Subject: Communicating with educators

Posted by Scott Guthrie on 5/17/2005
In Reply To:Communicating with educators Posted by Lees Stuntz on 5/17/2005

Message:

Heh-heh. I thought that we were referring to this (http://www.aasa.org/publications/sa/2004_11/corky.htm) article (thanks for the other link, Jeff).



I have to agree with most of the others that reading journals during the school year is not high on my list as a teacher (neither is writing for one). Nancy Roberts also makes some very good points (about teacher fright). I strongly agree with the contention that she and others have made that teachers need to see it in action before they will invest their time in investigating “what this systems stuff is all about.”



Journals just aren’t a high leverage point in the system, nor are the vast majority of inservice teachers (beyond those who are “early adopters” as we have sadly found so far). If history is to be our guide, then we can see that better results can be had in the following ways:

by attacking the problem from the political level (bleh!),
by training the preservice teacher (must train the trainers in schools of Ed),
by pushing it as a tool “in the real world” and having its use in education be a result of societal demands for competency in systems (as we seem to be finally starting to do with integrating technology in K-12 education… it’s only taken 60 years),
or by waiting for that magical moment when a district or school is ready for a change due to some stress and “pouncing.”


Scott Guthrie

Wilson High School

Portland, Oregon



PS: I commend “The School Administrator” for having their archive available online for free – thanks!