180: Day 15: Empathy for teachers slow to picking up technology

No photo or classroom activity today; instead a reflection from a training on our school’s LMS (Schoology):

One of our tech folks was leading a brief afternoon gathering for questions from teachers new to Schoology. Mr. Vito Ferrante, our Director of Educational Technology and an Instructor of Mathematics–whose job it is to help teachers learn to use our computers–made a comment I probably can’t do justice to, but I’ll try. He said something along the lines of ‘veteran teachers who are not jumping on the bandwagon of tech in the classroom may have been great teachers for years–but now they are being asked to become beginners all over again.’

As a 55-year-old who has been teaching for 20 years, I have tended to have little patience for veteran teachers who resist using technology in their classroom and in their grade book. ‘If I can learn it, why can’t they,’ has often been my attitude.

But Vito has given me cause to be more empathetic with these teachers. Not that I don’t want them to learn tech and implement tech in their classrooms, but just that I probably should give them more emotional space. In the past 20 years, my job assignment has been up to 40% FTE in tech support, and teachers usually have given me appreciation for my patience and gentleness in tech training, but it’s still important to remember how resistant we can be to making changes from a place of strength.