February 9, 2012
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Winter 1994 Vol. 3 No. 4
From Lean-and-Mean Times to the Millennium
By Gerald W. Bracey, Ph.D., AIT Distinguished Fellow
Educational psychologist, researcher, and writer Gerald Bracey was named the first Distinguished Fellow of the Agency for Instructional Technology (AIT) in fall 1994. His book FINAL EXAM: A Study of the Perpetual Scrutiny of American Education was published by AIT's TECHNOS Press in 1995. The following remarks were delivered on the occasion of the dedication of AIT's new corporate headquarters on November 20, 1994, in Bloomington, Indiana.
I am honored to be here today and to be named the first AIT Distinguished Fellow. I hope the book which the Fellowship has commissioned will be worthy of AIT's faith. I am pleased to be here today because I am pleased to be anywhere where I see progress in the use of information technology in education. For the most part, I do not see much progress—and that is depressing—but there are small signs that I think are noteworthy.
Lean, Mean Times
Why are things moving so slowly? There are several reasons.
One reason is simply the age of people who run school districts. I learned how to program computers in 1961, but that is rare for my age group. I recall that in the well-regarded school district where I recently worked, all the senior administrators had powerful machines on their desks that were usually turned off. Administrators feel too harried to take the time to learn what technology offers and so make weak advocates. Progress will occur when people my age and older retire.
And then there is the sad history of previous technologies in education. Despite the efforts of pioneers such as AIT, many teachers failed to understand the potential of technology to support instruction. The use of any technology in the classroom has always been marginal, and some have argued that computers would be just another gimmick that would end up in the closet. Into this decade, one systems-analyst friend of mine referred to Apple machines as “Fisher-Price computers.” I was no great fan of technology until the late 1970s, when personal computers arrived. All previous technologies had put children in a passive role, but these new ones offered the possibility of interaction, of active learning. These machines are a technology precisely for learning.
Then there is money. These are lean times. Although the United States bought into information technology much more quickly than other nations, that technology remains peripheral and thin in many schools. Using grocery receipts to obtain computers is not the best way of making them central to the budget or to instruction. And, as happens with technological adaptations, those who are on the leading edge initially find themselves behind later. So it is that most of our hardware is obsolete. We have not built into budgets the process for acquiring technology, much less for replacing a technology that ages rapidly.
Money has also hindered software development. Until recently, software producers did not see the market for educational programs that they could envision for, say, a word processor or a spreadsheet. Educators, not seeing good software, stayed out of the market. That vicious cycle, happily, is coming to an end.
There is also a conservative tenor of this age that is depressing the sense of progress. These are mean times. Everyone is declaring war and using precisely that phrase: “declare war.” Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition have declared war on the larger culture. Jerry Falwell has emerged from relative seclusion to declare war on the anti-Christians among us (and to predict the end of the world soon). At the secular level, some feel that Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, with the publication of their book, The Bell Curve, have declared war both on the poor and on social reform, perhaps even on the notion of universal education. The Hudson Institute has declared war on those who do not share its conservative ideology. Said Institute fellow and former Assistant Secretary of Education Chester E. Finn, Jr.—who was described in The Washington Times as the Hudson Institute's “bombthrower”—“It is an intellectual, conceptual, and ideological war.” An age that welcomes innovations requires more optimism and civility.
Progress Toward the Millennium
So the millennium is not at hand. Still, there are hopeful signs.
For the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Education has appointed a special assistant for information technology, a result, no doubt, of the youthfulness of the administration and its technological with-itness.
In San Rafael, California, the George Lucas Education Foundation is working to produce educational materials and programs. A friend of mine who is on the advisory board of the Foundation says that the group is just the kind of young, bright, creative bunch that might produce some breakthroughs.
The Mecklenburger Group, a loose national coalition of technologically oriented consultants founded by former National School Boards Association Director of Technology Transfer James Mecklenburger, is developing the concept of Global Village Schools, with deliberate allusion to Marshall McLuhan. This group, with which I am affiliated, has held one conference on the topic, which was attended by some 500 educators—including Michael Sullivan, AIT's executive director. We have a second conference scheduled for April, and Jim is predicting more than 1,000 persons will attend. If we could get that kind of geometric expansion at each meeting, we'd see things happen soon.
Finally, a number of research studies have shown that, even when teachers and students use the relatively dated computers that we have in schools, over time the use of these computers alters their behavior in ways that many reformers favor. The results, obtained by different researchers using different methodologies, are remarkably similar. Teachers become more like coaches; students become more independent. Teachers take more risks; students get more involved. Teachers do less whole-group lecturing; students collaborate more. We can expect this good news to spread.
So progress is being made. We simply need for organizations such as AIT and individuals such as yourselves to ensure that it continues.
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