Did I read all of the chapters I was supposed to have read? Simply stated: it was my fault.

Now that I'm a teacher, with many friends who teach all across this great country, it seems that failure is still my fault. President Obama said as much as he reaffirmed his claims that he would seek to institute merit-based pay for teachers.

New teachers will be mentored by experienced ones... Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools. (New York Times 10 Mar. 2009.)

Sounds great, right? As a teacher who is always trying new things and attempting to be innovative, this concept should be one that sends little shivers of excitement up my spine. When my students perform well, I will be rewarded. That's often how the business world works and from what we've seen lately from the business/financial sector, why wouldn't we want to emulate them? But, hey, when students are failing, it must just be the teachers fault.

This debate has been around much longer than I have been a teacher, so I doubt I'll be adding too much to it, unless you count my two cents.

What I do know is that a merit-based pay system will not work. This side of paradise there are just too many variables to take into consideration before we "award" teachers with merit-based pay.

In the three short years I've been teaching, I have had three very different groups of students. Even within each of those groups, the individual classes varied dramatically. One year I might have had a group that would excel at everything we did. The next year, I might have lessons or units that have been improved/clarified, and yet that particular group will struggle through every week and every unit of study. Any teacher who has taught for more than one year will tell you that each year is a unique mixture of students, be it for better or worse.

Not to mention the inequality in student populations across the country. Taking into consideration language barriers, family income, parental involvement, neighborhood environments... before paying teachers for their performances becomes a fair and viable solution, all of those factors would have to be equal across the board.

Even the best teacher is going to struggle with a student if there is no support coming from home. Parents are just as important, if not more important, to their children's educational success as an effective teacher. Try telling that teacher who is working their fingers to the bone to get their students to succeed, despite a lack of parental involvement, that merit-based pay is the best solution for our educational system.

During my first year as a teacher, I had a student who I was expecting would be enrolled mostly in Honors courses their first year of high school. After taking a test that would later be used to determine their high school placements, the student's score indicated that they should be placed in Special Education classes. Now, that test was scheduled the day after Halloween -- a horrible day to administer a test that appears to carry such weight -- and who knows why that particular student performed so poorly on the test. Multiply that by several more students and tell me how merit-based pay would work for me as a teacher?

And how will this "merit" be judged? What exactly are they evaluating to determine whether we're worthy of this higher salary? How can they guarantee that there won't be any favoritism or cheating? I think I also missed where all this extra money is going to come from.

This whole concept makes me nervous, because I have a feeling that something like this would turn teaching into a competitive profession and not the collaborative one that it should be.



I want to throw something out there, but I don't think I can coherently delve as deeply into it right now as I'd like. I'll come back to it later. I was reading through a report on "How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top" by McKinsey & Co. done in September 2007. There was an interesting section in the report about teacher recruitment and teacher training done in the most successful school systems in the world. Instead of solely rewarding or punishing ineffective teachers once they have infiltrated the school systems, they actually spend more time scrutinizing applicants to teacher training programs before they even go through the training. As I mentioned, I haven't had enough time to process this idea to the point where I'm ready to fully try to analyze it, defend it, or tear it to pieces... maybe later!

There are districts that have implemented this kind of salary plan and are thriving because of it, so I don't doubt that it might work in a few instances. However, I'm not sure how this would work on a national level. There is no guarantee that a merit-based system would be any more effective across the board than what we already have.

When we're discussing effectiveness, fairness, rewarding results, and so on, I can't help but leave you with two quotes that sum up what I was feeling today as I heard the news report about Mr. Obama's speech:

"The world more often rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself." (François de La Rochefoucauld)

"I have a bad feeling about this." (Han Solo)

School's (Not) Out For Summer

Back to School Already? Year-Round Programs in Full Swing - ABC News Shared via AddThis

Thanks to Eric Langhorst (Twitter:ELanghorst) for tweeting this article. It reminds me just how much I would love to have year-round classes.

When I was a student while living in England, we had year-round schooling. School started in the beginning of August, with one month breaks in December, March, and July. I remembered more when we came back to school in August, and we (my family) had more time to travel for Winter Break, Spring Break, etc. Given the opportunity, I would absolutely love to have year-round schooling here.

That being said, I do have to agree with some of the critics that say year-round schooling will not help a school that is already mediocre. Isn't that true of any initiative? However, I think a move to a "modified calendar" would give some teachers the added consistency they need to make changes to the way they teach. We're always complaining about a lack of time, so who wouldn't benefit from an extra 20-30 days in the school year?

There were also a couple of comments for this article -- one in particular -- that I wanted to address. I've heard from people before that the 3-month summer vacation is "a key part of life for American youth," as one of the comments says. I would challenge that by asking: "Can you tell me exactly what those American youth are doing during those three months that is so worthwhile?" I don't view the longer calendar as being extended babysitting, and I've been to the mall or the park during June, July, and August... so I suppose this additional summer time is key for all of the smoking, lounging, vandalizing, etc. that some American youth choose to participate in. I see students' Facebook updates about how bored they are, or that they're just sitting at home, "doin nuthin." Is this really what summer is all about?