Had a meeting at work yesterday, part of which was concerned with innovation. Education is an area that has a history of being innately conservative and resistant to change, and in those rare cases where it pushes through this resistance, all judgment seems to be suspended. By and large education has a big on/off switch where it needs a dial.
I try to ground my work in the specifics. I want to help educators be more productive and highly connected professionally. I want to enable them to achieve their goals with their students. But while the technology (the easy part) may be free, creating a vibrant community of learners– and participating in the community that is their profession– comes at a cost. I’m not aware of any significant improvement in our ability to reach and teach our students that hasn’t come with some associated cost, whether in dollars, time, or effort.
Why do educators seem to view their work as purely craft, bereft of art? I don’t know any good, practicing musicians or writers or artists who believe they have reached the pinnacle and no longer need to practice or try new techniques. But many educators apparently no longer feel any desire to change, or feel no need to improve, though they readily recognize deficiencies and disappointments and frustrations they must face I’m not advocating “the end of” anything. I’m not trying to lead folks onto some bleeding edge. But neither myself, nor anyone else, can do it for them either.
I see the same kind of pattern institutionally, where we get together and discuss all the problems we have sharing resources, tracking projects, and generally reinventing the wheel in various ways. And we have no end of potentially useful methods and techniques to effect needed changes. What is missing is the willingness to break out of our routines and make the (sometimes slight) changes necessary to our workflow and work habits.
I’m well aware that many purported technological solutions have turned out to be problems themselves. I know that it’s difficult to make even small changes without contemplating the bleak picture that a ripple-effect could have on the rest of our work. But we can’t ignore the very real benefits as exemplified by other practitioners. I’m OK being out alone on the far edge of research and practice– that’s what I am supposed to be doing– but we as educators and professionals also have to step up and make things happen and overcome our fear and suspicion. At some point the time for demonstration end and the time for practice begins.