True Confessions

I am currently at an educational technology conference and I'm Tweeting things like this:

If students can Google it, we should not be teaching it. @mfaust Probably a good guiding principle :-) #edtechcon

— Renee Bogacz (@mrsbogacz) October 18, 2016

Now that students are accessing information 24/7, teachers are not the sole providers of knowledge. @mfaust --Ts gonna have to embrace this.

— Renee Bogacz (@mrsbogacz) October 18, 2016

Now, teachers can be some of the most empathetic and supportive people with their colleagues. BUT, sadly, they can also be really judgmental and snarky. It's an ugly truth. That's why I'm writing this post.

If I were a teacher still teaching in a classroom of my own kids, doing all the traditional teacher activities, I could see myself saying (or at least thinking) the following things about the Instructional Technology Resource Teacher:

• You're not an expert in any of this stuff you're telling us about. In fact I/my students know more about it than you do.
• It's easy for you to say we need to do all these things; you don't have papers to grade, lesson plans to develop, etc. I don't have the time to learn what you want me to learn.
• I've seen how you taught when you were still in the classroom. You were traditional -- you weren't some innovative teacher who was teaching the way you want us to teach. Kind of hypocritical, isn't it?
• What I'm doing in my classroom works really well. Why do I need to change anything?

Maybe you've said or thought some of the same things about me. If you have, heck, I don't blame you one bit. But here is what I'd like to think I would do, if I was still in a classroom with my own kids:

• I hope that I'd listen to everything that's said and suggested and try really hard to be honest with myself when trying to decide if what is happening in my classroom is really best for my learners.
• I hope that I'd pick one or two things that I think are really useful for my class and my learners and try it out.
• I hope I wouldn't try to change everything I'm doing in my classroom in one school year. Or even two. I'd give myself a good 3 - 5 years.
• I hope I'd realize that everything isn't going to work out perfectly and I'd scrap what is really bad and revamp what has potential.

I'm a people pleaser, if you haven't figured that out already. I always want everybody to be happy. I've heard that isn't possible, but I keep trying anyway :-) Because I'm a people pleaser, that means I want to work hard to make YOU happy. So here is my attempt at being a people pleaser today:

• Please don't think of me as an expert of any sort except as an expert learner. All I want to do in my job is learn about tools to help you and your students learn and learn about tools you and your students can use.
• Please take advantage of the fact that the demands on my time are drastically different from the demands on your time. Do you need a particular kind of app for the iPads? Ask me to find one. Do you want to see how an app works? Ask me to try it out and show it to you. Do you need help learning something we already have -- how to upload a video to YouTube? Set up a Google Form? Ask me to help you. Need websites for your 2nd graders to learn about tornadoes? Ask me to find some for you.
• Please don't try to change everything you do in your classroom. You do so many amazing things already! I know, because I get to come into your classrooms! Instead, think about any lessons you have that can be updated and innovated. Do a few each year. Don't overwhelm yourself by trying to change everything. It won't work and you'll hate making the changes. And refer to the above 2 bullet points as you find things that can be innovated. (Remember: it's not hard to innovate!)
• Please use a critical eye when examining your curriculum and your students. Ultimately, we as teachers want our students to leave our class with more information and understanding than they had when they entered. We work hard to help our students learn and it can be hard to admit that maybe a lesson we love needs updating for some reason. Teaching and curriculum development is deeply personal -- we pour our hearts into it because we care so much about the kids in our classrooms. When someone implies in any way that something we are doing isn't good enough for whatever reason, it is natural to get defensive because our work has pieces of our hearts in it. We owe it to our kids to evaluate what we teach and be honest about how meaningful and effective it really is.

My job title is "Instructional Technology Resource Teacher", but in so many other districts, the title for this job is often "Technology Coach". It's more concise, but I love having "Teacher" in my job title. It's what I am. I'm one of you guys -- really! I love working with you and your kids. I love teaching you and your kids new things. I love seeing the excitement on everyone's faces when something works well. Thank you for letting me continue to work with you and come into your classrooms.