The Question of Artificial Intelligence

From almost the start of my career, which is now 45 years ago, there has been computer technology in the classroom.  I used to tell my Teacher Education classes that there has always been technology that we have used as part of our teaching repertoire. I remember the old Bell & Howell movie projectors and the R. C. A. record players and the Gestetner reproducing presses.  Those were all in use when I began and when they were replaced by newer tools, we took them in our stride and adopted them, often with pleasure.  But, what used to be called Information and Communication Technologies were, from the beginning, were seen as technology on a whole different plane.  We don’t talk about i.c.t. anymore.  That has been superseded by computer technology then digital technology and now we are talking about the use of virtual reality and artificial intelligence and robots.  Each is a slight variation of the other, but no one denies that they are transformational in a way, earlier technology could never be.  However, young teachers should not view any of these tools as usurping the essential role played by teachers in front of students.  True, A. I. will be able to take over some tasks, GRADUALLY!  Robots will eventually be in a position to be used in schools to complete tasks that suit them.  But nothing will replace the idea of a teacher guiding a student.  Lest you doubt that, just think of those very early experiments where monkeys were raised by metal dummies or pseudo monkey facsimilies.  In every case, baby monkeys chose the blanket covered dummies because they were warm and fuzzy.  Classroom teachers will always be in control unless they allow the technology to replace them.  We are, as societies, going to determine how these technologies are implemented unless we allow them to plunge headlong over top of us!

It's Never Just About The Money!

It's Never Just About The Money!

Yesterday, I received a notice in the mail from the Ontario Teachers' Superannuation Fund that indicated our pension had increased for 2020 by 2%.  That is because it is fully indexed and is raised every year to keep up with the cost of living increase.  Interestingly enough, in the evening, on the CBC's The National there was a piece about the one day strikes by the teachers of Ontario and how families were coping with the kids being home for a day, possibly more down the road.  The parents all expressed support for the teachers but Premier Doug Ford suggested that if they just offered the teachers 1% they'd call the strikes off.  I have sat on various negotations teams for teachers over the years, and needless to say, the proposed contract changes always include salary increases but they also always include those things that would make life not just better for teachers but for students as well.  Few look at keeping teachers happy and working to control their work lives so that they benefit their students as important because they do not accept the difficulties and stresses teachers confront on a daily basis in their classrooms.  Increasingly, teachers are being asked to should more and more responsibilities and deal with students who often deal with more and more dysfunction and then to be told their value to society is not as important as ensuring they are earning a decent wage and being allowed to keep up with inflation is ludicrous.  Of course, there are those who will argue that we get 12 weeks a year of vacation and that is undeniable.  But how many parents truly do not understand what it is like to deal with their own children just those few hours when they are not in school and express pleasure when the house is quiet.  Imagine dealing with 24 or 25 and being told you need to deal with more now.  Everyone who thinks about it understands the pull of several children of different ages all need a piece of mommy or daddy and can't imagine any more than two or three at a time. But we have whole classes and we increasingly understand the need to deal with them as individuals, not bodies in rows in classrooms.  That is as it should be for sure and when it comes time to negotiate new contracts, naturally they try to maximize the benefits to the jobs but not out of greed, but because fewer students means more one-on-one time and better learning situations for kids. More money in schools means more resources and not just fixed but Human Resources to help the students who don't easily learn on their own or come to school with multiple learning problems, but physical a
AND emotional.  We fight always for improvements not just for ourselves so that our place in society is never undermined but also for our schools so that everyone's children get the benefit of the best education possible at the expense of the public.  Doug Ford only shows his contempt for the teachers in Ontario schools now by saying that all that is required is the 1% (less than we get as retired teachers by 50%) and even that the province cannot afford.  The province can afford that 1% raise if it did  not have to pay compensation for the ending of the wind energy projects contracted for by the last Liberal government.  So....where are the priorities of the leadership of the Province?

Teaching Young People

Teaching Young People

I very recently exchanged messages on Messenger with one of my former Education students, a young man who went into teaching after an early career in banking and who I found to be a delightful and diligent student.  We have not exchanged messages in a  while, but he felt compelled to respond to something I had SHARED on Facebook and I was thrilled to hear from him about his career and h is personal life over the last several years.  He told me that he had found great satisfaction teaching Early Childhood Education, meaning kindergarten, and had been quite successful.  I was not surprised because  he had an obvious love of children and a natural warmth that young children would respond to.  He then told me that now that he was more secure in his position, he wanted togo to the opposite extreme and teach at the Grade 7 / 8 level for a bit. He wants to become a principal some day and in Ontario, we don't encourage promotion to principalships without experience in at least two panels  of elementary education.  I found myself reflecting on my first  experiences with that daunting age group. Unfortunately, I began in a split Grade 7 & 8 classroom in a centre-city school.  It was a real baptism by fire.  I was invited to move to another school right away and take over a Grade 4 classroom, but another staff person wanted the junior experience and so I was persuaded not to move. What a mistake that was.  I floundered my whole time in that class and not because I didn't have the right skill set.  They responded positively to everything I tried to do and were very good to me, those kids. But I was afraid of them, truth be told.  It took me a long time to realize that Intermediate students were not to be feared.  They needed to be seen as little people in big bodies.  That age group are still children but in over-sized bodies and it is the size that is intimidating.  I subsequently learned that you can be firm but loving to that age group and be successful. They respond to those who understand that they are not thinking about academics at that age but about their changing bodies and themselves as people in groups.  Insecurity is their primary motivation in everything. I look back at those months I spent teaching them and wish I could go back and have them all over again.  There are so many things we did that I would do differently, but more importantly, there were so many issues I had with them that I would handle very differently today. I give my young friend credit and wish him well and am so glad that he had a chance to feel successful as a teacher first before having to be both teaching and psychologist / sociologist too.