I see teachers using cell phones, online collaboration and Senteo Clickers with SmartBoards in ways that make my head spin.

And the gap between the students that have teachers who bring this stuff into their curriculum and the ones that do not leads me to ask the question, “Are we, perhaps, unwittingly creating a gulf of what can be considered “critical classroom learning” between our students simply through the way we grant (or deny) permission to use certain tools when we pass out our assignments?

Does a student who is asked to fashion a digital museum representative of the appropriateness of the N word in Huck Finn get more, the same, or less from the assignment than the student who is asked to write an 3 page essay on the same subject matter?

Does the student who is asked to write a 3 page persuasive essay on why marijuana should remain illegal take more, the same, or less from the assignment than the student who makes a short film based on the very same prompt?

Is it apples to oranges? Does one give more, one less? Are they equivalent?
Should students be free to choose the means of how they express their thinking as long as the thinking addresses the academic objective of the assignment?

Ask 10 teachers, get 11 answers.

I’ve gotten a bit of blowback from my previous post on bringing cell phones into the class in a way that somewhat caught me off guard. And when I reflect on why, I think there’s a part of me that may not have tipped my hat enough to the idea that there are going to be inevitable “issues” with the incorporation of more technology into our classrooms – but I also thought that this notion was somewhat a given, that all of us knew precisely this going into any discussion of this type of stuff.

Teachers are going to have to develop new skill sets to keep pace with the new skill sets that students are going to be developing – and needing – as literacy tools evolve, morph and grow. Will there be “rule violators” with some of this stuff? Of course. Will there be challenges? Of course? Will it be, as the techies like to say, “discomforting” for the entire institution of public education? Of course.

But a new era is upon us. Hand held technology has evolved so rapidly – and is so remarkable – and provides so many expanded tools for learning that we are going to need to start to figure out a way to start incorporating it. You can poo-poo it all you want in 2011 – and even in 2012 – and even in 2013… but today’s high school freshman will graduate from an institution that will have seen a ton of growth by 2014/2015 in this area. And by their 10th high school reunion, parts of their old school will seem unrecognizable. It’s literally an explosion ready to to happen under our classroom feet… and like it or not, it’s coming.

And why? Because there is merit to these tools being used. Yes, there will be some sorting of the wheat from the chaff but we’re still sorting that in the non-tech world of schools even after decades and decades of public debate about it. Looking to have all the answers before we start swimming in these waters is tantamount to saying we’re never going to make the leap and jump in the pool.

As every teacher who uses this stuff knows, at some point, you just have to jump in. That causes fear. That becomes personally confrontational. That taps into our shadows.

But schools – and the tools we use to teach inside of them – are changing. No one can hold back the water about to burst from this dam.

The “No Cell Phone” policy which so many schools still have in place just doesn’t make sense to me. Why? Because the phone of today is, well… no longer a phone.

Yes, phones are phones. But they are also…

• planners so kids can keep track of all their assignments.
• research tools to quickly find facts, reference info, and the such.
• blah, blah, blah. (Really, if I kept listing and listing all the possibilities of today’s phones, I’d never be able to stop typing right now and get to my bigger idea.)

The point is, the phone of today has evolved into a pocket computer of immense dimensions. In fact, it often operates as the central operational tool for many, many people’s lives. Especially the people who make the “No Cell Phone” policies for our school districts. (Can you even imagine the district personnel without their Blackberries? What would the Asst. Supt do without their iPhone? My goodness, how would so much of the dysfunction continue to amble along if not for these devices? Alas, I stray.)

Virtually 90% of the white collar workers I know who earn six-figure salaries are absolutely dependent on their cell phones. Phones have literally evolved into an indispensable business tool and yet, in all this college readiness talk we hear all the time, we seem to have this wall of hypocrisy separating our stated aims from our actual implemented policies. To be “college ready” means to be able to function in a wired world with proficiency and aptitude. (I am not sure when it happened entirely, I am not sure if they sent out a memo but in this day and age, the two ideas are almost inextricably wed.)

College applications are online, college schedules are online, college financial aid info, professor office hours, and on and on… what isn’t online in today’s college world? The move towards entirely paperless is afoot! Not sure if it will ever reach 100% saturation but it is semi-fascinating to witness the laptop give way to the smart phone and the tablet computer.
And we have a front row seat.

Th irony is not lost that the people who swear that “cell phones in the hands of today’s middle and high school kids is a poor idea” are the same people who would be professionally neutered if you took away their own cell phones.

Is fear of texting really a sufficient reason to ban cell phones? We don’t ban pencil and paper just because the kids may write notes to one another and doodle.

