I was a middle school English and social studies teacher for twenty-three years. In that time, I went from being fairly incompetent (but knowing it all) to being pretty good (and knowing a lot less with any certainty). This career arc is the sort of thing that modern politicians want to do away with. In the future, everyone will produce magnificent, gleaming data-sets from Day One and all the data will be totally valid for teacher evaluation. It's the basis of a new conservative wet-dream called value-added, and it's, like, totally foolproof.
I was also a media specialist, until the Mesa (Arizona) Public Schools decided media specialists were a luxury they could do without. It's a common precursor to becoming a state with a "papers, please" law on the books and also a state that bans ethnic studies. During these years I also had the distinct pleasure of being the testing co-coordinator at a fantastic community junior high school. We weren't making AYP, so naturally, we were lousy, but we certainly gave it the old college try. I can tell you that the on-the-ground, day-to-day experience of trying to move test scores under the gun is about the single most depressing, anti-education activity in which I have ever participated. It all looks very informative to people who don't work with children, I'm sure. The good news is that everywhere I go, teachers and principals and school boards are trying to do the right thing for kids no matter what.
I was also, briefly, a division head of a wonderful independent school in Ohio. As a school leader, I was actually kind of, well, um.... Ok, I sucked. The one thing I can say with authority is that different people bring different things to the table, and every teacher has a short list of critics and a long list of fans. While it was an enjoyable run over there in the Buckeye State, Chicago was calling me home the whole time. So here I am, finally working in the field that has interested me the most over the years: technology. I think the day is finally upon us-- where we can leverage technology, relationships, and diversity to build a much more intelligent, just, and democratic country.
As far as schools go, I think a tech-enhanced, learner-directed, constructivist-model future is the best road we can walk down as a country, and I think this vision will require an even wiser, more valued teaching force, as well as an honest national conversation about the impact of poverty. While I'm a huge technology fan, I sometimes worry that in edtech conversations, technology has become the new Scottish.
If you listen closely, you'll hear the same thing. Edtechevangelism is the Musak of the educational blogosphere--it's inane, repetitive, and ubiquitous. Aside from a few very good edtech writers, I've largely stopped following the conversation. There needs to be a heck of a lot more "this is what I've done" and a little less "you're doing it wrong." Kids learn from interesting, dynamic, self-actualized people, and lacking that, it makes very little difference what you can do with your iPad. "It's people, not programs," as the great Todd Whitaker has always said. Over time, this space has drifted away from tech-talk and more toward policy, pretty much because I believe that policy is more important at the moment.
(I no longer agree with the above statement. In fact, if my local district were distributing iPads, I would publicly ask them if they thought it appropriate to spend public money on objects manufactured in sweatshops in a country where the people have utterly no hope of leveling the labor/capital playing field.)
I am also trying to advance the cause of micro-lobbying, and I will travel far and wide to help your organization build an effective micro-lobbying group. My own micro-lobby, TimPAC, focuses on public education, health, and human rights. If you run an organization like, for example, a local teachers' union, and you want help making your members more responsive to political action requests, I can help you with that.
Occasionally, I get things wrong, and over time my opinions have evolved. Sometimes, the voice on these pages is a little too shrill, or the snark is meaner than I intended it to be. Please know that even when I have disagreed sharply with someone, I respect everyone's right to have an opinion, to participate in the conversation, and to advocate for things with which I disagree.
Having said that, I'm usually right.
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