When Educational Leaders See Employees and "Human Resources" and "Human Capital: Are You Devaluing Teachers?

What is wrong with using the terms “human resources” and “human capital” as an educational leader?

I was reflecting today on my time in “human resources” and I realized that the entire time working in that area, the word “human resouces” always caused me just a slight shiver when I heard and used it. Why?

It is actually the word “resource” that is a bit bothersome, because it refers to “any material, person, or asset that can be USED to meet a need, solve a problem, or produce something value.” In other words, the term refers to USING people for some purpose.

I suppose it is just that word “USED” that bothers me, because that word so easily slips into manipulation and exploitation. The term “human resource” also makes me think of something like “natural resources” which are extractions from nature USED AND EXPLOITED for manufacturing purposes.

So the term “resource” has always had a slightly bad smell for me.

Then why not use the term “human capital” instead? Sometime ago, our North Carolina Public Schools started labeling its work force and teachers “human capital." When I heard the monthly webinar with the state called the “Human Capital Webinar” I had that same quiver of uncomfortableness.

But the word “human capital” has a bit of stench to me as well. Why? Capital means in many ways the same thing. Capital is a broad term for “financial assets, such as money, or physical assets, like machinery and buildings, USED to produce goods, services, or generate income or value.”

So is using “human capital” any better? Not really. One still has to slightly hold the nose on the “USED” part of that meaning if one sees people for more than just a tool to be used to reach a goal. It still has that slightly off-putting smell.

But, I suppose if your intention is truly to USE people for these purposes, then these terms work well. 

Still, I can’t help but wonder how the use of the words “human resources” or “human capital” somehow deeply affects how leaders view those to whom they lead, especially school leaders. 

Words have meaning and they have power. I have always believed that, and the terms and words a leader chooses, has power over a school leader’s work.

By viewing people as “resources” or “capital” to be used and manipulated for organizational purposes seems to avoid attaching any other value for people other than how they can be used for those purposes. This means leadership is about using and manipulating people to produce, and I think too often, school leaders will resort to any tactics to achieve their purposes.

Just maybe that’s why “accountability” has become gospel to educational leaders. Educational leadership as a field has taken all it can from the world of business, including the terms “human resources” and “human capital.” Accountability in the form of test scores gives purpose, and teachers simply become the resources and capital to that end.

Using words like human resources and human capital allows the school leader in good conscious to engage in the same kinds of exploitation and manipulation tactics as business leaders sometimes engage in. It can use people for the achievement of a simply purpose: increased test scores.

Perhaps it’s all OK in the end, but I do think educational leaders need to be a bit skeptical of all these leadership concepts and philosophies that have infiltrated educational leadership as a field. 

Why? Because education is NOT just about “producing graduates” or even “producing citizens.” Narrowing education education into any single purpose or purposes limits its possibilities.

I realize that organizations are going to use the words “human resources” and “human capital.” But, I have always valued my own “slight discomfort” at the use of the terms, because it was always a reminder to me that, these terms did not have to determine how I viewed employees and that I could value them as the human beings they were too.

With the Instructure Canvas Data Breach It's Clear That Ed Institutions Either Pay Hackers Extortion Money or Pay Tech Solutionist Mob Bosses to Protect Data: The Cloud Is a Nasty Place

Do educational institutions need to rethink their use of all cloud solutions?

If educational institutions want to exist in the cloud, they seem to have to pay either extortionist hackers or pay the "Tech Mob" solutionists for protection.

With the Canvas data theft, I am convinced that all the web is perceived as a money extortion scheme by everyone.

The hackers extort money from educational institutions.

Then, educational institutions have the choice to pay the hackers or suffer their data spread everywhere.

Or, they can pay additional Mobsters, in the form of data protection solutions to keep their data safe.

What's wrong with this? Educational institutions have to pay ransom to someone regardless in order to keep their data as safe as possible.

Either way, if educational institutions choose to use any cloud solutions, they pay for the solution, then they pay for the mob protection of companies that provide security.

The web has turned into an unsavory place where one has to pay for protection. That is a problem.

Ed Tech Doesn't Need to Advocate for Technology: It Needs to Shine a Spotlight on Its Flaws Too

One key component of any Digital Literacy Program? Web content is not always there due to its merit; it's there because someone "pays for its spread" and "games the delivery algorithms."

Of course, the most astute users already know this.

But if we want truly digitally literate students, they need to know the games people play to get noticed.

