Staff Development at...a restaurant

Have you ever compared eating out a restaurant to teaching?

Let's think about this. You walk in a restaurant and a host or hostess seats your party. The menus come along and what's the first thing you think? What do I want to eat?

Five of us went out at a local restaurant for technology training.

And sure enough, we were seated and immediately engaged in conversation - how was your day? what are you going to get to eat? The conversation was interesting b/c it depended on comfort level how much was said or not said.

Let's get back to the question at hand - what do I want to eat? One teacher said - I know exactly what I want - veggie enchilada with cactus on the side. I know what I like and I how I like it. Another person was looking to try something new, another was getting over a cold and now had an appetite and I'm not sure about the others, but it was probably something close to what they had a taste for that day.

The goal is to eat, right? Why would you go into a restaurant and pay for food you don't like? And if it goes to plan, you end up full and satisfied.

So let's think about just this part a little bit further - how is this like teaching? How do we "serve" our students? How do we prepare their "meal"?

Now how would your whole dining experience change if one person had told you what to eat and ordered it for you? We talked about this and concluded that one thing it had to do with was relationships. One of the teacher's responded that she'd probably say something to me, but that she'd want to follow the direction - and then her colleague spoke up and said he would have said something for her - to look out for her needs b/c she's vegetarian.

We continued to learn in town that day by visiting a few more places to look at relationships and space and then headed back to review these concepts from Cheryl Lemke - The Ripple Effect, 21st Century Learning Environments White Paper, The Speak Up 2008 Visionary Administrator and Sylvia Martinez's 30 Years Later: The Best Technology Professional Development

The point? Each person experiences differently and part of that experience is determined by relationships and part by interest and motivation. And so many other factors... So why is it expected that each child react to learning the same way?

How is this related to technology? The impact of technology on learning is determined by how it's used, not by simply having it.