TALK BACK

NEA Today, Apr 2006

BETTER TEACHING THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Your story on technology could not have come at a better time. I am a strong believer that technology is a tool for teaching and learning, not a lesson to be isolated without context. If it is, we stand to lose other content classes like music, art, and foreign language. I propose we create spedfic technology lessons to be embedded within our regular content. In my own (non-technology) class, students create PowerPoint presentations, design Web sites, and make their own movies using editing software and digital cameras.

ROBERT CRAWFORD

Louisville, Kentucky

Unfortunately the cover story only had room to scratch the surface of handheld computing, blogging, and podcasting in education. However, I'm excited because it will spur more interest in new learning tools.

TONY VINCENT

Omaha, Nebraska, via learninginhand.com

I teach high school math and am a member of our district's technology committee. I found your cover story very timely for our district. We have recently spent over $200,000 on new technology for next school year (quite a sum for a district of fewer than 1,000 students) and have six days of in-service scheduled this summer. I think the testimony of other teachers who were afraid of technology and the wealth of Web sites you mentioned will be comforting to our more tech-leery colleagues.

DENISE CORIO

Hillsboro, Missouri

I was excited to read your cover story. It is an inspiring article that offers teachers many helpful tips. I would like to add that in many cases, teachers can look to their school library media specialist or librarian for assistance in evaluating instructional Web sites and producing their own content via new technologies. Librarians have been using information technologies since they first came down the pike-from blogging and podcasting to wikis and whiteboards. (Plus, we love to be asked!)

TERESA PFEIFER

Springfield, Massachusetts

Obsolescence comes out of the box as fast as the new thing. Learning gadgetry will not prepare our students for the future. We must teach them to be creative, discerning, original, independent, and powerful thinkers. The emphasis on classroom use of PDAs, computers, cell phones, and educational gaming is teaching our children a lesson-learned helplessness. We cannot allow children to turn their brains into butterscotch pudding as they sit hunched over their latest, greatest, new thing.

JOAN KROHN

Merrill, Wisconsin

'TIS A GOOD READ

The interview with Frank McCourt ("Teacher Man," March) was inspirational. I've never heard anyone articulate so simply and perfectly all the things I've felt about teaching during the last 35 years. Every one of his answers was one I would have been proud to give. I was cheering out loud as I read his words and by the end of the all-too-short interview, I had tears in my eyes.

MICHAEL J. BRENNAN

Jefferson, Ohio

The photo of Frank McCourt was absolutely telling. It clearly showed the state of many classrooms in the United States: outdated, abused, and depressing. I absolutely understand why our education system is at best mediocre. My two high-achieving children will follow in Mr. McCourt's and my footsteps over my dead body. I want them to work in a professional environment and earn a return on their college investment.

GLORIA SHIMANEK

Texarkana, Texas

Mr. McCourt speaks for me and probably the majority of teachers in America right now.

DOUG PARROTT

Mason, Ohio

FRUSTRATED JOB-SWITCHER

As one of the new group of teachers who chucked corporate America for the classroom two years ago, I found your article, "Swapping the Boardroom for the Classroom" (March) to be naive. I took your article to my class for other teachers seeking certification. Yes, we all left the boring corporate life of meetings, memos, and mergers in order to try to give something back. However, what we have found is an even larger, moribund bureaucracy that dwarfs anything we left behind.

Don't get me wrong, we all love teaching. But we have all also found teaching out of touch with the reality of what is happening in the world.

TOM CROFT

Frederick, Maryland

ONE STEP AT A TIME

My experience with race relations in the classroom (Last Bell, March) hinged on the same principle applied in music and athletics: practice. I grew up in a small, all-White country school. Same food, same religion, same culture, same thinking. For the last 35 years, I've lived in Southern California. Ten years of teaching at an ethnically mixed school made me more than comfortable with different cultures. The question of who we feel connected to changes with time and experience. Daily exposure with quiet conversation is what leads to acceptance and understanding.

BRUCE JONES

Ontario, Canada

MORE MATH FOR GIRLS

I am a high school math teacher and my master's thesis was on gender equity in math ("Should girls be encouraged to take more math?" Debate, March). In my research, as well as during the past 18 years teaching, I have found that if girls take more math in high school, they have more academic confidence and go to college with that confidence.