CCK11 has demanded of me an unusual level of personal reflection. This paper is a personal reflection on my professional career; I trust you will indulge my rant. It seems fated. Even after receiving my usual request for extension, my brain never kicking in until the original deadline, my note taking program failed and I cannot access my notes, save one paper. I used to think my grandfather saw a lot of change that made his life both difficult and remarkable. But perhaps, anyone who’s lived four score years since the Industrial Revolution has seen similar degrees of change. My meager research supports my frustrations and beliefs, both pragmatic and ideological, about my professional career. I took a break from teaching for 5 years and when I returned to studies in 1994, the internet had been invented; communication and the world was changing at a pace never before imagined, irrevocably and unpredictably.
Frustrations I felt throughout my teaching career, which began in 1981, would not decrease but intensify, as technological advancements made the practice of education facilitation both more complex and more chaotic. The days of schools as simple organizations was past, as even those "systems evolve to ever-more complex and sophisticated forms” (Boulton). The introspection, reflection and permission to look forward, afforded by this course, have consumed much time and mental energy. It is only with understanding that I was not alone in my efforts to cope amid age-old struggles for power and control that I realized, yet again, that I had been leading without being able to effectively influence others. What I have learned allows me to evaluate my career in three stages, that, not coincidentally, correspond to my education.
I obtained my Bachelor’s Degree in 1979 at the end of an era of traditional education. Computers were becoming common for administrative functions. Education thinkers were toying with their application as I began my teaching career. Students commonly sat in rows and working together was usually considered cheating. A classroom of students at work was silent, with a teacher strolling up and down the rows quietly offering individual aid. Teachers were expected to know, if not all there was to know in a content field, at least all their students were likely to want to know. It was all pretty simple and straight-forward. Everyone, teachers, students and parents knew what was expected because it was the same as what we’d been doing for quite some time. That scene, thankfully, is, at least, no longer commonplace.
I was learning what it was to be a teacher while I worked half time with special needs junior high students, and the other half as a teacher-librarian. Both parts of my job, at opposite ends of the spectrum, were interesting. As a special needs teacher, my success depended upon allowing myself to let students show me what they were capable of. As librarian, I used literature to open minds to possibility, and encouraged my colleagues to team-teach integrated and cross-curricular units of research study. More academic students came in search of greater independent learning. Helping students learn what they wanted to know was fascinating, unpredictable. Only later did I realize that teacher librarians are trained to be at the forefront of education “delivery”.
I was not half-way through my Grad. Diploma in school libraries in the ‘80’s when I started to make waves in my suburban/rural Alberta school. I thought then that what I was reading about collaborative, cooperative, self-disciplined, self-directed learning and peer assessment was a much better fit with my philosophy of teaching and learning than the trough and shovel method common at the time. I was, even then, a learning facilitator, feeling that the degree of my success was the degree to which I could facilitate access to resources for students and my colleagues. Virtually all administrative work was computer based. I alone saw the computers as one of those resources, a result in part, of being steeped in critical thinking at the university but part of a teaching staff with at least 10 years’ experience. The science guy ran the computer lab, the principal and vice-principal guys with their phys ed. guy buddies saw no need for computers in the library. Librarians were demanding classroom and library computers, on-line book cataloguing and catalogues. Student had computers at home, and correctly felt it regressive not to have broader use of them in school. Classroom teachers were content to wait. Issues of power and control in education had never been more keenly felt by all stakeholders.
I took a long break, returning to the classroom in 1998. While in China, I learned that too much of what we here in the West call cheating, others called collegial learning, team work and simply helping each other. Vastly different perspectives exist for the same phenomenon. Perception is, indeed, reality and acceptance for diversity of thought is key to progress (Boulton).
Meanwhile, the internet had been invented. The pace of change was no longer quic, but frenetic, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon, change as could never have been anticipated. Between 1991 and 1998, many classrooms got at least one or two student use computers; every self-respecting library had a small bank of computers; cataloguing was downloaded and hard copy encyclopedias were completely obsolete. Rows of students were replaced by study group tables. It was official. Team-work was not just for phys. ed. and not necessarily cheating. Even the provinces discovered ways of making curriculum affordable as they opted for the Western Canada Protocols for curriculum development. Progressive teachers began to look to our students for help on occasion. We talked with great anticipation about how the internet would make research easier and more plentiful with easier and greater access to resources. Little could we know!
