I had no idea that education for computer use is that poorly provided for
in a public school which seems to want to claim that it's providing
computer literacy, as your school is obviously doing. Unfortunately it
seems to support something which I wrote to the list a while ago about
how far we have to go before our whole society is "hard-wired." Even a
school which has gone so far as to have a computer lab and a "real"
computer skills teacher still has a long way to go before any real
integration into the curriculum is achieved. It seems we as a society
are willing to spend money and effort on everything but our children.
Or is it that we're entirely willing to spend a lot on our _own_ kids but
just don't understand that in the long run other people's children (even
poor children!) are members of our society, too, and their fate in
inextricably tied in with our own?
Your teachers are probably right - the administration only cares about
computer literacy when it's time to make up the PR material or write the
budget proposal. The tyranny of the standardized test is far more real
and immediate.
Can concerned people change systems through deliberate effort, or do we
just have to wait for the march of history and pray that the inevitable
change is the one we have been working for?
Rachel Heckert
>Schools are not structured to support this kind of new learning for
>teachers. I can teach a class to teachers who then go back to a
>classroom with older equipment than I have in my lab, or a class that
>has to share a computer with another class, or no support when she
>first runs into trouble. Repairs of equipment can take up to 4
>weeks-enough time for a junior to forget how to do something. I have
>some success with on the spot the training, but most of my working day
>is scheduled for teaching classes to students, I can not run down the
>hall whenever there is a need for help in the classroom. Many teachers
>still view computers as an enhancement of learning and if they spend
>105% of their time trying to get every student on grade level (as
>assessed by some standardized test)for reading and math, computers
>fall
>at the end of the list of important things to do.
>
>I can see how this supports a reproduction of capitalism in the
>Information Age. Students with computers at home already know how to
>use the one in their classroom, students with no access to computers
>except 25 minutes a week in the computer lab will not have the skill
>or
>comfort level with computer technology that the high status and high
>paying jobs of the future will require.
>
>And, yes, I do see some hope, but the glimmer of light at the end of
>the tunnel is a long way off. Lots of things need to change, not just
>teacher expectations.
>