Yesterday I dropped my son off at camp and was catching up with old friends.  I was asked several times about what I did.  The conversation usually starts as follows.

“What do you do?”
“I am an educator.”
“What do you teach?”
In my head I say, “People” but my mouth says “I work with students and teachers on how to use a variety of tools to research, communicate, collaborate and share information.”
Long ago I learned to skip the part were I say “I am a K12 Technology Integration Specialist” because the next question always was “what is that?”

That usually leads to a mini rant no one wants to hear but I need to say or I’ll just bust. Here is an example.

I have a pet peeve when teachers say they teach technology, or math or chemistry for that matter.  We work with people around a subject area.  But I don’t really have a subject area.  I work with people helping them develop effective, efficient ways to access, organize, communicate, collaborate, create and share information.  I teach them ways to support their learning. I don’t really teach groups but individuals.  Learning is unique to each person, we all have our ways of thinking and doing.  The tools today accentuate and support our individuality more so then ever.  Yet schools tend to focus on groups and not individuals.  In classrooms today instruction is scripted, locked to time tables and specific standards, there is little room for real variation of instructional and learning strategies.  If you do not fit into the main group of learners you are just out of luck.  I believe if we truly thought of each student as an individual and not member of a group (ELL, homeless, gifted, special ed, title 1, etc.) our system, schools and classrooms would look much different then they do today.  Each individual comes to school with strengths, weaknesses, gifts, talents and interest.  Many of these are ignored and over looked in the way we do things. We like to categorize and group things to make them easier to understand and  organize but people are not simple and neither is learning.  Learning is a complex process and and can not be simplified into a scripted one method fits all classroom.

I am not going to win many friends that way.  But I just can’t contain myself any more. Next time maybe the conversation will go as follows.

“What do you do?”
“I am an educator?”
“What to you teach?”

“I teach people about learning?”

 

Update:  I was just going through my rss feed and came across Angela Maier’s post Guidelines of Passion-Based Learning, which is relevant to my mini rant yesterday.  It is well worth your time to read and consider.