Yet, by this same logic, we ban cell phones. (A ban, which BTW, is hardly working. Kids HAVE cell phones. And their parents are the ones who most often bought these phones for them.) It just seems smarter to teach them how to wisely use the devices as opposed to trying make the students of today “put that thing away before I take it!”
Having a keen facility with these devices is going to eventually be really, really, critical for the students of tomorrow

In fact, in many ways, it already is for the most cutting edge students of today. Let’s harness the educational power of technology instead of suppressing it. Times have changed and the phone of even 3 years ago is not the phone of today.

Last week I mentioned about me being up on stage speaking to a large group of big kahunas from all over the state. Basically district officers and principals.

Now one of the unspoken rules of public speaking is that it’s a good idea not to fight with the audience members. Pander, don’t provoke.

Let’s just say that my behavior onstage sometimes proves that I didn’t get that memo.

It started with a high ranking woman taking a bit of umbrage with my stance that using cell phones in class, as woven into the fabric of a lesson plan, is a much more sensible approach than banning cell phones outright. Why? Because cell phones are here to stay and they virtually demand their own type of literacy and if we can leverage the students’ love of technology and build a bridge between using their cell phone and using their brain to achieve an academic objective, there is nothing wrong with doing so.

Matter of fact, I believe we ought to do more of it. Prohibiting cell phones on campus just strikes me as a battle we will never win. Especially since most teens have their parents buy them their cell phones in the first place which automatically gives cell phone approval that trumps my own disapproval (if I were to disapprove, of course.)

Anyway, that set the stage. She took umbrage with my cell phone stance. And why?

“Because,” as she said, “she can remember back in the 1980′s when kids were doing drug deals in class with their pagers.”

Okay, I won’t even go there. We all know that’s an argument I wouldn’t dare touch because it’s be like take out a bazooka against a person that barely held a poorly constructed bow and arrow.

But then she continued and said, “For example, I just left a session where the person next to me was texting the whole time. I mean they missed the whole session while fiddling with their cell phone. And it was a good session, too. They missed some valuable stuff.”

Now the fight is more fair here, right?

Let’s take a look at her presumption.

First of all, the txt-er could have been tweeting the whole session because they were riveted and really wanted to spread the awesome info to 1,268 of their followers.

Or perhaps, they were taking note on their phone.

Maybe they were live-blogging?

Her presumption that because the person was txting they were missing out on the info could have been preposterously wrong.

Then again, this presupposes the inverse is true – that just because someone is looking at you, they are actually listening to what you are saying.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had my eyes lasered in on some kind of lame consultant as they fumble through a Power Point with an expression that beamed, “I am riveted by your genius!” while inside my brain, I was thinking, “I wonder if Subway is still running that $5 footlong deal. Boy, they have good pepperoncinis.”

In this day and age, a person on the phone is not necessarily a person on the phone and a person looking you in the eye might really be thinking, “McDonalds… I am lovin’ it!”

Am I really supposed to take away a kid’s cell phone from them? I mean official school policy says NO CELL PHONES.

Yet virtually very kid on campus has one. And they make no bones about the fact that their phones are more than just phones — their phones are central conduits to how they live their lives.

To take away their cell phone makes me an instant jerk. And who is going to allow themselves to actually listen to and learn from a total jerk?

On the other hand, school’s cannot function without rules. Simply put, it’d be anarchy. Chaos. Pandemonium!(Not so unlike how it is now anyway, right?)

But rules are essential. A classroom without procedures, guidelines, and matters of protocol is a classroom that is going to implode.

So, does this mean school rules are optional, that I get to follow the ones that make sense to me and disregard teh ones that do not?

Well, if you ask my principal, my district superintendent or anyone at the state department of education, most certainly not.

But if you ask a teacher down the hall, a frontline soldier who has to actually work where the rubber meets the road, you are going to get an entirely different answer.

And you know what? Both sides are 100% right! That’s what so maddening about public education today. School boards and administration need to set policy and that policy needs to be followed in order for campuses to function. Otherwise, it’s a disaster.

But teachers who blindly follow non-sensible policies do so to the detriment of their kids… and that’s an even worse disaster.

So, do I confiscate the phone? If I do, I lose the kid. If I don’t, I am yet another rebel teacher who doesn’t buy into sending the kids one straightforward, unmixed message about matters of behavior on campus. I am the guy who clearly puts it out there that school rules are optional, subjective, dependent on individual circumstances and not really rules, but more like guidelines, take them or leave them.

Kids wear hats. It’s a violation of school policy. I never take a kid’s hat. Why? Because I care more about what’s going on underneath the hat.

Kid’s have face piercings. Like I really want to extract a nosering from a teenager’s nostril in the middle of 3rd period.

Kids bring drugs to school. I bust them with these — and I bust them… and good.

Weapons, too.

Spray paint cans, too.

But girls who wear shorts that are not quite to fingertips length down their sides? Whatever, I have other battles to wage.

And so I wonder, without any sort of real answer to this question, are school rules subjective and open to teacher interpretation?