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.

So yesterday we had walk-throughs. Basically, under the punitive rule of NCLB being that we are a Probationary 3 (I think) school, we have muckety-mucks come in from the… well, I am not sure where this lady came from… to “evaluate” our classes.

So this lady walks into my room with her little checksheet and starts scrutinizing. She checks for things. Mysterious things. Things that are supposed to prove I am teaching and my students are learning.

Having the content standards written on the board seems to be quite important to her. I always have them up but the truth is, I only really do it for the muckety-mucks because in reality, I see virtually no educational value to posting these things on the board. Teaching them is very important. Writing them on the board is practically irrelevant. I mean, it is a reminder to myself of what I am supposed to be doing? That’s kinda like putting a post-it note on my bathroom mirror in the morning reminding myself to “BRUSH YOUR TEETH” isn’t it? And just because the post-it note exists, this doesn’t mean that I will have brushed my teeth. And if the post it note is not there it doesn’t mean I won’t have brushed them either. Writing things on the board such as this strikes me as superfluous… but when you are a muckety-muck with checksheets there are boxes to put X’s through and this seems to be one of the bigger ones.

And how in the heck would she know if I simply put some standards on the board when school started in September and just left the same ones there all year in case muckety-mucks like her popped in for a surprise visit?

Administrators hate those kinds of questions, don’t they?

Overall, I felt “judged” by this woman with all the negative connotation the word “judged” musters. I recall no positive acknowledgement of what I was doing right. (And she walked into a class of high school freshman who were all 100% silent at their desks composing a response to literature based on a novel we were reading — no small feat if you know what it’s like to teach English 9). I obtained no useful feedback as to how my craft could be improved. (But in full disclosure, I sincerely doubt that the input of a muckety-muck who spent a grand total of about 5 minutes in my room would have given her any credibility to comment on my methodologies). And truly, I questioned whether or not she could even step into a high school classroom and actually perform the job she had been assigned to evaluate. She just didn’t seem like she had the verve, the energy, the spirit nor the determination to actually be a real teacher.

But she’s perfectly qualified to evaluate other real teachers, right? Essentially, her short visit left me dispirited.

Then today came and my students rocked a few projects whereby the applied their knowledge of figurative language by creating digital slide shows with musical sound tracks explicating the difference between similes and metaphors through one of 5 themes evident in the novel Tears of a Tiger… and the world was right again.

I mean, I love teaching but the muckety-mucks are like some sort of wet blanket on my fire to do this job. It’s obvious that we, as a nation, don’t trust our professional educators anymore to be professional educators and the fact is, it’s demoralizing. I mean this muckety-muck could have said something positive. She could have tipped her cap to my work ethic, efforts to reach my kids, obvious demonstration of classroom management and on and on and on.

But what did she care about? Her checksheet. And what do I care about? My kids. And you know what, I don’t think they are the same thing.

So yes, I put the standards on the board to avoid confrontation because with so many battles to fight with the muckety-mucks, this seems like one that’s not really worth it. But teaching is not about the checksheets. It’s about the students and I’d venture to say that nowhere on her list were things like “students felt emotionally safe in the environment to express their genuine inner feelings and the educator’s policy of running a Mock Free Zone contributed to a tangible — if ineffable — sense of classroom community.”

Geesh? Why do paper pushers have so much clout?