Angelina Zeller

Larry Cuban (2001). Oversold and Underused: Computers in Classrooms, 1980-2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn (2008). Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw Hill.

In reading these books, I really see my career in education unfold across the pages.  Cuban describes a scenario in which huge sums of money are poured into computers, wiring and other technology infrastructure.  Yet, the instructional models do not change, and therefore the promised benefits are not realized.  This really relates the early part of my career in education.  In Christensen’s work, I see the hope and potential of my current work.

Enter the year 2000 and the Teacher Technology Initiative (TTI) in Michigan.  TTI was a $110 million program to give Michigan Teachers a laptop or desktop for personal and professional use.  The general belief by proponents was that by simply having access to the computers, teachers would use them and the skills would translate into classroom use and improved student outcomes.  Districts were to acquire the laptops and lend them to the teachers on a long-term basis.

This notion of showing teachers personal application of the technology to “hook” them was a common practice.  The district I was working in also gave all teachers home dial-up Internet Access.  Many of the computer courses being taught in after-school professional development sessions were personal use of computers.  There was truly a belief that teachers simply had to see and experience the beauty of a computer and they would rush in to build the use of them into their teaching.  We were working with a, if we build it they will come, mentality.

While some districts had the infrastructure in place to make use of the computers for at least administrative tasks; grade books, attendance and e-mail; many districts were not equipped to use them at all.  Although this is far from scientific, in our case about 10% of the teachers let their kids use them in college.

So where did we go wrong?  To start with, we were not ready, as a district, to maintain the computers.  We did not have systems in place for use, basic maintenance or repairs.  We also expected that by showing teachers how to use the equipment, and a few personal applications, they would transfer the knowledge to improving their teaching strategies; ultimately leading to better outcomes for kids.

I would like to say we have learned from this experience.  Except, oops, we did it again.  In 2004 the $30 Million Freedom to Learn (FTL) program was initiated.  FTL allocated federal Title IID funds to provided 6^th grade students laptops for use in school.  The program was built on the premise that the teachers had been successfully using the TTI laptops for three years now, certainly they could integrate their use into their teaching.  One of the challenges of the program was due to the source of funds.  Title IID funds have to be allocated to buildings and districts identified as “high needs”.  In many cases, these were the districts without the infrastructure in place to support and effectively use the equipment.

Both the TTI and FTL projects quietly faded away.  You would think we would know better by now; maybe not.  Just this year, a district in the greater Lansing area “required” all sixth grade students to purchase and bring a specified netbook to school.  The plan for use this year, 2010, is that the kids will use them in homeroom.  Content area teachers will start using them “later”.

There is an amazing potential here, we just have not been able to capitalize on the opportunity.  In all of these scenarios, we are trying to push a new innovation into an existing, rigid, structure.  It seems as though we believe that the very existence of the innovation, will spur creativity and acceptance.  Disputing Class speaks to this idea.

Currently, my position includes both the roles of Curriculum Director and Technology Director.  As a county, our Alternative Education Programs are only graduating twenty to thirty percent students and our dropout rate is expanding.  Based on our data evaluation process, there are too many kids whose needs are not being met.   To address this issue, we have worked with groups of teachers and principals to evaluate our instructional models, over the last couple of years.  At the end of the evaluation, the participants decided their programming was sufficient.  Subsequently, one of the programs was closed and others are on the edge.

Separate from these conversations, we were working with the traditional high schools to integrate technology into the mainstream classrooms.  We have spent time, money and other resources working to push this innovation into an existing, rigid structure.  In January 2010 we decided to change gears.

We have split off a division to design and implement a hybrid learning environment for students who have dropped out of school.  The value of the hybrid environment is to be able to provide maximum flexibility to allow students to learn based on their needs and learning styles.   We also plan to focus on relationship skills during the face to face portion.

The administrative structure is to charter a Public School Academy, to be able to provide maximum flexibility.  The feedback from our local districts has been surprising.  They are actually supportive of the efforts of this group.  The key, just as Christensen has proposed, we are targeting an unserved  population, kids who have already dropped out.  In fact, our districts are pretty happy to have us address this population.

Now, the challenge of the innovation model, when used in public education.  We have the stanch tradition and regulation of public education juxtaposed with the innovative nature of giving students flexibility in how and when they can best learn.

In our situation, we have secured a grant, we are proposing a model that is supported with research and we are targeting a population that is not being served.  It seems like we have the ingredients for a successful disruptive innovation.  Not so fast.  The Department of Education continues to wield its power over the structure under which students are educated.  The educational funding model in the state of Michigan is structured around student seat-time within a physical school facility.  Without a specific waiver of the seat-time requirement, we are unable to move forward in our instructional model.

This conflict between what research says and what is possible as a practitioner is a notion that I have pondered as I evaluate my own research interests.  How do I keep the research narrow enough to determine correlation between events and broad enough to make it practically applicable in the field?  Often what works in a sterile, scientific, highly funded research project is not practical to implement in a messy and political school environment.  While I appreciate the vision set forth by Christensen and his team, I find that it is lacking in the practical “how-to” of getting this accomplished.   I will continue to ponder these ideas as I work to become a contributing scholar.

