Doug Johnson Website

The 21st Century Teacher
Head for the Edge, May 1999

It’s been about two years now since I came up behind two fifth grade boys as they sat giggling at an Internet terminal in one of our school media centers. “Oh, oh,” I suspiciously thought, “What are they into that they shouldn’t be?”

As it turns out, they were in one of the Center for Disease Control’s computers down in Atlanta looking up information about the Ebola virus. Pretty cool for ten-year-olds, I thought, and left it at that. But the more I considered the incident, the more remarkable its implications became. There are some very real, very sudden changes happening to teachers and teaching right now. And the availability of the Internet is almost single-handedly bringing those changes about.

It’s taken the presence of the Internet to highlight what dramatic impact geography has had on education. The teachers, the resources, and the experiences to which most of us B.C. (Before Computing) students had access were those within our communities. We learned what our teachers knew. We had access only to the teachers within our own school. We learned the core values of only our community since those values were the only ones to which we had much exposure. What might be some of the implications of students having access to a virtual world that is beginning to erase those geographic limits?

1. What is being taught will change.
How will the dynamics of the classroom change when the boys return armed with their new information about the Ebola virus?

Most apparently, student interest, probably peaked by newspaper articles, television program, or local issues, rather than a set curriculum has begun to drive learning. 21st Century teachers will need to know how to take areas of high student interest, often self-selected, and use them to teach the important concepts for their grade or content area. Using problems related the Ebola virus, for example, the teacher will still be teaching writing, reading, mathematics, health and safety, science, history, and civics. But the struggle for student relevance and interest is half-won. The class is already “about” a topic which students have judged to be important.

The less obvious change is in the instructional role of the classroom teacher. The students, not the teacher or textbook, have suddenly become the content expert on the Ebola virus. And consequently, teachers need to redefine their roles to stay relevant to the learning process. Now instead of dispensing facts and opinions about the disease, the teacher will need to know how to start asking questions like:

Where and how did you find your information?
How do you know if that is a reliable source?
How can you use the information you found to make a difference in your life or in your community?
How can you help others understand this information?

It’s easy to see that great 21st century teaching will be more important than it has ever been in the past as educators move from being knowledge builders rather than knowledge dispensers. Great teachers, unlike books or videos, will be truly interactive.

2. Who is doing the teaching will change.
Right now, if I want to learn how to design a web page I can go to DigitalThink <http://www.digitalthink.com> and learn from one of my all-time favorite authors, graphic artist Robin Williams. I am no longer tied to the local community education classes, technical school classes, or university classes whose teachers may or may not be effective. Increasingly all students will have options to sitting through classes with poor, disinterested teachers or with teachers whose teaching style simply doesn’t suit their own learning styles.

On-line courses are here and growing in number. As more states begin to describe graduation requirements in terms of what students should know and be able to do, rather than how much time they need to be in a desk, the feasibility of alternatives to physical classrooms and traditional teaching begins to grow.

Excellence in teaching and course design will be essential when it is no more difficult to take a class offered in a school across the country than it is to take one next door. As Eliot Masie reminds us, “There is no social pressure to “stay,” when learning on-line. If you attend an instructor-led class and are bored or not pleased with the content, you will probably stick it out, at least until lunch or the end of the day. We have been conditioned to stay and tolerate less than optimal classes. However, our social conditioning when on-line is the exact opposite. We are always one click away from departure.” The MASIE Center <http://www.masie.com/>

Mediocrity won’t last long where there are choices. For great teachers, the golden age of education is here. For poor teachers - “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

3. The way in which “values” instruction will change.
Let’s look at those questions that the 21st century teacher will need to be at asking again:

Where and how did you find your information?
How do you know if that is a reliable source?
How can you use the information you found to make a difference in your life or in your community?
How can you help others understand this information?

For none of these questions is there a simple, right-or-wrong response. Each requires higher level thinking and the ability to articulate and defend individual values. As individuals we will need to ask and answer for ourselves, for example, how much credibility governments (Center for Disease Control), the media (The Hot Zone and Newsweek), business (insurance companies and HMOs), and individuals (personal webpages and talkshow callers) each have. Teachers themselves will need to be comfortable with the choices they have made for themselves in order to guide their students.

While it’s pretty difficult to be “for” a communicable disease, other topics that student will be faced with are more controversial. The role of the United States in world affairs, the continuation of affirmative action policies, the role of the government in health care and education, and freedom of expression are all important topics, topics which should be of relevance to our students. And our wired children will be hearing a cacophony of voices about these issues. The teacher’s role increasingly will be one that helps students make sense of the noise and make good choices based on that sense.

Media specialists, if you think your job has changed over the past few years, you ain’t seen nothing until teachers start to change. Some are already there. Some will make the transition smoothly and joyfully. Some will gracefully take early retirement or find another line of work. It’s the rest who will make our lives interesting. All teachers will be looking to us as models, as co-teachers, and as suppliers of materials, tools, skills, and support. Let’s be there for them.