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Changes in education over the years comes down to technology
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| By: Rachel Westberg |
April 15, 2009 |
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Changes in education have been vast and various over the years, but the end product is still the same—competent students ready for the real world. Pictured is high school social studies instructor Gary Fitzgerald working with student Sabrina Drinkman.
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School districts have come a long way from the one-room schoolhouse that students had to travel to by walking uphill for five miles both ways ... in snow. Education has gone through an immense amount of change over the years, but its purpose still holds true.
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Chetek High School teacher Gary Fitzgerald taught social studies since 1973. He's seen changes in administration, class sizes, enrollment and scheduling, but perhaps one of the largest changes that education has seen throughout the years is in technology.
"The computer age has dictated change," says Fitzgerald. "Grades weren't put on computers-we had grade books. You used paper and pencil, but now it's word processors [on computers]. You used to use newspapers and encyclopedias, but now you research on the Internet. A lot of money is spent to keep up with changing technology, and for students to get a job and compete after school, it's necessary to promote that."
District reading specialist Bill Knickerbocker Sr., too, commented on the changes technology has brought to education. When he began teaching in 1974 he used a mimeograph machine, a type of duplicator that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. Often, if a mistake was made, the process had to be restarted. Now there are copy machines. Knickerbocker also remembers, as a coach, that anytime students got back late from a meet or game, the students were lined up in the locker room and took turns using the one phone. Now, everyone has a cell phone or drives to school.
Fitzgerald says teachers are always trying to keep up on technology, but he realizes students are smarter about computers.
"You work at it, and a lot of it comes by working with it every day," says Fitzgerald. "You can't say 'no.' The kids are smarter than you are with it. That pushes [me] to learn it even more because I don't want students to be smarter than I am."
One thing that technology has led to, due to the ease of data keeping, is accountability, which Knickerbocker says has its good and bad side. With changing academic standards and policies like No Child Left Behind, teachers are always working to keep track of the status of their students.
"It's held schools to higher standards, which is good," acknowledges Knickerbocker. "But it is complicated because when schools get compared to one another, you start to get labeled. It makes you know if you are being effective, but it takes some of the humanity out of teaching. "
Chetek High School learning options coordinator Mikki Jerdet, who is retiring after this year, says teachers have always been accountable for what they teach to the students. Now, the government asks teachers to prove what they are teaching.
"It is just a formal process now," says Jerdet. "It goes hand in hand with technology. You are preparing students for tests, but you are also preparing them for life, and their life is so much different than it was when we were that age."
For many years, teachers rarely had to worry about terrorist attacks, pathogens, guns and being sure visitors checkin to the front office. Now, though, Knickerbocker says there are entire staff meetings devoted to talking about those issues.
"It is disheartening to see a thick manual about what to do in certain events," says Knickerbocker. "We're here to educate kids, and the likelihood something would happen is slim, but you still need to spend time on it."
To keep up with many of the changes, many teachers and administrators are constantly going back to school themselves. Fitzgerald, like many longtime teachers, has a lifetime teaching license; but now, state laws require teachers to gain college credits every so many years.
"You can't really keep up with it all," says Jerdet. "You have requirements to maintain a license, but it isn't always enough and it is often outdated."
Through it all, one of the constants in education has been a teacher's desire to be there for the kids.
"Most teachers have a fundamental desire to see kids succeed," says Knickerbocker. "That hasn't changed. You still get a charge when a kid has the light go on."
"The staff here has always had a desire to improve the education for students," says Fitzgerald. "I don't know any teacher that isn't here for the kids. I don't care what disputes you have, we do what we do for the kids."
No one knows how education will change in the future, but teachers will continue to adapt. And many are excited about the changes yet to come.
"No one knows what tomorrow will bring," Fitzgerald says. "But sometimes you get rid of things that weren't all that bad. Any man who thought he'd get married and do things his way is in for a rude awakening."
"We are at the beginning of a revolution in education," says Jerdet. "In the next 10 years, education won't look anything like it does now. Students are growing up in a digital age, and we have to work fast and furiously to keep up."
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©The Chetek Alert 2010
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