hello Chicago this is an apple some of
you may look at it and think that
reminds me of the American public
education system or any education system
for that matter yet despite how red and
juicy and plump it is it doesn’t
necessarily correlate with the realities
of how American students are performing
when you look at them and their
performances compared with seventy-one
other countries worth of students across
the world journalists are the first ones
to jump on this and try to figure out
exactly what the reason is for this sort
of performance and typically they focus
on teachers here are some examples
rotten apples crackdown on lazy teachers
what the heck is going on in these
schools I can tell you from firsthand
experience because I was a sixth and
seventh grade math and science teacher
at one point that there are some
incredible examples of teaching out
there they just don’t always make it to
the forefront and so about four and a
half years ago I decided to put my money
where my mouth is figuratively and join
the education journalism world but I
chose to move somewhere very in
particular the Silicon Valley whoo where
all of a sudden an entirely new
narrative was brought to my attention
technology is going to solve all of our
problems technology can fix education
the Silicon Valley billionaires remake
schools artificial intelligence is going
to do everything we need it to do well
when I first heard that I started to
feel like Morgan Freeman and this meme
which is one of my favorite memes and
you’d be surprised how many powerpoints
I put this in in my career including
when I had powerpoints in my classroom
and you know I thought to myself what is
this pressure all of a sudden I feel to
join this narrative to write about how
incredible technology is for our
students so over the next 4 and 1/2
years of being an education journalist I
would endeavor to try to answer this
question can technology really solve all
of our problems I’m gonna take you back
to one of the most popular article
so I ever wrote for the education
technology journalism organization I
used to work for ED Serge it was about a
charter system down in Southern
California USC hybrid high college prep
the University of Southern California
has a large School of Education and they
wanted to run a bit of an experiment
they decided that at this new charter
school they were going to put students
on devices for 90 percent of the day the
teacher was there but sort of put to the
side and they had a lot to work with
because a number of these students were
coming in without proficiency in math
science or language arts so there was a
lot riding on this and yet by the end of
freshman year 50 percent of that
incoming freshman class was credit
deficient meaning that they were worse
than when they had first come in it’s
almost as if the Charter system took a
page out of the book that Los Angeles
Unified School District wrote who around
the same time had decided to reallocate
a billion dollars in funding from the
space in their budget that was supposed
to go to remaking decrepit buildings in
the district to iPads for all every
single student in the district received
an iPad but there was a bit of an issue
with this very little teacher input went
into this decision making and very
little professional development was
provided to the teachers to help them
understand how to incorporate the
devices into the classroom now some of
you may have read about this and if you
have then apologize for bringing up
those negative memories once again but
approximately two years ago the
superintendent of LAUSD John Deasy
actually resigned and a major reason for
that was because of the ultimate failure
that the iPad initiative had been oh
don’t get me wrong I actually recently
joined Google so I theoretically like
technology but I don’t think it’s the
main thing that we need to fix all of
our problems I think it can be a tool
but here’s the thing
I saw lacking and a lot of the stories
that I read about that I wrote that he
interviewed people on and that was the
teacher factor because oftentimes
teachers are the ones that ask the best
questions around tools that are used in
the classroom around how a student is
feeling they have those relationships
that a piece of technology can’t
simulate for example Ricardo elizalde is
probably one of the best teachers I’ve
ever met in my entire life he is a
public school teacher and he spends his
life teaching non-native speakers
English now students in his class even
when they become proficient sometimes
lack something in particular he noticed
this with one of his particular Honduran
students who was doing very well but
when she went home wasn’t really able to
speak with her mother because she lacked
one crucial thing confidence now Ricardo
being the resourceful and innovative
teacher that he is decided I think
there’s a way that I can incorporate
technology into the scenario to help her
out so he created a student project that
brought in Macs and iMovie and wrote
this story actually for us after the
whole thing happened the students
created animated digital shorts over
which they dubbed with the English that
they had learned and the beautiful thing
about it was that they were able to take
those projects back home and demonstrate
to their families just how much they had
learned and I’m going to take you back
to hybrid high because actually that
story doesn’t end as bad as you might
think it did I’ll be honest with you we
the the charter school system did pluck
a new leader actually from Chicago and
dragged him out to Los Angeles but the
second year the charter school system
was around thank God he was there
because he realized that the big missing
element in what they had done up until
that point was teachers in the classroom
working with students more consistently
instead of having kids on devices 90% of
their time but that wasn’t all he did he
also made it rain he
every single teacher $3,000 at the
beginning of every year and the teachers
could spend that on whatever software
technology they wanted in addition to
that if they really like something and
wanted licenses for the whole school if
they got other teachers and students on
