When Coleridge wrote The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, he penned these lines:

  Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

I don’t think Coleridge had any idea how those words would prove so prophetic in this day.  The poem tells the story of a mariner who is condemned to wander the earth telling his story:  as his ship is driven off course, the mariner and his crew panic, only believe they were led to safe passage by an albatross flying around the ship.  Like most blessings, the albatross gets on the mariner’s nerves, and he kills the bird, coinciding with more bad luck.  Plagued by thirst and hunger, the ship’s crew forces the “murderer” to wear the corpse around his neck as punishment.  The short-skinny:  the crew members die off, the slimy creatures in the water (the ones the mariner cursed earlier in the poem) appear to want vengeance, and the mariner begins to pray. Kablooie!  The albatross falls from the man’s neck, and his friends come back to life.  Faith is a powerful thing!

The big question:  Which is the “albatross?” The Common Core/Essential Standards or the “Demon Technology?”

The answer could vary from day to day.  However, like the mariner when encounter by the creepy-crawlies, I prefer to have faith.  The Common Core/Essential Standards are fine by me, and the thought of searching for informational texts on line is something I reconciled myself with many years ago; in fact, I embrace the practice.  Using technology as a vehicle to create instead of a big ole’ digital library is an exciting yet welcome challenge.

My albatross?  Infrastructure, hardware, and sustainability.  I don’t want to be trapped…

PC, Apple, every where,

And server support did stink;

Students, teacher, every where,

Nor any place to link.

So…I pray.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

When I wrote about leveraging technology in the classroom, I should have been more concerned about leveraging technology during my internship, for I seem to have skipped one blog and carried on with the others. So…here goes!

The prompt I skipped reads, “Describe at least one way you can connect your summer externship experience to your classroom curriculum.”   I have been holding on to a fortune cookie message that I got on June 17, our first official day as Kenan Fellows.  I had gone to Cottle Farms a nervous wreck, and Whit Jones was kind enough to take me lunch at a local Chinese restaurant after spending the morning showing me most of the farm facilities.  When I opened my fortune cookie,  I expected a silly, philosophical statement that would sound even funnier when read with the words “on the toilet” added to the end.  The joke was on me!

What Confucius or whoever writes the fortunes for this American invention taught me is that EVERYTHING about my internship will be relevant to my curriculum.  My title is that of English teacher, but I prefer to describe myself as a “Social Studies Teacher with an Emphasis on Literature.”  In other words, my students study people and their words, their ideas, their frustrations, their livelihood, and most importantly, their dreams.  I have had to take risks – check.  I have learned about the food that sustains us and the jobs that sustain Duplin County – check.  I have learned that the workplace of the future will actually be determined by the student, not the teacher – check.  My curriculum is not just English Language Arts and some sense of historical context.  My curriculum is life skills – ELA just happens to be the vehicle.

So…How will I connect all of this to my classroom?  How can I not?  I am a different person because I have stepped out of my vacuum.  My students may never remember that Hester Prynne was a good person at heart or that an infinitive can be used as a noun, a adjective, or an adverb, but they will remember that there is a career, a vocation,a calling for all, and my job is to help them discover it and answer the call.

Identifying my “aha” moment is difficult, for this has been my “Aha Summer.”  My previous posts have described many of my new and exciting – even frightening – experiences in a variety of settings:  farms, rivers, and dance floors.  Every setting has been my classroom, and every person present has been my teacher.

However, my biggest challenges have been pedagogical and logistical.  Figuring out WHAT IN THE WORLD MY LESSON PLANS WILL LOOK LIKE has been a test.

Then…I realized I had to think like a student – What do I need to know first about agriculture?  How will I know that I have learned the most important aspects of farming in America and Duplin County?  How can I distinugished between just learning about the industry and actually doing something with what I learn?  Where do I go in the future?  Do I create, revise…throw my hands?     

