I came across a neat little piece where Apple Computers’ Steve Jobs blasted teacher unions for keeping incompetent teachers in jobs. This article from the Star Telegram reported on Jobs’ ideas that if technology is to make a difference in the class, you need inventive, and curious teachers who are going to use it. The kind of teacher who sits back and does what he’s always done just because it’s familiar is not the kind of teacher who’s ever going to make computers, projectors, and all kinds of cool multimedia work in the classroom.
The kind of teacher who doesn’t even try to make technology work probably isn’t preparing students for the future. You don’t necessarily need to understand computers, etc, yourself, but a teacher needs to give students the opportunity to use them, to explore, and to make mistakes.
That takes a teacher full of wonder and curiosity, and one who is continually learning. Whoever’s fault it may be that school’s don’t have many of those teachers, we need to do something about it.