Using technology with teachers

One of my first experiences with helping people use technology occurred when I was a Title One Resource Teacher for the 1996-1997 school year. We had computers in most of the classrooms, and I was released from classes to help teachers in English and Social Studies to improve their uses of the computers. I remember one older English teacher who told me that his printer did not work. I asked him if he had turned it on. He just looked at me and said, “Turn it on?” as if I had suggested that that he should fly to the moon. Another English teacher used the computer as a door stop. I worked with another teacher who thought that computers were the tools of the devil, and she would not allow her students to touch one. She asked me what someone who felt that way should do in light of the directives to use computers and that taking attendance on the Internet was soon to be mandated. I told her to get another job.

These teachers seemed to have had the attitude that if they ignored the computers, they would simply go away. They did not use them, did not want to, did not think that computers would in any way improve their teaching, and that it was somehow my responsibility to make their responsibility disappear. They did not pay attention to the computers or the inservice workshops I tried to provide, nor did they see the relevance of classroom computers. Because they did not have computers at home, they had no confidence in their ability to use them and covered their lack of confidence with disdain for the very idea of computers. They did not seemed to think that that a) there was any need for them to do things any differently from the way they had always done them, or b) the District would really make the technology work sufficiently well to require the use of the Internet for legal attendance-taking purposes. All of these teachers were gone from the school before the District mandate to use computers for attendance became a reality, so in a way they were right.

If I were in that position again, knowing what I now know, I would have tried to gain their attention by having classroom computer activities more visible to these teachers. One way to do this would be to demonstrate success at department meetings or in small groups. Making computers relevant to those teachers who resisted was another matter. Perhaps showing better student progress in the classes where computer use was consistent might have helped, but my District did not support displaying individual teacher success as indicated by student progress in testing. Many times during the first years that computers were regular class room equipment, we had staff development sessions designed to help teachers develop proficiency and confidence in computer use. But, as the teachers that I mentioned were rather senior teachers, they either did not go to the sessions or ignored what was being presented. They took satisfaction it seemed to me when things went wrong, thereby proving their insistence that computers were never going to be permanent fixtures in schools. I finally took my satisfaction in working with newer teachers who were more receptive to developing uses for computers.