I thought my “aha” moment was when I finished my Project Plan, entitled A “Smoothie” Move – The  Rhetoric of Agriculture, Small Business, and “Grape” Marketing.  I could breathe a little easier.  But wait!  Now I had to start collecting resources, reading, thinking like a teacher again (At this point I realized I would rather be touring farm facilities than writing curriculum).  Again, do I create, revise…throw my hands up?

Then…it happened.  My “aha” moment was today during the KFP Site Visit.  When Craig , Amneris, and Amy, along with my principal, assistant principal, and two colleagues, came to Cottle Farms, I had the opportunity become a teacher again.  I realized I hadn’t memorized data, terminology….stuff.  I realized I possessed content knowledge to share with students (and my peers) and the courage to let them take it and run!  As I watched John Garnder, my mentor, and Whit Jones, berry and grape manager, describe Cottle Farms and Muscadine Times, I was so proud of “my farm.”  I watched the nods, the smiles, the expressions of wonder –  I felt like I was a part of something really meaningful.   Instead of being an onlooker, I realize I am now a participant; I have ownership of my project, and I can talk about my experience as a Kenan Fellow with confidence.  This is how I want my students to feel – AHA!!!!

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“Teachers, the server is down.  Ms. Merritt has called the Techs to get it fixed.”

“Teachers, please bring the laptop carts to the Media Center for re-imaging.”

“Teachers, TimeKeeper is now working.  Please clock in.”

“Teachers, NCWise is shutdown for maintenance.  Please turn in a list of absentees to Mrs. Stallings.”

You know your day is getting off to a bad start when you school’s technology becomes a hindrance for the teachers just as they are getting their morning underway.  Fear sets in, and only one question remains:  Will my students be able to get online today?  The answer to that question may change throughout the school day. But what’s new? For the past twenty years, teachers across the country have been encouraged to incorporate the use of more and more technology in the classroom.  From Computer Competency Tests to PowerPoint presentations to Classscape assessments, students have had ample opportunity to  operate PC’s, touch SMART Boards, and peruse the internet, never knowing when the technology will assume the  persona of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey and think for itself – or not think at all!  As a result, teachers learn the meaning of the world “flexibility.”

Thus, we have the conflict between using technology and USING technology.  One of the biggest problems with using technology in schools is money – money to purchase equipment and programs, money to replace broken or outdated technology, money to subscribe to online services, and money to create an infrastructure that can accommodate operating said equipment and services (cough, cough NCCAT, cough).  Another issue, at least in my county, is maneuvering the gauntlet of internet site-blocking software (Imagine researching World War II when you cannot Google “Nazi” without being told that topic is off limits).   Finally, we have to accept that not all students have access to computers and the internet at home.  Yes, Smartphones are great alternatives, but let’s face it;  a larger device is preferable, especially if we want to students to focus on meaningful work, not the text that pops up, and save it for later.

My biggest concern, however, is that we aren’t USING (leveraging) technology effectively in class.  Regardless of the reason (money, internet blocks, etc.), most teachers view computers as high-tech typewriters and electronic libraries.  In other words, they become the end to publishing and presentation, not the means to create. I know I have been guilty of such practices.  I have also been hesitant to incorporate USING technology in plans because of frequent glitches.  I am reminded my students’ attempt to complete of the SAS Curriculum Pathways Lesson on the Salem Witch Trials ( (QL) #550) last year. They were excited about using the laptop cart and even open to the idea of researching 17th Century Salem and writing letters to the grandchildren of those who were executed. Some students had no problem, while others couldn’t connect to the school’s WiFI, others couldn’t Google the word “witch,”  and others could do nothing until a computer became available (tough in a class of 29 when you only have 23 out of 25 computers that work.).

All complaining aside, when everything works, students can do amazing things.  They can research, create, revise, solicit and receive feedback, publish, cross reference…they can USE the computer.  So perhaps the problem, at least at my school, isn’t leveraging technology; instead, our problem may be driving out the economic wedge:  lack of equipment and a power and communication grid to support such USEFUL endeavors.