Judith Taack Lanier, in her article “Redefining the Role of the Teacher: It’s a Multifaceted Profession,” draws on technology to lead us to a bright future in education.  This article was written in 1997, which is right at the peak of educational technology 1.0.  The next few years would show massive growth and investment in technology, but within five years the industry would experience the Dot-Com Bubble bursting which would forever change the technology industry.  Eventually we would make it to Web 2.0 and a more dynamic internet.  Some even claim we are currently entering into Web 3.0 with new blockchain technologies and other distributed systems of verifiability.  Even with all of this technology, all of this connectedness, the promises that Mrs. Lanier makes have not come to fruition.  As with most things, it’s always a little more complicated than we thought.    

 

“Teaching used to be predicated on information scarcity,” says Mrs. Lanier.  We have clearly moved beyond this.  Never have we published so many scientific papers.  Never have we had so much access to the same research as NASA scientists.  We all basically now have access to everything.  However, with our new abilities for accessing quality content came an increased access to low quality content, disturbing content, titillating content, and a newfound division in what we can say is true.  It might be true that information can be found in, like Mrs. Lanier says, “bits and bytes everywhere,” but the classroom remains important because it acts as the shelter for quality information.  

 

The belief that new practices would emerge because of access to new technologies has been underwhelming.  Schools still look very similar to 1997.  Even new building construction looks the same.  We are still buying desks.  We are still designing classrooms to outfit a teacher with a whiteboard at the front of the room.  We still build school schedules the same way.  We still rarely team teach.  Mrs. Lanier says, “teaching was a combination of information-dispensing, custodial childcare and sorting out academically inclined students from others.”  Across the nation, this is still largely the case.  I think we all underestimated the inertia of the old model.  No level of curricular advancement can dislodge the economic need for childcare.  

 

Mrs. Lanier predicted that teachers would become counselors to students and “help them integrate their social, emotional, and intellectual growth.”  This part did come true, but not as predicted.  Largely because of technology, students are experiencing higher levels of anxiety, suicidal ideation, antisocial behaviors, and isolating habits.  I recommend the book “iGen” by Dr. Jean Twenge to fully unpack this.  The same technology that promised a beautiful new world for learning has created an inescapable dystopia for many of our young learners.