Diamond, J. (1999). Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. New York, NY: W W Norton & Company.

Ehrlich, P R. (2002). Human natures: genes, cultures, and the human prospect. London, ENG: Penguin Books.

As Paul Ehrlich points out as one of the faults of the educational system, someone can get through school and be considered educated without ever studying evolution.  Well, he was talking about me.  Now, I have been to museums and know the basic premise, yet not the detail.  My views and comments on both Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect and Guns, Germs, and Steel : the Fates of Human Societies are that of someone without a background in this field.

How to begin…Diamond and Ehrlich seem to follow a similar path, yet from somewhat different perspectives.  One basic similarity between the two is they both attribute our move from a hunter / gatherer society to an agricultural society as pivotal to becoming the people we are today.  Both also attribute less of our current state to genetics or intelligence of one people or another and more to our circumstance.

Diamond attributes the physical location of peoples and the abundance, or lack of plants and large animals suitable for domestication, to which countries / people eventually became the haves and which became the have nots.   He continues to hold and support the opinion that those countries that are the consummate haves, are either those countries that originally were the major centers of food production or were since repopulated from one of those centers.  I not sure what this says about our future.  Diamond does refer to the optimal fragmentation is a society as pivotal in spurring innovation.  Maybe this idea is the hope for directing our future.  Optimal fragmentation refers to a society that is neither too tightly controlled, or too loosely held.  At optimal fragmentation, a society has enough competition such that there is incentive to innovate.  Could this be the key of supporting the development of underdeveloped countries, to become players on the world scene?

Ehrlich refers to this reliance on surrounding as our cultural evolution, through which we have become who we are.  His position is that genetically we have remained essentially the same for the last 600 years, while culturally we are a completely different people.   While genetic evolution is at best generational, cultural evolution occurs at an astounding rate.  In fact the “simple” act of reading these books and writing this paper is a catalyst for me to culturally evolve, yet genetically I am the same.  Ehrlich points to this tension of pace between our cultural evolution and our genetic evolution as both a pitfall to humanity.   As an example, our bodies have genetically evolved to crave fat and sugar, yet survive on small amounts of both.  Through the explosion of technological advances, our society has culturally evolved to be able to produce an overabundance of both fat and sugar.  This dichotomy between genetic and cultural evolution is leading to widespread disease.

The tension between genetic and cultural evolution can also be a potential saving grace.  Which I believe is Ehrlich’s motivation for writing the book.  If it is cultural evolution that guides our human natures and cultural evolution occurs rapidly, then we can change our course as a people, to be better stewards of the earth.  It is in this continuing evolution of culture that we can determine our future fate.  If we believe Ehrlich’s claim, then we also must believe that we have a role to play in determining what the next 600 years will look like.

So where does all of this fit in our lives, in our work as educational leaders?  While I believe Ehrlich’s intent was to have us focus on the environment, I will focus my thoughts on our educational system.  I see the United State Public education system as one of those industries too-unified to support a competitive environment and therefore lacks incentive for innovation.  The k-12 public school system is government funded, has an ability to generate additional funds through local tax levies, and is highly regulated.  In addition, the funding structure in Michigan schools counts bodies, not performance, to determine funding levels.  Further, there is such a premium paid for experience in the field, that many reform efforts are lead by the same people who had previously been educated and worked in the very system they now propose to reform.  Locally, the rules by which we work are governed by contracts and practices put in place decades ago.  Schools of choice and charter schools have spurred talk of competition, however, geographic constrains and the larger political environment continue to hamper incentive for innovation.

Enter, online learning; that potentially disruptive innovation that may push k-12 education to culturally evolve.  Certainly the technological landscape is changing.  Although schools have the appearance of embracing technology (they buy a lot of computers and related items), schools have largely resisted any material change and policy has supported that resistance.  We started to see a change in Michigan when special waivers were granted such that some schools, in some cases, were no longer bound to the notion of seat time.  Seat time is the number of hours each year students must physically be at school in order for a district to receive their funding allocation.  That effort was still localized geographically around the waiver.  In January, the state legislature created two cyber schools, able to enroll students from anywhere in the state, without the constraints of seat time.  Now things are getting interesting.

For me, Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies seems to be more of a historical account while Human Natures: Genes, Cultures and the Human Prospect seems to have greater implications for the future.  Public education is based on the premise of Ehrlich’s book, that we can change the environment such that we can promote cultural evolution and change the outcome.  That is, we can change the trajectory of a person’s life through supporting their educational attainment.  Yet, I am not sure that the educational community universally believes that.  When we allow excuses, such low socioeconomic status, to be used as reasons for poor performance, we are accepting the students’ failure as inevitable.

As a society, if we accept that very little of our personal nature is genetic, we are forced to be accountable for our actions.  Further, we have some responsibility to the larger society, as our actions and interactions with other force them to culturally evolve as well.  This is huge.   In our respective roles as educators and scholars, this is powerful.  As I look forward to my work and research, I will look for opportunities to identify and evaluate these changes, for a deeper understanding and impact.