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If this summer has left me with anything, it has left me with the command to be fearless in my teaching. The summer was hard in ways I could not have imagined in April, and yet, here we are, in August, still standing. I am stronger than I thought. I can do. 

And I need to. So many of my children bear scars from past battles lost, and they bring their demons with them each day. They fear failure. They fear success. They fear alienation from their communities. They fear alienation from themselves. They fear. So I need to be fearless for my students, to model the fearlessness they will need in their own lives in order to rail against the dehumanizing processes that threaten learning.

I have been thinking about the dehumanization of education because, on August 14, I sat for the GRE. I felt fear in the days leading up to the exam. I cringed as I heard my voice in my head reciting the familiar testing strategies that we pretend to be important. I squirmed as my name transformed in to a number, trapping me into the rigid performance of “testing.” And I cried as I recognized practices in my school and countless other well-meaning schools contained within the extreme dictates placed upon me that day. I realized that when we strip our students of their dignity, when we turn them into numbers and erase their names, when we systematize and organize to meet our own needs without counsel or consultation, we feed their fears.

Teaching and learning should be acts of joy. This year, I will be fearless in advocating for my students’ humanity, starting with my class rules. I will be fearless so they can be fearless. I will be fearless because I can. And I know I can, because I survived this summer.

DNA polymerase, transcriptome, amplicon, pyrosequencing…

I teach elementary school.

So far, much of what I’ve encountered in the lab has involved highly technical aspects of molecular genetics, all of which is completely new to me. I’ve been able to connect the work obliquely to important things my students need to know (scientific notation, microorganisms exist everywhere, many different people choose to become scientists), and I’m sure more connections will pop up once the back burner does its work. But those connections are of secondary importance.

Right now, the piece I will hold most dearly when I am once again with my students is the lost; the feeling of helplessness that pervades so much of my time in the lab; the frustration at trying to run full pace up a mountainside without a path, map, or proper shoes. I am grateful for Belen’s wise and patient teaching and for the support of lab mates Vicky and Cassandra. But I am a driven person, and the feeling of being the weak link gnaws at me. The mountain is as much my own ego as anything else.

As a specialist in gifted education, I work with students who are also driven. They, too, teeter on the brink between an all-consuming hunger for knowledge and a total, paralyzing fear of failure. Like me, they often veer towards safer passages rather than bushwhack their way through unknowns.

I think back to students who brought forth tears when pushed into that gray area. “I will hold you close,” I have said to them, “but there is no turning back. I need you to head this way.” I tell myself that now with each tiny new word added to my lexicon, each remembered step, each molecule of knowledge: each hard-won fingerhold en route towards the clear blue.

Technophile?

Luddite?

Cyborg?

Earlier today I read an article on the computer-controlled cockroaches at NCSU, and I could hear the sci-fi (g)rumblings of the tech-no-philes growing in my head. Equally, the sci-fi promises of technophiles (in the conventionally-spelled manner) also rang out. But practically, what might this brave new world mean, particularly in the context of elementary education?

Cybernetic cockroaches aside, technology in the classroom is maybe a little less brave/new than either side would like to admit. I remember when my (personal) elementary school won an Apple IIe from the grocery store, and getting to use it to program triangular turtles FWD 25. Before that, overheads made think-alouds more transparent (pun sort-of intended), and even earlier, my parents ducked-and-covered to filmstrips intended to bring a touch of movie magic to mandatory matinees (ding). Pencils, pens, mimeographs, textbooks, hornbooks, styluses, tablets (stone or otherwise), each era has had some sort of tool at the ready to disseminate information.

So in some ways, the idea of “new” technology in the classroom is a continuation of what has always been there. Filmstrips begat overheads begat Powerpoint begat Prezi, with mutants, sports, hybrids, and other adaptations along the way. On the other hand, the promise of a truly individualized learning environment never really materialized. Even more, the dark shadows at the edges of this Utopian dream seemed to multiply as rapidly as technologies do today. Are people too dependent? Can we still pay attention? Can we survive? What are the implications for access/restriction of access?

As a teacher in a high-poverty school, I wrestle daily with these shadows. I watch my children, either plugged in and downloading or staring jealously from the side. What strikes me, though, in both cases, is how my students think about technology. They see it as unlimited infotainment, tidbits of interesting available for their consumption. It is everyday magic and unquestioned.

This, to me, is the most interesting challenge I face in leveraging technology, and one that extends beyond the question of accessing the Internet to watch a flipped video. To me, this challenge is about the very stuff of education: teaching for freedom. In his book, Radical Equations, Bob Moses frames education as a civil right in that it makes individuals and communities more free. In our post-modern age, I believe that teaching for freedom includes enabling students to reclaim the old meaning of technology, to re-define technology as a tool that they can control, manipulate, and re-mix in their own quests for freedom.

I have posted before about the Maker Movement, and I still feel that the Maker spirit is one way to reclaim technology. For example, at Maker Faire NC this year, tatters, 3D printers, and a trebuchet shared the same venue. Though the technologies showcased differed in electronic components and associated time periods, all displays showcased people learning, sharing, and pushing the boundaries of the tools available to them in order to realize their personal dreams, to become more free in the existential sense. This is the technology I strive for in the classroom.

Cockroaches optional.