BFTP: Why all tech directors should have once been classroom teachers

There was a conversation once on our state tech directors' listserv about how tech departments deal with damaged staff computers. Do we forgive? Do we charge? The "teachers should pay" and the "district should pay" policies for broken screens, sodden keyboards, and missing chargers seems pretty evenly divided.

I fall firmly in the "just fix the damn things out of the district repair budget" camp. The $100 screen replacement is not worth the $1000 of enmity that making the teacher pay would incur. Now were this the 3rd screen in as many months, I might change my opinion, but in my experience, seriously careless teachers are about as common as chickens needing braces. Required tools used in the commission of one's job should be expected to need repair and it should be up to the district to make those repairs - not the user.

My stand on this and a good many policy-type questions is guided by my own, now ancient, experiences as a classroom teacher. I taught English, drama, speech, reading, and journalism for seven years from 1976-1984. During my first two years, I generally had 6 different preps for 7 classes. I also sponsored the yearbook, the newspaper, class plays, and speech contest. Oh, and I had a part time job at a gas station on the weekends to make ends meet. I slacked off the other five years as a half time librarian and half time reading/language arts teacher. Not so many extra-curriculars, but I did work the night shift at a local motel to supplement my income.

From what I remember of those days when I had far more energy and optimism than I do now:

• I would rather correct papers and plan lessons at the kitchen table than at my desk in the classroom. I was tired at the end of the day and papers seemed more interesting after a couple beers. As teacher work has become digital, I understand the need/desire for taking a laptop home - and the associated risk of damage in transport.
• I was always poor. I drove old cars. I took very modest trips. I was paying off student debt. I lived in old farmhouses that were drafty. Had I needed to pay for a repair to a computer, it would have hurt.
• I was always busy to point of being overwhelmed. I don't remember being physically tired as much as mentally exhausted each and every day. After my first two years of teaching, my biggest desire was for a job that required no thinking at all. (I got one working in a hospital while in grad school.) While this does not speak to computer damage, it has framed how I think about asking teachers to take on new tasks, learn new skills. They had better be worth it. Period.

Good technology decision-makers cannot look solely through the lens of technology. Whether through experience or other means, need for a direct connection to the realities of working in the classroom cannot be over-valued.

Original post 2/18/19

BFTP: Light-fingered librarians

Ah, spring. The peepers are peeping, the flowers are flowering, and the allergies are acting up. And librarians in schools are starting to prep for the end of the school year by doing inventory and getting back overdue books.

Over the past couple of weeks I've quietly listened as a number of library staff members have expressed dismay over "some" students' treatment of books, disregard for our circulation policies, and, of course, the number of books that have gone missing over the past year. Compared to the size of our student body, we have very, very few unhappy incidents. But they tend to be the ones on which we obsess.

I listen and say little. Perhaps because I can empathize a bit with the little miscreants. As a student, I took full advantage of my school library fiction collection, but never checked out a book. I had personal copies of all my textbooks in a closet at home as well. Imagine my chagrin when I came home after my first semester at college to find that my mother had returned all my personal collection of the school's books to the school. (She must have done it anonymously since I still was name a "distinguished graduate" many years later.)

It's been well documented that librarians themselves are among the worst book thieves. Here is one explanation:

Don't dismiss book theft as the work of a few ordinary crooks. Everybody does it. "People who steal books are some of the best people in the world," says Allan Robbins of the Alexandria, Va., library system. Journalists, seminarians, lawyers, doctors, teachers and especially librarians steal books, "which shouldn't come as any surprise -- they use them and value them," says William A. Moffett, head of the Huntington Library...1 

Perhaps this explains why I can't get too worked up when books go missing. I remember once having had an adolescent brain that somehow allowed book pilfering as well. I don't get too worked up when someone loses or accidentally damages a computer or phone either, since I have also done both of these thing. Stuff happens.

While I certainly believe we should be developing responsible library users, creating a welcoming experience that included empathetic library staff should take precedent. (See Libraries are just fining themselves.) Children and staff  should expect gratitude, not scorn, when returning materials to their school library.

