That'SLife

More from the world of “I don’t like it so I don’t see why I should use it in the classroom” around the blogosphere this week, always interesting to engage with and ponder. I’ve seen yet more of the Kool Aid argument [ for background, check here ]:

“There’s a saying in the U.S. about people who uncritically embrace ideology as having ‘drunk the Kool-Aid’, a reference to the charismatic evangelist Jim Jones and his persuading a large group of followers to drink a poisonous beverage (presumably Kool-Aid) at an event commonly called The Jonestown Massacre.“

Of course the word ‘uncritically‘ is the important bit in there, as it might be if one re-wrote it for any other subject. Let’s see now: “Those who uncritically embrace the policies of any political party…“. Yes, that works. There’s an assumption, of course, that all those people who use technology in their teaching are uncritically approaching it. More from the same writer:

“My point is that any argument that claims ‘new is better’ or ‘everybody’s doin’ it, so…’ is a weak argument, a logical fallacy waiting to be exposed. And, such blind enthusiasm can have dire consequences, just as knee-jerk reactions against technology might be disastrous.“

So yes, we agree. And right at the end of that sentence there appears to be a bit of balance. What, I wonder, is it about technology that creates assumptions about those who are using it to teach? I know hundreds of teachers worldwide who use technology, and not one of them is uncritical, not one of them picks up a new tool and says “it’s new, so it must be better” and marches off to class, and not one of them falls prey to the “everybody’s doing it, so I must too” argument.

Because (unlike those who don’t use tech who seem to assume rather unkindly that teachers are gibbering idiots incapable of mature thought when faced with technology) they’re clever, thinking professionals. They talk to others, they experiment, they compare, they reflect – and when it makes sense to use a technology, they do. And when it doesn’t they use boards, paper, chairs, rods, pens and all manner of other things. And sometimes they use nothing at all. Because they’re open, experimental, critical, eclectic and creative. They’re good teachers.

Because, it turns out, those of us who use technology REALLY are rather more open, rather more critical (in the positive sense, rather than the ‘technology is crap‘ sense), rather more accepting and rather more adventurous. In fact, we spend our time talking about what we do and comparing notes, learning and progressing in our professional careers. What we don’t do is spend our time dissing everything else.

In fact, it seems to me that this is a sign of weakness and vulnerability in those who don’t use technologies in their classrooms – they spend more time attacking those who do (and the technologies that they use) than they do talking about their own particular fields of interest or teaching approaches. I wouldn’t mind so much if they’d actually given it a go and were talking from a position of experience, but those who, say, diss IWBs are invariably those who haven’t tried them, but have read a report on them. I’m open to being corrected on that point if you’d like to get in touch…

Vulnerable? Yes, I’d say so… Desperate? Perhaps…. Uncomfortable? Surely…. Feeling a bit left out? Definitely…. But it’s not too late, folks – you can still join the party. It just takes some enthusiasm, energy, commitment and dedication – all the things that, as good teachers, I’m sure you apply to your daily lives. Re-assign some of the energy you put into dissing technologies to actually trying them out and you might get on a bit. It’s a simple balance of energy.

We technology users don’t write off things because they’re a little too hard for us to get our heads round, or because we may be considered to be a bit too old for them – no, we think, reflect, experiment and we use a variety of tools. More importantly we spend time getting to grips with things instead of hiding our heads in the sand and hoping they’ll go away.

If teachers were political parties, perhaps, those of us who use technologies as part of our repertoire would be on the left, the more human side of politics – the side that listens to the voters, the side that cares and wants to do well. Those who spend their time whingeing about technologies and looking for holes to punch in them would be on the slightly more, shall we say, right side of the political spectrum – the side that brooks no dissent, the side that indulges in petty backstabbing in the papers, in rumour-mongering – the politics of fear. As in politics, it’s a sign of desperation, and a sign of being out of touch with the mood of the country (in this case, planet earth, where all teachers really should reside if they’re going to be of any use to their learners).

But the latest argument that I’m really enjoying is what we shall call the ‘crapness conceit‘ and it goes like this: “blogs are crap because you can’t have a proper conversation“, or “Twitter’s rubbish because it doesn’t propose any decent ways of dealing with tense and aspect in the intermediate classroom” or, perhaps, “technology’s rubbish because it doesn’t do exactly what I want it to do when I want it to do it“. Oh yes, that’s all very logical. A recent tweet to me said “Twitter = SMS + embedded URLs“, as if that were a bad thing in itself, or as if that were only what Twitter is for.

And that’s certainly one way of looking at Twitter. Sort of like looking at an old-style typewriter (with which the non-tech teachers presumably send their tweets…) and saying “a typewriter = metal keys and a paper roller thing“. Which is, of course, essentially true. However, you could (in the good old days before all that computer malarkey came along) use a typewriter to create a great work of litereature. So clearly the tool is less important than what we actually achieve with it.

My mother used to tell me to “leave it on the side of the plate if you don’t like it“. And so that would be my advice to those who do not find using a particular tool to be a very stimulating or rewarding experience – move on and try something else, or take a break and go outside and have a walk or a swim.

But the more time you spend on dissing something you don’t like, the less time you’re going to have to spend on the things you do like – and that would be a shame for you, and for people who like, enjoy and respect what you do.