They need to know that all web content, especially that disseminated on platforms, is not necessarily there due to its merit, but because it is like a paid informercial or because someone knows the algorithmic game.

As schools grapple with AI, it is important to include in literacy the games behind its creation as well. Its use of web content, including pirated copyrighted content in its development. Also, its use of exploited labor to train models, and its massive consumption of our natural resources and power.

Too often, educators get caught up in the shiny gleam of technologies as gems and fail to see that most of the time what they really have are rhinestones.

Ed Tech promotes the "gemstones" myth for all technologies.

Ed Tech Defends Devices Not Students: There Is an Attention Problem and It's Not the Screentime That's the Problem: It's the Products or Screens

Many in Ed Tech are striking back against those wanting to control screen time with bans and restrictions. They rely on the old “utilitarian argument” used by gun advocates. “Devices don’t distract students; students distract themselves” they say.

How ludicrous does that sound when the devices are PURPOSEFULLY DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED by Big Tech to “distract” and “capture attention?”

Sure, it’s not the time spent behind the screen that is the problem. Its the products that Ed Tech uncritically subject students to.

It’s devices and apps that are purposefully engineered for addiction. The product is the problem. It’s how it’s made and that is of concern.

These companies aren’t going to change their money-making products, and their goal is more and more addictive and distracting designs with each new feature.

In the classrooms, teachers are fighting “mech-dealers” (the tech-equivalent of meth dealers), who sell these addictive products and who only want students attention and data so they can make more money.

That is the problem with screens.

Instead of working with these Ed Tech companies and serving students and their attention on a silver platter,  why not join with those who want to address these issues. 

No, like Ed Tech does when their devices flop, it’s the teachers’ fault; it’s the school’s fault.

It’s an implementation problem, they say. Just maybe, the product is the problem.

Come on Ed Tech, advocate for students, not the Tech and those peddling it.

Why Abandoing E-Books Restores an Old Experience of Reading

Why do I still buy physical books? Call it reverse digital conversion.

When the Kindle appeared, I was in awe and I have purchased multiple versions over the years, and always used the app across devices. It gave me instant access to book purchases (though under Amazon terms I did not actually own the books but simply pay them for access). It also allowed me to carry a library around with me at all times (though I discovered you still can only read one book at a time.)

That awe e-books invoked has long-since cooled and I buy more physical books than I do e-books. Why?

The experience of reading a physical book for me is different and more suitable to the way I want to experience reading. 

First of all, reading from a device can bring the multitude of distractions that gadgets bring. I can read a physical book on MY TERMS, and truly block out the world. Devices are designed for distraction, so a physical book has none of that.

Secondly, I like to physically underline as I read, make notes in the margins, and I have an old-fashioned journal and pen I can pick up and record quotes and thoughts. I have never been able to get that feature in the Kindle app to work the way I want to work. 

Despite what the Tech evangelists tell us, devices LIMIT sometimes, and the e-book limits my reading experience.

Finally, I honestly like to own my books, and not pay for access. I return again and again to my books and right there in them are my notes and thoughts. I don't have to make sure my device battery is charged or whether there's a wifi connection. Just open it and you're there. That's pretty darn efficient.

I still purchase a e-book every now and then, but it is usually one I read for relaxation or interest. It's the books I usually give away. It is never one that I will re-read or return to. Though, there are times when I purchase an e-book first, but find that I want a physical copy instead. 

There are obvious issues with physical books but one adapts. For example, the photo below is my solution for that stack of books I kept by my chair on the end table. The book tree works well. I can see my titles and pull and replace easily. Of course a single Kindle on a table would replace, would it not? God forbid! Then it brings its distractions, charging issues, etc.

This really is an illustration of "reverse digital conversion." We all need to think outside the silicon box that technology has placed us. Perhaps then, we will rediscover old experiences and invent new ones. The world is not yet encased in chips, and if it is, I don't envy living in such a place.

What If School Administrators Contributed to the Destruction of Teaching by Blindly Accepting Value-Added Teacher Data?

I've been reading Gunther Anders's 1956 book The Obsolescence of the Human and there is some wisdom offered by Anders in our "AI-Machine Worshiping" age. I do wish to avoid getting too "anti-tech" here because others have taken it to extreme, but I think Anders does offer words to cause us to reflect on this uncritical adoption of AI in all areas of our lives, specifically in education.

