When Teacher Meets Tech
You may have heard the famous children’s story, When You Give A Mouse A Cookie? The concept is that of which many parents (and teachers) can relate — a simple request snowballs into more and more demands. I think in the world of education, this underlying fear of “If we give teachers this, then they are going to ask for this next…” is something stagnating work conditions. Never mind finding the mouse that ruined it for the rest of us! And it’s leaving us teachers burnt out and bitter about the thing we love most in the world — teaching children. The norm in American education is simple: work with less and do more.
But what if the opposite were true? What if a teacher could have more than she ever dreamed?
Well, teacher friends, I am here to tell you that place is real and I have been to the “Promised Land”. But, here in San Francisco, they call it “EdTech”. That’s right, the tech world is the exact opposite of all the working conditions we struggle with as teachers and it’s absolutely fascinating.
As a teacher, it’s hard not to feel Imposter Syndrome. Ten years of my life was devoted to waking up at the crack of dawn — scratch that — more accurately, waking up BEFORE the existence of sunlight each day- and living in literally and figuratively a life of all things Dark Ages. My day started and ended in absolute black abyss of nighttime and my classroom was filled with 30-year old technology, limited communication with the outside world, meager rations, scrambles to relieve myself, and oh did I mention teaching?
It once took me 3 weeks to get a class of 45 students — yep, 45 students in one room- desks and a classroom computer where I could enter grades and lessons for said students.
But you get it, you’ve all been there. You know the struggles. So imagine my surprise when I entered the Tech World. Yes, it is worth the capitalization. This brave new world is one where I choose my own hours, I can walk to work, I get a brand-new pretty laptop (I named her Pearl) AND there is free food and alcohol. IN the building.
So let’s recap what we’ve learned so far:
Public School Teacher
- Doesn’t see the light of day
- 20-Minute Lunch Break (Okay, I know that’s really generous on time we actually take for our lunch, but I’ll put it down for funsies)
- Homework every night
- Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork
- SO tired ALL the time
- Broken or completely absent technology
Teacher Consultant for EdTech Company
- Choose Your Own Hours (It might as well be Choose Your Own Adventure because it’s equally as awesome as those books were!)
- Lunch is a THING. Like we-walk-somewhere-and-sit-down-and-visit-for-an-hour kind-of-thing.
- Leave work at work, unless it’s so fun that it doesn’t feel like work!
- Does anybody have a pen? Seriously, we don’t need paper?
- Technology! We love technology! Want Some?
So yeah that all sounds awesome BUT….
What This Means for the Future
All that aside, I think the most important thing to recognize is that EdTech means really cool opportunities for the future and for our CLASSROOMS. I mean, here at Lalilo, we are working on Artificial Intelligence that operates like a teaching assistant in the classroom! It’s a program that the teacher assigns to students as an interactive station, and then it continues to adapt to individual learning styles and provides differentiated instruction.
Can you imagine? We’re talking about living in a world of education, where as the solo teacher in a class, you now have a tool that helps you teach to each kid’s ability and then you get to collect all that data.
For years, we’ve been working towards self-driving cars, facial recognition for our phones, flying machines and now, now teacher friends, teachers are getting a robot assistant in the classroom! The goal being simply to help kids read.
As a high school teacher, I can’t wait for the day when my students who are ninth, tenth, eleventh or even, 12th grade, ALL can read at grade level. How different English class will look when not bogged down by differing reading levels when reading a class novel! Or having kids no longer acting out or pushing back on the concept of school because they secretly don’t want others to know that they simply can’t read.
And that brings me to the REALLY important part…
What This Means for Our Students
In an industry where so many others make decisions on our behalf, it’s great to have a seat at the table as a teacher. By asking those that have done more with less and by building a product for teachers by teachers, perhaps giving the mouse the cookie can actually snowball into something fantastic this time around.
What if kids COULD catch up in school? What if school didn’t automatically mean shame for the slower learner? After all, the foundation of education is students absorbing content, but how can they do that successfully if they can’t read the text in front of them? How can they be successful if they can’t access the wealth of information hiding within those written words?
So, I’d like to propose an alternate ending to our favorite children’s story. Perhaps, in reality, if you give the mouse the cookie, then they feed the rest of the mice. It’s just that simple. The future looks bright, folks. And the EdTech companies — like Lalilo — hiring educators to lead technology is pretty grand, also.
P.S. To Fellow Mice Who’d Like to Share a Piece of the Cookie…
Please message me at tiffany@lalilo.com if you’re a teacher who’d like to be a part of what we’re doing here at Lalilo.
You may also find me on Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/tiffany.croom.503
