Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Performance: Teachers Adopting and Using Technology in U.S. Schools: Who Decides?
U.S. Presidents, philanthropists, parents, and researchers all say, no, swear, that teachers are the most important in-school factor in children and youth learning. Yet those very same teachers, experienced professionals with advanced degrees, have little say in determining access to or use of hardware and software in their classrooms. Policymakers decide, not teachers, to buy and deploy new technologies for classroom use.
School boards buy iPads for kindergarten teachers. Superintendents contract with companies to supply every classroom with interactive whiteboards. Sure, maybe a few teachers show up on a district-wide committee that advises the school board and superintendent but decisions to spend and distribute machines are seldom made by teachers, the foot soldiers of reform, who are expected to use them in lessons.
Teachers–most of whom already use an array of electronic devices at home–are expected to use new technologies in classroom lessons but have little to no say in determining which devices and software they will use and under what conditions. That is the paradox that champions of technology–including philanthropists, software engineers, programmers, and CEOs–fail to understand or if they do understand choose to ignore.
Yet that is not the case in other professions. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and accountants working either as solo practitioners or in small groups decide which new technologies they will buy and use. In most public and private organizations that hire professionals, such as hospitals, top decision-makers often meet and confer with doctors. Ditto for engineers and architects in big companies, and senior lawyers in firms. But not in school districts.
Non-involvement does not mean non-use. In school districts, for example, once major investments in high-tech are made, there are many teachers who choose to use the new equipment and software in their lessons. And there are those teachers among them who ingeniously weave learning and machines together in imaginative ways that both entrance and spur students to learn even more than they would from conventional lessons. There are such teachers and they show up in articles in Edutopia, on technology advocacy websites, and in software testimonials. They comprise a small fraction of a district’s teacher corps, however.
So what? Why point out that teachers seldom participate in decisions to buy and deploy new technologies?
I offer two answers to the “So What” question.
1. Such policy and administrative decisions ignoring teachers’ ideas, concerns, and issues of implementations send the message that those who teach are mere technicians who hammer the nail and turn the screw. They are not professionals capable of making judgments about buying and using new technologies.
Anyone who has been in schools when spanking new devices were rolled out at the beginning of a school year knows all the “Oops,” “Sorry about that,” and “we had not considered that possibility” that get said in subsequent months. Much, but not all, of that could have avoided had teachers participated fully in piloting new devices and discussions prior to purchase and use.
2. Were teachers to become part of the actual decision-making process in determining access and use of new technologies would they eventually integrate these new technologies into classroom lessons? There is a good chance they would.
Why? Because teachers who piloted the new devices would have learned connections between the required curriculum and software applications, how lessons could be taught that use and not use the new devices and software. A pool of expertise would have emerged among those teachers and their peers that could be shared with colleagues.
Treating teachers as undeserving (or complicating the process) to be at the table when decisions are made about buying and deploying hardware and software reflects the low esteem that far too many policymakers have for teachers.
Would decisions on access and use of high-tech devices in classrooms be better-informed with teachers involved? You bet. Would more teachers use the software and devices. Perhaps. That question would be worth answering.
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