One day, when all we read are ebooks, the theft and overdue issues will be moot. I live for the day.

1. "Is there a klepto in the stacks?" New York Times, November 18, 1990.
2. "People who steal books," CMJA-JAMC, December 11, 2001,
3. "Protect your library the medieval way, with horrifying book curses" Atlas Obscura, November 9, 2016

Original post 4/27/18

The DJ factor

Tim Stahmer at Assorted Stuff recently shared a blog post "Be Nice to Tech Staff." Having been a role similar to Tim's, not just supervising tech staff but offering in my limited capacity, support myself, I could identify. The post put me mind of an old column which reflected my own growing awareness of just how important my techies were to the program...

The DJ Factor
Head for the Edge, Technology Connection, February 1996

A lot of reasons are given for successful media/technology programs in schools - thoughtful planning, visionary leadership, curricular inventiveness, and so forth. All those things are important, indeed, but one essential component is often ignored. It’s what I call the DJ Factor.

DJ is one of three technicians hired by our district. Without him and his fellow “screwdriver” folks, our networks, our labs, our circulation systems, and our administrative programs would be unreliable, and therefore, unusable. 

Great technicians have three essential sets of skills. The first set is of course technical skills. If a computer won’t connect to the network, a lab needs new software installed, or a critical disk gives the dreaded I/O error, technicians are the can-do guys. Multiple platforms, various operating systems, and those hopelessly complicated network protocols which are know only by their cryptic intials (TCP/IP, IPX) are enough for even the best minds to try to get around. And add to that encyclopedic knowledge base the absolute necessity of continually learning new versions, revisions, and bugs. Those “screwdriver” guys need a huge capacity for learning. (The intellectual half-life - the time it takes for half of what one has learned to become obsolete - of a computer science graduate is eighteen months. It can’t be much different than that for techs.)

It’s helpful when technicans have an understanding of some of the “whys” of educational technology. On a single day the week before school started last fall, DJ came back to his desk to find 24 voice mail messages, eight email messages, and several written work orders - all which needed IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. His bosses include: me, the network manager, the computer coordinator, 14 principals and their secretaries, about a dozen district office types, every media specialists in the district, and of course all 400 or so teachers. First come, first serve is not always, or even usually, the best way to chose what needs IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. We have a standing rule in our department - the technology which teachers use to educate children always comes first. Payroll, state reports, grades all can wait. Teachers and kids need running labs, working printers, and created student email accounts if lessons are to be successful. Nothing is more discouraging for the classroom teacher (and more detrimental to the sucessful educational use of technology in schools) than having malfunctioning equipment. My “screwdriver” fellows need understanding. 

Finallly, techies need to be veritable masters of human relations. A malfunctioning computer creates serious stress for the person who depends on that machine. (I’ve had it on good report that it can even ruin your whole day.) Stress rarely does much for anyone’s patience, humor, or vocabulary. Computer users often unconsciously, but unfairly, associate technicans with the computer failures they come to fix. It’s a Pavlovian thing. The bell rings; dinner is served. The computer freezes; the technican appears.

Compounding the frustration is the very nature of computer repair itself. Complicated systems often call for an uncanny detective ability when figuring out what unique set of circumstances may have caused a particular problem. (Ah, it happens when this application is be used, the machine is low on memory, that extension is running, and one trys to print. “As I suspected, it was Colonel Mustard in the dining room with the lead pipe.”) If a computer is not fixed the first time, it is because diagnoses must be done through the process of elimination.

Keeping one’s composure around the stressed teacher or secretary is a given. The ability, however, to correct user errors without making the ignorant feel stupid _is_ an art. Any technican can blurt out “It works better if you plug it in,” with a you-moron-look on his face. It is the master technican who gravely intones, “Hmmm, looks like a power supply problem,” and creatively allows the hapless user to keep his dignity. 

So plan, envision, and design for technology, educational leaders. Just don’t forget to factor in a couple of DJs.