Here There Be Dragons

I am fortunate because I have great conversations with intelligent educators through blogging and twitter. One theme that is revisited over and over again is the lack of "professionalism" in education. Many of my friends and acquaintances online are dynamic educators in their settings with a large percentage of them involved in leading professional development sessions. It is easy to forget these are not the norm.

Much of the conversations we share have to do with technology. Much of that deals with how we can disseminate the use of tech through our faculty. Again, I am not having these conversations with the average teacher.

There is often a conversation about how we, the teachers that use technology in our classrooms, have a difficult time getting other teachers and admin in our buildings or districts to see the value of using the tools technology offers. Does it have something to do with technology?

I came across this tweet by Gary Stager on my Twitter feed Friday. I questioned him about that, honestly I did not understand what he was trying to say. I asked him if there was an entry barrier to the teachers that didn't "get" technology.

I have thought about this for several days. Gary, you are absolutely right. We should no longer make excuses for teachers that choose to stay ignorant of the advancements in education. We have allowed them the comfort of the cycle of poor teaching, teaching the same ineffective way they were taught because that is what they know.

It is no longer enough for us to allow the teaching profession to wallow in what is known and comfortable, we need to push them into the unknown. We need to place them in the unexplored territory and allow them to fight the dragon known as change.