FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning | The Edvocate Blog

FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning | The Edvocate Blog

FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning

Editor’s note: This post was submitted by a veteran Florida teacher whose identity must be protected for obvious reasons but whose insight, knowledge and willingness to speak out is heroic in these times.  Here’s to the truth that must be told and the insiders who step up to tell it.  Here’s to this teacher for sounding the alarm on the risks of “replacing humans with laptops” and “harming students in our zeal to elevate metrics.” 

I work in one of the largest school districts in North America, in one of the battleground states over public education.  While most of the conflict I’ve seen in my career has been political (vouchers, charters, “choice” as a euphemism, school grades, pay-for-performance, anything else elected officials can dream up to get their fingers into the financial prize of the public education tax trough) a fair amount comes from within.  It’s hard to defend public education when the stakeholders who are supposed to support classroom instruction suck just as badly as the clowns in the Legislature.

Not to paint too broad a stroke on it, but often as individuals elevate out of classroom roles, they lose sight utterly of what instruction should mean.  I’ve seen two major shifts in the past fifteen years, both of which had promise, both of which have caused me deep concern:  first, the transition from “administrator” to “curriculum expert/teacher manager” in our leadership, which I will discuss further elsewhere, and second, and more insidiously, the embracing of educational technology.  The effects on children (and employees) CONTINUE READING: FL teacher speaks: Ed Tech & the dystopia of individualized learning | The Edvocate Blog