I have great respect for the tech coordinators of the other divisions at work. The middle school tech coordinator seems especially well respected. He is hardworking and knowedgeable. He can see the big picture and has enough history in the job to quickly identify key issues when we are discussing options.
Being new, I have especially appreciated how patiently he answers questions. He is unfailingly supportive. Therefore, it has come as a surprise to me how often in our coordinator meetings, he will make suggestions that I view as harsh towards our users.
Since I respect him so much, this has given me something to think about. It is making me realize that often my view is too short. I may be doing too much hand-holding in my division. My actions may be inspired by kindness , but they don’t help my users grow. They don’t help me work myself out of a job, as Jeff Utecht would say.
I put this to the test yesterday afternoon. A third grade teacher came to me to discuss an upcoming project. She had seen a colleague’s student brochure project and was impressed. She wanted to try something similar with her class. As we talked, she decided to use Microsoft Publisher. For this first project, we would give the students a template to follow. For the next project, we would let them create it from scratch.
This teacher is new to Publisher. She used it earlier this year to create a personal project, so she has some experience, but not much. My instinct said to sit with her, help her create the template for her students. Instead, I stepped back. I showed her how to access the pre-made brochure templates, and then told her to create what she wanted and I would use it with her students on Tuesday. She is a trooper and although she looked a bit surprised, she went off to give it a try. Hopefully she feels I am confident in her ability, and that feels like support instead of abandonment.
This is all making me realize I do a much better job of stretching the children I work with than the adults. I think of how often I ask children what they have tried, how they could figure it out. I do less of that with adults. Teachers are so busy that I tend to want to just fix the problem so they can get back to work. However, if they had been able to fix it themselves without contacting me, that would have been even quicker. I need to keep thinking about this. I need to think of this at a systems level. I don’t know how to do that yet.
The difference working with teachers and students is that kids are ok with making mistakes or errors. Teachers want to have it go right the first time without any errors. My students see me making mistakes or having to re-do or re-think things through, and I am ok with that. A lot of teachers are not willing to look less than perfect.
I find myself doing the same thing Susan. I was actually thinking about this a few weeks ago when a teacher came to me in a panic because a student had sent a somewhat rude message out to the wiki group in class. Just because this misbehavior involved technology, she couldn’t seem to handle it on her own. I asked her what she would do if it was a note written on the white-board or passed around the class and she had an answer, but it makes me nervous that she came straight to me without thinking it through herself. I seem to be fostering a dependence on my support and I don’t like it.
I definitely expect students to be more independent than teachers for exactly the reason that Diane mentions above, but I don’t know if this is a good thing. What happens when I’m not there to help them any more? Will they just stop using technology? I want to foster independent teachers just as much as I want to foster independent students.
Now, on the other hand, I have also seen teacher tech support go so horribly wrong (techno babble and angry impatience) that I never ever want to even seem like someone like that…
How do we find that perfect balance – just enough help to get them going, but not so much that they can’t do it alone?
I am taking a doctoral level technology class where we are learning many of the newer (to me) technologies like blogging, skype, wiki, delicious, etc. My classmates have all been in the education field for many years. It is interesting to see their reaction to how our instructor handles (or does not handle) our questions. She very much believes we are responsible for our own learning, and by using the technologies, we will answer our own questions. I am not sure that all my classmates subscribe to that philosophy. I loved your vignette about the teacher who you encouraged to figure out the answer to her problem herself, in the hopes that by doing so, you were projecting confidence in her abilities. That is a powerful support statement.
Diane, I think you are correct. That makes me appreciate again how brave children are, that they show up each day knowing we are going to ask them to do all sorts of challenging things that may make them lose face.
It also makes me wonder all the more what I can do to make this a safe place for teachers to take risks without losing about saving face.
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Kim, thank you for telling how you handled that situation. I don’t know that I would have had the presence of mind to say what you said that at the time, but I think you handled it just right. Just another example of you making change, one teacher at a time.
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Thank you Colleen. I really oscillated between feeling it was a supportive move, and feeling like I’d left her hanging. I appreciate your perspective.
I recently posted on a similar experience with my students. Leaving students to work things out is a great learning experience.
I’ve seen adults and teachers become disenchanted with “new” technology and dismiss thier own ideas and initial excitement to easily.
I have a teacher friend that will not investigate new software, technology, etc., unless I walk him through the whole process. I sometimes think I am enabling him to be techno-lazy.
Thank you for your post and expanding my thinking.
Mr. Andy, I agree — I want to preserve that initial excitement. It’s the whole Vygotsky thing only with adult learners rather than young learners.