It was the No. 2 pencil that stood out to me the most. I remember the high school student sitting at an empty cafeteria table, his white Macbook open in front of him and the matching earbud cord falling lazily from his ears. His cell phone lay face down on the freshly wiped table, but instead of typing, he took notes in a college ruled notebook with an ordinary, yellow No. 2 pencil.
My first long term substitute teaching job was for a small Title 1 high school 45 miles from anywhere. There were maybe 80 kids, 9th through 12th grade, and the high school shared the same building as the elementary and middle school. In all there were less than 400 kids in the whole school district and they all shared the same gym. The only sports were basketball and track because they couldn’t afford equipment for any others. And they were 80% Hispanic.
In my time there, I taught 3 homebound students. All three were girls, all three had just had a child, all three were younger than 17.
I was still learning how school funding worked, but it was my first experience with the extra money a Title 1 school receives. All students received free breakfast and lunch and all students were issued new Macbooks. Every classroom had a SMART board in it, which at the time was brand new tech. The desks were new, with scratch resistant plastic. There was even a computer lab, with new flatscreens. I still had a old-school monitor in my apartment.
Even with all this technology, every once in a while I’d catch a glimpse of a dusty textbook on a shelf, a wood top desk in a corner, and a hand crank pencil sharpener for those No. 2 pencils.
That was 10 years ago now. Technology has evolved exponentially, but the devices remain, just faster and smarter. More recently I worked for another Title 1 school, but this one had about 2,600 kids in it: 75% hispanic, 18% African American. My second year there they issued every student a laptop. Teachers were required to take trainings on Google Classroom and we began making 90% of our assignments on the computer. It really was (is) a marvel at what we as educators can do with technology when used responsibly, consistently, and efficiently.
My current school district does not issue 1:1 laptops. My current Title 1 school barely has enough laptops within the school for teachers to share. I’d be willing to bet most of the teachers barely know how to use their SMART boards let alone ever logged on to Google Classroom… at least until now.
One thing this new ‘distance learning’ has reiterated for me is EVERY public educated student should be issued a laptop regardless if they go to a Title 1 school or not. The ones who can afford one, they already have one, but the ones who can’t afford one, they need one.
Our education system is archaic and our priorities are backwards. School districts still throw money away on textbooks that teachers barely use and students draw cocks all over. Textbook companies issue online versions of the books anyway so why can’t kids access them with laptops? Schools spend millions of dollars on stadiums for shitty football teams and build parking garages for ONE high school that is predominantly white. Laptops are not expensive anymore. They are not a luxury, they are becoming a necessity. The money is there, it’s just not being spent in the right places.
Then nature threw us a curveball and we had to adapt almost overnight to figure out how to continue to educate our students when neither teachers, kids nor parents had ever used the technology before. Some schools were ahead of the curve, already using 1:1 and had their teachers, students and parents familiar with something that is already commonplace in our society. But other districts still believe the method of education 100 years ago is still effective today. They think the best change is plastic desks instead of wood and dry erase boards instead of chalk. Our education system needs to join the 21st century. Kids want to be entertained, that’s why they plug in every chance they get. School is boring because the methods are outdated. If you make education approachable, dynamic, and relatable, kids will actually want to learn instead of avoiding the classroom every chance they get.
Critics say our failing education system is the symptom of a sick society. Kids are too complacent and lazy, the family unit has deteriorated, the internet and video games cause school shootings. Stop blaming the kids, stop blaming the parents, stop blaming the entertainment industry, and start blaming the system. The system is broken, and opening more charter schools and increasing property tax is not going to make better students, it’s only going to make richer and poorer schools and families who can and cannot afford to live near them.
I’m not saying laptops in the hands of every student is going to solve our education system, but the situation we found ourselves in when no one could go to school highlighted the fact that education was ill equipped for a problem that modern corporations easily bridged because their technology was up-to-date.
There needs to be a paradigm shift, but no one wants to admit the obvious outdated traditions we continue to embrace. Summer Break happened so people could harvest crops. Longer days and shorter lunches do not equate better education. Colleges do not care about your State Standardized test scores. No Child Left Behind doesn’t move anyone forward. We push push push kids to go to college, but we don’t train them with the skills or resources they’ll need once they get there. Not to mention not all kids want to go to college and even if they don’t spend the insane amount of money to go to college, can still be just as successful if not more than someone who does. I guarantee there's a welder out there making more money than me with my Master’s degree.
Despite all this, as an educator my heart goes out to all those struggling right now. Those who are worried more about finding food for their family, wondering if the lights will stay on and the water will keep running another week. Some don’t have toilet paper let alone WiFi. A laptop may not solve their home situation, but it has the potential to help. At least they will have a connection with the outside world, a way to cry for help if need be.
And when you strip down the classroom there will always be a need for the basics. Take away the SMART boards, the laptops, the WiFi, the cell phones. You still need a few important details: A teacher in front of the class, a surface for them to write on, a place for students to sit. And when all else fails, a simple, yellow No. 2 pencil.
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