It is not that mistakes are not being made in our educational system at all
levels. It is that, as Phillip noted, the flow of infomation and influence
is top down. Teachers do not generally pay enough attention to helping
kids learn from their mistakes - but mostly because the educational system
around them, including administrators, do not give teachers the opportunity
to make mistakes either. In Phillip's description of his day, I see little
time where he can try something new and fail. The administrative pressure
is for the teachers to 'get it right'.
Thinking like either a punctuationalist or a gradualist about the social
ecology, one can ask what are the pressures on the system leading
practices in the directions they are going? There are some who are trying
to 'teacher-proof' schooling - that is to say, make computer software,
curriculum, and the school schedule, immune from teachers' mistakes.
Complete new settings in which teachers are absent would be the ultimate
teacher-proofing.
As I sit here in my kitchen, I can see the middle school across the street
and the high school abutting my back yard. Yet the difficulty I have had
in contacting teachers in either school has been incredibly frustrating at
times. Mostly it is not the teachers' fault. The schools have been
parent-proofed, except for along some very narrow channels, where we do not
have the influence to change much of anything. After all, the parents,
being free from the constraints of schools, could really screw it up.
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]