The advent of the internet has changed everything. Because information travels the world in seconds, much more information is available to many more people so much sooner than ever before. My son uses “reddit” and tells me the news 2-3 days before it hits the headlines! Research bibliographies are automatically generated by software linked to on-line data base subscriptions, eliminating the time-consuming job of formatting bibliographic entries. Because of it, news has travelled so fast it has actually enabled much of the Middle East grass roots to topple long standing regimes like falling dominoes, demanding democratic elections and governance. Students in the most geographically isolated parts of the world can interact electronically with others, using video, audio and animation, synchronous or asynchronous chat rooms, social networking, etc.
And now, at Stage Three, I see that my colleague of my early teaching years was right. I have been a passionate teacher, in some ways 30 years ahead of my time. This course is pushing me to stay current, to “not go gently into that good night” (Dylan Thomas). Today’s teachers are not teachers in the traditional definition, but instead learning facilitators. Our work is to break down barriers to learning and replace them with paving stones so that the our students’ learning journeys are eased and the process made more convenient so that they strive to be life-long learners. Whereas teachers have too often been a conservative lot steeped in tradition, today’s effective education facilitators are flexible, innovative, adaptable problem-solvers who respect their students. “In complex systems predictability is the exception rather than the norm, flexibility and adaptability are key components” to success (Boulton). We need to be actively involved in an ongoing process of personal critical research to that we see what is needed by the explicit as well as the implicit responses of students to their needs, and adapt. We are on a never-ending quest of inquiry, brainstorming and hypothesizing, postulating solutions, evaluating them and starting afresh.
This look back at my career has given me hope to look toward to the future with optimism, knowing that I can, if not keep up with the pace of change, at least actively pursue it. I know how difficult it is for one trained to work in an inflexible system to impose diversity on that system. I have learned how difficult it is for workers who remove themselves from a technological workforce for just five years, to re-enter it without extensive training. I am a life-long learner and I recognize that my pace of learning is not fast. I know that “adherence to ideas about stability and simplicity prevent us from being successful in a dynamic and complex system (Boulton). Because I am a critical and creative thinker, I can decide what I need in order to guide my students forward through labyrinthine choices. I don’t need to have the answers; I need to be ”asking probing questions that promote elaborate responses and provide experiences to make this possible” (Navarro, 2008) so that they can find the answers they need to move forward.
School division and administrators have an important and parallel role to play. Given the pace of change, a greater dedication of resources is required for facilitators’ professional development. Teachers must be funded to participate in activities that keep them current with educational applications of technology, software, and tools. How can cell phones and texting be used for educational gain? How can student blogs and school websites be used as communication tools? How can students post their work to the net? How will students evaluate the credibility and value of what they find and use on the net? As well, academics too, need to be respectful of their students, the teachers/learning facilitators. Though not all will be equally successful at efforts to understand and cope with the pace of change, surely we deserve respect for our efforts, no matter how seemingly feeble to those blessed with the capacity, ability or resources for greater technical expertise. Face it, somebody taught you to read this. Teachers or other caregivers do not deserve to be denigrated with superior or snobbish attitudes.
Lest I digress, let me tell you about a painting I have. This painting is a First Nations depiction of life. The feather lies in the forest, beaten and trampled by the rain and the storm. But it carries us through life. We all start at its base, alike. We climb the centre shaft of the feather on life’s journey. We take side paths where the barbules have separated, one barb from another (http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/luallen/feather3.htm). If we return to the shaft along the path of the barbules, we travel to the next juncture. However, we can only climb the shaft if we help those who go before us, and those who come behind. So is the journey of students, teacher/facilitator, school administrator and academic professor. Professionals enrolled in this course are dedicated education facilitators (formerly called teachers) struggling valiantly in a fast paced, stressful, changing environment. We possess the qualities and are pursuing the skills that will lead the profession forward, and we deserve to be encouraged for our efforts. This course, your thoughts and ours, will be further validated when we can apply what we learn here to help those coming behind, following you leading us on.
References
Boulton "Managing in an Age of Complexity."
Navarro, Ann M. Building Schema for English Language learners. Online submission, ERIC Ed514335, 2008-05-07
Tie Better: the nature of a feather: feather anatomy 101. http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/luallen/feather3.htm).
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