One particular statement by Anders in his book that stands out was this:

"...humanity used its right hand to rob its left, offering up the loot—its own conscience and freedom to decide—on the altar of machines. With this, humanity proved that it had submitted itself to this manmade calculating robot, was willing to accept this machine as a substitute for its own conscience, and acknowledge it as an oracle machine, and even as the machinic eye of Providence." 

When I read this statement, I could not help but think of all the societal decisions we are handing over to AI systems, decisions such as jail term lengths, car insurance rates, and in education, teacher effectiveness.

We, in effect, turned over the determination of "teacher effectiveness" to algorithms and Anders's "calculating robots" over ten years ago when K-12 educational institutions across the country adopted Value-added models to determine this effectiveness. So little is said in opposition to it now, that this "so-called data" is now assumed to be an actual thing. But we forget that Value-added data is a machine creation. It is a human creation too.

Anders is right on too about the rationale for why educational institutions jumped on the Value-added fad so quickly too.

In thinking of Anders's words, by adopting Value-Added algorithmic teacher effectiveness determination, all these educational leaders who adopted these, "offered up "their own conscience and freedom to decide what a good teacher is" on "an altar of machines." In other words, all these school administrators have given up their conscience and decision-making to these value-added, calculating robots of statistical measures.

Administrators now, without thought, substitute the value-added algorithmic machine as a substitute for their own conscience and look to it as "an oracle machine" to tell them what an effective teacher is. 

It has become for school leaders and administrators, their "Machinic Eye of Providence" dictating to them which teachers in their buildings are good and which are bad.

I have always had a hunch that the reason for such widespread acceptance of Value-added measures as a means to determine teacher effectiveness was due to one simple fact: Teaching has always been a very complex and somewhat artistic activity, so many school administrators simply do not know what a good teacher is when they see one. By allowing this algorithmic, "caculating robot" even the most ignorant school leader can have someone decide for him which teachers in his/her building are effective and which teachers are ineffective.

Judging teachers requires a "conscience" and a "willingness to make the call, or freedom to decide" what good teaching is. It requires a conscience, because of contextual factors a teacher deals with each day. It requires freedom to decide, because judging teaching needs a "connoisseur of pedagogy" not a cold, calculating robot. This means the "experience" of the judging administrator matters, especially their own experience as an effective teacher themselves.

As I said, Value-Added Algorithmic Machines are now just an accepted part of the educational landscape, and that's just too bad. Perhaps the blind use of such devices by mindless administrators to tell them which teachers are effective, have done to teaching what was intended. Teaching is no longer an art, but the following of a recipe. Reduce the complexity of teaching so that even a machine can tell you what is of value and that has simplified that act to simply stupidity. No wonder no one wants to teach anymore.

"There's an app for that...but should there be?" Teaching Students Answers Sometimes Lie Outside Devices

“There’s an app for that…but should there be?”

That’s the question we should be asking instead of always searching for an app to solve our problems.

To automatically look to technology alone for answers, is “tech solutionism.” That’s narrow-minded and dogmatic thinking.

But that’s the mindset Ed Tech has adopted.

But to always turn to tech for answers narrows the possibility for available solutions. 

It’s not thinking outside the box; it’s boxing up the mind into a silicon container.

To teach students to always search for answers in technology is making students dependent upon devices, which is what Big Tech desires.

Big Tech wants addicted users.

To counter that, educators need to be sure to expand their students’ toolboxes beyond the screen.

Our goal, either intentional or unintentionally, should never be to teach students to be “good little consumers of Big Tech’s latest.”

It should be to teach students to be critical and free users of tech WHEN IT IS THE BEST SOLUTION AND WHEN THEY WANT TO USE IT.

To do that, teach them that the answers sometimes lie outside the world of silicon and microchips.

Ed Tech’s problem has always been its inability to see anything but the gleam of gadgets and devices. It always searches for its answers there.

In this always-search-for-answers-in-devices it actually “imprisons” children in a world where the only real answers are found in screens. That’s not reality.

That’s dogmatic, narrow-minded approaches that will forever have students looking for answers from Silicon Valley and Tech. Sounds like device dependency to me!

That’s not growing critical, adaptable, and creative learners.

If there is an app for it, sometimes we need to ask, “Should there be one in the first place?” And “Should I use an app to do this?”

Teach students that and they will be free human beings and not mindless customers for Big Tech and those peddling devices.