Recently, I presented at a school on an opening day for teachers where the first thing that greeted everyone on the table in the lobby was an 8-page Acceptable Use Policy which staff members were picking up as they filed into the school. I picked one up too, and when I had a moment I started paging through it, looking at all the ways in which students (and teachers) could get themselves in trouble on the school network. The middle three pages were filled with an A-Y double spaced list (guess they were saving room for one more rule next year) which spelled out the many transgressions that were not going to be tolerated, things like people shouldn’t be harassing one another, going around the filter, accessing shopping sites, accessing any sites that were “social in nature” and, the big one, downloading software to school computers for personal use. And much, much more.

Frankly, I couldn’t help thinking that if I was a student in this district, I think I would actually beg NOT to get a computer. Between the filters and the restrictions, I had a hard time imagining what I would be able to use them for in ways that would actually stimulate my learning. I’d rather take my chances with my phone and my computer at home. (About 90% of students in this district had access from home.)

But the other part that struck me was what this policy said about the curriculum in that district. I wondered aloud to some administrators and teachers later if the stiff policies spoke volumes about what they weren’t teaching in their classrooms K-12 as their students went through the system. I mean wouldn’t it seem that if kids were taught throughout the curriculum about the ethical and appropriate use of computers and the Internet that much more of that policy could be spent going over what students could actually do with the computer rather than the “don’t dos” that were listed? At that point, we’d probably have to change the name to an “Admirable Use Policy” or something, but imagine if students walked in on the first day of class, picked up that policy and read things like:

“Do use our network to connect to other students and adults who share your passions with whom you can learn.”

“Do use our network to help your teachers find experts and other teachers from around the world.”

“Do use our network to publish your best work in text and multimedia for a global audience.”

“Do use our network to explore your own creativity and passions, to ask questions and seek answers from other teachers online.”

“Do use our network to download resources that you can use to remix and republish your own learning online.”

“Do use our network to collaborate with others to change the world in meaningful, positive ways.”

Etc. (Add your own below.)

Now, obviously, that would mean that the curriculum would be preparing students to do that all along, But I’m thinking that if I was a student and I read those “dos”  on the first day of school, I’d be itching to get to class.

(Photo by Checlap.)

In the midst of all of the “uproar” over the President’s planned speech to school kids on Tuesday, I keep thinking about what all of this says about schools, about what they are for, and about the perception that a lot of people in this country have of them.

It would seem to me that there should be no better place for my children to watch that speech (or any other, for that matter) than in a place where ideas are encouraged, where critical thinking about those ideas is a natural part of the conversation, and where appropriate response and debate can flourish. Where the adults in the room lead my kids to dig deeper, to validate facts, and consider the many levels of context in which every speech and every debate takes place. Where the discussion around it is such that it lays to rest the concern that many seem to have about this particular speech in general, that in some way the President will be able to “indoctrinate” our kids into some socialist mindset. If schools are the fully functioning learning communities that we hope they are, they should be the place where our kids learn to make sense of ideas, not to fear them. That, however, is not the message we are sending.

All of this speaks to the ever narrowing role we as a society have assigned to our schools. And that is truly something to fear. School is the place kids go to learn the stuff they need to pass all of the tests, not the place that they go to engage the diversity and complexity and beauty of the world. If we cannot offer our students wide ranging opportunities to examine the world from many sides and teach them how to do that with rigor and respect, then we subvert the very idea of school.

I keep thinking of how much could be taught in this moment: oratory, research skills, statistics (drop-out rates, etc.), history, media, analysis, debate, composition, social justice, and on and on and on.

I keep thinking of those teachers out there right now who have had a level of confidence and professionalism stripped away by school districts who have ceded to parents wishes to avoid rather than to trust them to teach.

I keep thinking about what kids are learning by the way their schools are reacting, what it says to them about what school is and its value in their lives.

I keep thinking what this says about a public school system that has “educated” the people at the front of all of the screaming and yelling.

My kids both start school on Wednesday, so our schools have avoided all of this. Still, I hope they play the president’s message, regardless of whether it’s a motivational speech to work hard and pursue a love of learning or whether it’s a paean to Stalin, and then engage my kids in conversation about its merits, its flaws and its omissions. And better yet, I hope they take a step back and look at this “controversy” in the context of media analysis, information literacy, political dialogue and debate. Talk about a teachable moment.

But without that, any way you look at it, this is not a great moment for schools.

It’s been great fun to get to share a part of eight school opening days this year from Mississippi to Vermont. They’re always filled with a great deal of energy, and they’re also a good way of getting a sense of where things are in terms of schools’ evolution (or lack thereof) in thinking around technology in a teaching and learning context. I’d love to be able to say that it feels like we’re a lot farther down the road, but by and large, that’s not the what I’m seeing. There is still a real emphasis on the implementation of “stuff” without the hard conversations about pedagogy that deal with preparing kids for a connected world. There are pockets of that, but not much that is being discussed within the frame of a long-term plan or real vision as to what classroom learning is going to look like in say, ten or even five years. (I put out a Tweet last week asking what the timeframe was for the technology plans at the schools where people are teaching, and most said three years with an occasional five year plan or a “Technology plan? What’s that?” thrown in. I’m wondering, by the way, when we’ll stop calling them technology plans and just call them learning plans.)

What I am sensing, though, is that more schools and districts seem to “get” that the Web is affording some new opportunities for learning, and that they are willing to seriously consider what the impacts are for their schools. The problem is, and this is just my take on it, that most still see it as a conversation about technology as opposed to a conversation about change. As I’ve suggested here before, there is a lot of “tinkering around the edges” going on, but not much that I can see happening in terms of really rethinking the role of schools in learning. In large measure, the schools I visited assess their effectiveness by making AYP, the scores their kids get on AP tests, percentage of graduates going on to colleges, and the merit scholars they produce. In and of themselves, there is nothing wrong with those measures. But I’ve been struggling to see examples of what learning looks like in those schools, examples of engaged kids, asking and answering their own questions, creating, cooperating or maybe even collaborating with other learners young and old, and doing all of it in ways that the rest of the world can learn from it. I’ve heard very few stories of learning that sound any different from the stories we’ve been telling for a very long time now. There are some, like the teacher I met today outside of Buffalo who has been collaborating with another teacher in Scotland the last couple of years as their students study literature together through a wiki, or another teacher outside of Pittsburgh who has her students using Twitter to ask questions and connect around science. But these are still ripples; there are few waves.

I wonder if that’s an accurate portrayal…obviously, eight schools does not a trend make. But I’m betting these schools are not dissimilar from most others at this point. And I’m still left wondering what it will take for evidence of more widespread, systemic shifting to bubble up.