So what are we doing to help?
So what are we doing to help?
I recently got looking around on the U.S. Department of Education’s website and was surprised to see how much we are doing. Further, I wondered, why don’t I know about these programs. As a teacher shouldn’t I be on the list somewhere? So, I poked around to see what I could find.
There are loads of resources available for teachers. There are programs listed for adult ed., the list goes on forever. I am going to try to start using this website more frequently. Why don’t more teachers use online resources? They are more readily accessible to teachers from home and never any materials to carry. Simply download the information or link it in a document. It seems entirely too easy for teachers not to take advantage of these websites.
The Dept. of Ed. is only the tip of the iceberg of digital resources. This has been my frustration for both years I have been teaching. The educational system is experiencing growing pains. The children are more technically advanced than the people who are teaching them. This causes credibility issues and leads to a lack of respect for teachers. There have been multiple occasions that I have witnessed students giving teachers advise on where to find things on the Internet. Why would a child turn to this person for information?
The responsibility falls on the local school systems. It appears to me that most teachers will only participate in additional training when it involves a stipend, or getting out of work. I am not excluding myself from this accusation. If there is no immediate benefit, I will put off seeking out additional resources. I have adopted to attitude that what has worked in the past will work for them.
However, the assumption that things will continue to work is false. Research is pointing toward today’s students being more adept at multi-tasking and attending to things differently than has been assumed in the past. Why do we still teach from books and worksheets? There will always be exceptional teachers that will go above and beyond what most are willing to do, but this is not going to suffice. The government needs to be more proactive, putting incentives in place to make teachers want to do this on their own. I have no magic bullet and do not claim to have any answers. I am just reporting what I see.