board and the administrators saw that
then they’d buy licenses for everybody
and I am happy to report that last year
that first freshman class made it to
senior year and graduated 100% of them
graduated and 100% of them were accepted
to four-year colleges and universities
it’s funny to hear you clap because I
certainly can’t take credit for that but
I’m glad that I was able to share that
information with you
now as I’m up here you may be thinking
to yourself okay Mary Jo these are a lot
of California examples I don’t know if
you know but you’re a TEDx Chicago we’re
a different place we have other problems
to deal with like when it’s negative 10
degrees outside and first off I totally
get it
I went to Northwestern go Wildcats I’m
right there with you anybody at
Northwestern yes this is why I didn’t
want to do TEDx San Francisco but
there’s actually a similar example that
I want to share with you that’s
something for you to be aware of because
I imagine that many of you have students
in CPS some of you may be funders some
of you may be politicians that make
choices that affect the district so in
2016 the Chicago sometimes that summer
reported that more than a thousand
positions were eliminated from Chicago
Public Schools just gone some of which
were teaching positions now
interestingly enough simultaneously that
same summer a position was posted on the
jobs board for an executive director of
personalized learning and this
six-figure salary to individual was
going to be amongst other things
bringing technology into the system now
it would be unfair of me to say that
there’s a direct causation between these
two things but I think it’s something to
be aware of
because in my line of work I hear a lot
of people talk and complain about the
1950s vision that we have of the
classroom one teacher up at the front
students facing forward you know
everything’s focused on that one teacher
everything is right there but at the
same time I don’t know if this situation
is much better and I’ve seen this live
where students are sitting in desks
tapped in singular device no
collaboration no project-based learning
no communicating no soft skill
development and where’s the teacher
that’s why I fundamentally support what
I consider to be the triangular
relationship and that’s where you have
to have three individual pieces working
together the student the technology the
teacher technology is a wonderful thing
I’m not gonna lie to you I see it do
wonderful things in schools all the time
I’ve seen it offer access to students
with disabilities I’ve seen students
that aren’t able to travel abroad get
access to incredible virtual reality
experiences that open up new worlds for
them but before I leave today I want to
leave you with one last crucial question
how do we as a collective figure out the
best learning environments for our
students that balance the utility of
technology with the beauty of human
nature because I’ll be honest with you
my friends and I’ve seen it firsthand
the relationships between teachers and
students is sacred and that should never
ever be eliminated thank you
you
you may look at it and think that
reminds me of the American public
education system or any education system
for that matter yet despite how red and
juicy and plump it is it doesn’t
necessarily correlate with the realities
of how American students are performing
when you look at them and their
performances compared with seventy-one
other countries worth of students across
the world journalists are the first ones
to jump on this and try to figure out
exactly what the reason is for this sort
of performance and typically they focus
on teachers here are some examples
rotten apples crackdown on lazy teachers
what the heck is going on in these
schools I can tell you from firsthand
experience because I was a sixth and
seventh grade math and science teacher
at one point that there are some
incredible examples of teaching out
there they just don’t always make it to
the forefront and so about four and a
half years ago I decided to put my money
where my mouth is figuratively and join
the education journalism world but I
chose to move somewhere very in
particular the Silicon Valley whoo where
all of a sudden an entirely new
narrative was brought to my attention
technology is going to solve all of our
problems technology can fix education
the Silicon Valley billionaires remake
schools artificial intelligence is going
to do everything we need it to do well
when I first heard that I started to
feel like Morgan Freeman and this meme
which is one of my favorite memes and
you’d be surprised how many powerpoints
I put this in in my career including
when I had powerpoints in my classroom
and you know I thought to myself what is
this pressure all of a sudden I feel to
join this narrative to write about how
incredible technology is for our
students so over the next 4 and 1/2
years of being an education journalist I
would endeavor to try to answer this
question can technology really solve all
of our problems I’m gonna take you back
to one of the most popular article
so I ever wrote for the education
technology journalism organization I
used to work for ED Serge it was about a
charter system down in Southern
California USC hybrid high college prep
the University of Southern California
has a large School of Education and they
wanted to run a bit of an experiment
they decided that at this new charter
school they were going to put students
on devices for 90 percent of the day the
teacher was there but sort of put to the
side and they had a lot to work with
because a number of these students were
coming in without proficiency in math
science or language arts so there was a
lot riding on this and yet by the end of
freshman year 50 percent of that
incoming freshman class was credit
deficient meaning that they were worse
than when they had first come in it’s
almost as if the Charter system took a
page out of the book that Los Angeles
Unified School District wrote who around
the same time had decided to reallocate
a billion dollars in funding from the
space in their budget that was supposed
to go to remaking decrepit buildings in
the district to iPads for all every
single student in the district received
