Dear high school teacher: you’re failing your kids

I am, too. But I’m working on it.

If we are doing our job as our school system encourages us to do, then we are certainly failing to provide what our kids need.

I know it. You know it. And the kids know it.

18 years is enough time to have an informed perspective. I’ve been in the classroom and briefly at the office. There is opportunity at all levels to do meaningful work. It’s rarely taken. In its stead is tons of waste — time, talent, & space. Worse than you imagine.

What kills the teacher? The clock. It takes time and energy to create engaging workshops. Those at the office have weeks to prepare for a day’s worth; those in the classroom have to deliver every day, multiple times a day, to different students and subjects. It works for about a week, then it kills you. Survival mode sets in and you learn to fill the time with meaningless filler.

What kills the office leaders, movers, and shakers? A culture of anti-innovation. You quickly learn that leading, moving, and shaking doesn’t get you the corner office. Looking good, being polite, and staying out of the way are much better odds. All that time you get to create your once-a-year workshop is time you can be doing some serious moving forward. But if you do, you’re screwed. So, you don’t. You learn to love the fact that you’re getting paid for not working. And that’s a different kind of killer.

How do we fail the students? The clock-killed teacher now dreads the students who wish to move and shake. Instead of harnessing that energy productively, we dread it. Everybody please just shut up. Listen to me talk. Do your worksheet. Teenage students don’t always get the cues, though, and most aren’t looking to the future yet. So they continue ‘disturbing’ until something gives, and that’s usually real learning.

Worksheets. Photocopies upon photocopies of busy work carelessly filled out by students and checked off by teachers as evidence of accomplishment. Check. Check. Check. Get your sticker. Here’s your grades. At the end of the semester, out come the final exams to test who can remember the crap on those worksheets. Better memory equals better grades. Finally, another semester done. Recycling bins filled to capacity.

About four years ago, not coincidental with a serious life shift, something changed for me. Having hit rock bottom, I took every opportunity I could to escape the clock, grab a break. I attended the usual time-wasting workshops. One of these, however, proved to actually make a difference.

The workshop itself sucked. It was a workshop showing how to use the online learning environment or LMS. Some big wigs — no doubt thanks to Ministry prompting (higher-up big wigs for you USA readers) — got a group to set up this D2L for teachers’ use. Put your stuff online. You can move your class to the 21st century. We are following Ministry objectives. Check.

The environment was outdated, cumbersome, awful. But the idea of teaching with a laptop appealed to me, and anything to get me out of that photocopy room seemed a blessing. I’m a nerd. I got a little bit interested.

I spent way too many hours figuring out how to use this eLearning. But the pain prompted much innovative thinking, and when I discovered that the environment we were given wasn’t the only thing out there, I got real good at finding new and innovative apps, websites, and internet-y ways of teaching. It was and still is a little bit of fun and what luck that the students are online too?

Today, my students are more often doing what they’re supposed to be doing: learning to master the internet for all kinds of purpose, not just sending silly messages.

I force them to learn the skills of cloud computing, website publishing, online discussion and sharing, and digital citizenship (dare I say ‘promotion’?).

I really don’t care if they learn the course curriculum.

Sure, it’s in there. Everything they create is tied to the material. But the goal is skills, not memorizing. They have to use the material to create something and it has to be tech-y and online. For example, in Geography, I don’t care if they can memorize every capital and body of water. What I require is that they can quickly look that up and plot those points on a GIS map, make the map interactive with pop-ups of extra information & images, and publish it on their website. Bingo — they’ve just replicated a task given to the City Department clerk in charge of updating the latest city-sewers map online.

I have learned that most of what is learned (memorized) is lost or not applicable “out there”. Please, you know it. Those that do end up using their high school math or history in the workplace happen to like that stuff in the first place and will appreciate the material memorized, taking it further on their own and out of pure hobby; those that will never need to quote Shakespeare on the spot at the office will most likely need to get on-the-line and produce something creative, or, at the very least, effective. Using a cloud based tool. And share it.

The plumber who wishes to start his own business will appreciate knowing how to set up a nice website. But even if the student ends up working for The Man and never using the internet in life, teaching digital skills is the least we can do for our colleagues after us. If every student went to collage & university as masters of their own devices, those schools could focus more on teaching the work-specific skills and less on dealing with students who can’t find a link.

The funny thing is this digital learning stuff has changed the way I teach. Now, many of those meaningless workshops I attended show some meaning. I’m starting to get it, this project-based-learning thing. I can now understand you, assessment for, as, and of learning. Actually, this new way has made it possible for a lousy orator and crappy class-manager like myself to actually, for the first time ever, get those “your class is sick” comments that the rare naturally talented teachers get.

The computer even makes the clock a little lighter. I look forward to classes, even Mondays, just to try the new thing I’m trying. And with technology today, trying something new is the only way it will work.

So, despite all the efforts from the system to quash innovation and throw major stumbling blocks into any effective change, it’s happening in my classes.

The only other time I felt like I was really teaching and not failing the kids was when I used to take students to Central America. Back then, it was all about skills too.

“I hated this online thing, but, thanks sir, I’m glad I learned to do it. My college courses have everything online.”

Hopefully, he’s not the only one that passed last year.