an iPad but there was a bit of an issue
with this very little teacher input went
into this decision making and very
little professional development was
provided to the teachers to help them
understand how to incorporate the
devices into the classroom now some of
you may have read about this and if you
have then apologize for bringing up
those negative memories once again but
approximately two years ago the
superintendent of LAUSD John Deasy
actually resigned and a major reason for
that was because of the ultimate failure
that the iPad initiative had been oh
don’t get me wrong I actually recently
joined Google so I theoretically like
technology but I don’t think it’s the
main thing that we need to fix all of
our problems I think it can be a tool
but here’s the thing
I saw lacking and a lot of the stories
that I read about that I wrote that he
interviewed people on and that was the
teacher factor because oftentimes
teachers are the ones that ask the best
questions around tools that are used in
the classroom around how a student is
feeling they have those relationships
that a piece of technology can’t
simulate for example Ricardo elizalde is
probably one of the best teachers I’ve
ever met in my entire life he is a
public school teacher and he spends his
life teaching non-native speakers
English now students in his class even
when they become proficient sometimes
lack something in particular he noticed
this with one of his particular Honduran
students who was doing very well but
when she went home wasn’t really able to
speak with her mother because she lacked
one crucial thing confidence now Ricardo
being the resourceful and innovative
teacher that he is decided I think
there’s a way that I can incorporate
technology into the scenario to help her
out so he created a student project that
brought in Macs and iMovie and wrote
this story actually for us after the
whole thing happened the students
created animated digital shorts over
which they dubbed with the English that
they had learned and the beautiful thing
about it was that they were able to take
those projects back home and demonstrate
to their families just how much they had
learned and I’m going to take you back
to hybrid high because actually that
story doesn’t end as bad as you might
think it did I’ll be honest with you we
the the charter school system did pluck
a new leader actually from Chicago and
dragged him out to Los Angeles but the
second year the charter school system
was around thank God he was there
because he realized that the big missing
element in what they had done up until
that point was teachers in the classroom
working with students more consistently
instead of having kids on devices 90% of
their time but that wasn’t all he did he
also made it rain he
every single teacher $3,000 at the
beginning of every year and the teachers
could spend that on whatever software
technology they wanted in addition to
that if they really like something and
wanted licenses for the whole school if
they got other teachers and students on
board and the administrators saw that
then they’d buy licenses for everybody
and I am happy to report that last year
that first freshman class made it to
senior year and graduated 100% of them
graduated and 100% of them were accepted
to four-year colleges and universities
it’s funny to hear you clap because I
certainly can’t take credit for that but
I’m glad that I was able to share that
information with you
now as I’m up here you may be thinking
to yourself okay Mary Jo these are a lot
of California examples I don’t know if
you know but you’re a TEDx Chicago we’re
a different place we have other problems
to deal with like when it’s negative 10
degrees outside and first off I totally
get it
I went to Northwestern go Wildcats I’m
right there with you anybody at
Northwestern yes this is why I didn’t
want to do TEDx San Francisco but
there’s actually a similar example that
I want to share with you that’s
something for you to be aware of because
I imagine that many of you have students
in CPS some of you may be funders some
of you may be politicians that make
choices that affect the district so in
2016 the Chicago sometimes that summer
reported that more than a thousand
positions were eliminated from Chicago
Public Schools just gone some of which
were teaching positions now
interestingly enough simultaneously that
same summer a position was posted on the
jobs board for an executive director of
personalized learning and this
six-figure salary to individual was
going to be amongst other things
bringing technology into the system now
it would be unfair of me to say that
there’s a direct causation between these
two things but I think it’s something to
be aware of
because in my line of work I hear a lot
of people talk and complain about the
1950s vision that we have of the
classroom one teacher up at the front
students facing forward you know
everything’s focused on that one teacher
everything is right there but at the
same time I don’t know if this situation
is much better and I’ve seen this live
where students are sitting in desks
tapped in singular device no
collaboration no project-based learning
no communicating no soft skill
development and where’s the teacher
that’s why I fundamentally support what
I consider to be the triangular
relationship and that’s where you have
to have three individual pieces working
together the student the technology the
teacher technology is a wonderful thing
I’m not gonna lie to you I see it do
wonderful things in schools all the time
I’ve seen it offer access to students
with disabilities I’ve seen students
that aren’t able to travel abroad get
access to incredible virtual reality
experiences that open up new worlds for
them but before I leave today I want to
leave you with one last crucial question
how do we as a collective figure out the
best learning environments for our
students that balance the utility of
technology with the beauty of human
nature because I’ll be honest with you
my friends and I’ve seen it firsthand
the relationships between teachers and
students is sacred and that should never
ever be eliminated thank you
you
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