Developing a Thoreauvian Skepticism to Blind Trust in Technological Solutions

 "The terrible lethality of machinery is one problem; the more banal daily drain of technology is another. A faceless and amoral machine comes to us as incessant robocalls, spam emails, algorithmically optimized ads, brainless 'customer service' chatbots, automatic fees, and leaks of private records." p. 67, John Kaag & Jonathan Van Belle, Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living

Thoreau in Walden, made clear repeatedly that our "inventions" or technologies do not always represent a better means for carrying out a task. Today, the technology industry's marketing departments have worked overtime to convince us that their products are a "must-have" and that they always provide a "better way of doing things." But is that always true? Who really desires to be accosted by the "faceless and amoral machine" that replaces a friendly voice or a smile?

This particular technology problem is clearly illustrated by my own recent visit to a local car dealership for a scheduled service call. I'll admit up front that I liked the ability to make the service appointment through their app. It was easy. I simply selected a date and time and submitted it. There was no need to call the dealership, navigate through automated menus until I spoke to a living person. This "Say 'Customer Service' or "Press 1" process is undoubtedly the most miserable electronic process one can experience when trying to speak with a company representative. It might be efficient, but it makes the customer miserable.

On the day of my service appointment, I arrived, got checked in and my car was taken back to the garage. I settled in the waiting area and sat reading a book, waiting until the service was done. As is my habit, I set my phone down beside me. I do not have any beeping and chirping notifications turned on because I loathe that constant intrusion into my solitude. I also do not, purposefully, constantly check to see if I have notifications, messages, texts, etc. I check those when I decide to check them. 

Later, the service rep walked out into the lobby and informed me that my car was ready. I followed her back the garage, and checked out. I left the dealership and went to a local bookstore and browsed for a while. While in the bookstore, I checked my phone, and I saw a text message from the dealership. I opened that message, and the service department I had just left, had sent me a text message with suggested service items WHILE I SAT IN THEIR WAITING AREA. In other words, instead of briefing me on these suggested service items when I was there in person, they texted them to me. Why not walk into your own waiting area and speak to me directly? Ultimately, the dealership lost out on additional revenue because I would have chosen to have those additional service items done. This was entirely due to the reliance on technology being a better means to deliver these service recommendations to the customer.

As long as we continue to rely on technology because it is more convenient or efficient without considering the human element in our social transactions, we are always in danger of losing in the end. The dealership in this instance lost additional sales. Technology does not always offer the best solutions.

Schools Need to Be Cautious of Business Leaders Telling Us What Kind of Graduates Educational Institutions Should Provide

 "...it was in the 1990s that shop class started to become a thing of the past, as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers.'" Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

The education system has taken on the role of distributing people in the niches needed by business and industry. When business calls for "knowledge workers," the education system reacts and cuts funding of some programs and distributes students into the chosen learning niches of business and industry. 

The problem with the education system reacting in this manner, is that students are placed in educational niches that might be short-lived due to business and industry's concerns with short-term profits and benefits. For example, when business and industry does not have the long-term interests of their workers in mind, they move entire production lines overseas or to lay workers off for the sake of short-term stock benefit or profit. In these cases, educational institutions have done a great disservice in placing students in deadend careers and jobs. These institutions should have an even greater vision that reaches beyond the horizon of the short-term advantages sought by these companies.

Education systems that purely have their students' interests in mind will look with a skeptical eye towards the kinds of workers called for from the private sector. It does not mean that the system ignores them entirely, but educators need to remember that the way business ideology is currently constructed in the United States especially, is more libertarian and tilted toward the idea that what is best for them is what is best for everybody. A quick glance at history immediately dispels this illusion. Maybe instead of shoving students into the STEM niche, we need a broader consideration of their potentials and interests. Niche-learning limits possibilities rather than increases them despite what the pro-business and STEM evangelists would have us believe. 

Schools do not need to dismantle "shop classes" nor the school orchestra or any other school programs on the advice of any business leader. They are interested in the short term: educators must be concerned with lifetimes. Educational institutions have a moral obligation to be critical and skeptical when business and industry starts dictating what kinds of graduates we should be providing. Their short-term perspective benefits them. Schools morally have to take the long-term perspective and prepare students for lives well-beyond what the immediate demands.

When Crawford pointed out the demise of shop classes in the 1990s he captured how schools often react to short-term business interests instead of advocating for the lifetime possibilities of students. Schools have a moral responsibility to students not to business or industry.

Leadership Experts and Consultants Everywhere and How to Avoid Being Scammed By Them

 "Want to be an expert on leadership? You could get training and exposure to the relevant research literature, but it's not necessary. If you are persuasive enough, articulate enough, or attractive enough, if your have an interesting enough, uplifting story of some combination of these traits, you are or can be a very successful leadership blogger, speaker, and consultant--whether or not you have ever read, let alone contributed to, any of the relevant social science on the topic." p. ix, Jeffrey PFeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

One thing that is more commonly found than a qualified teacher is a leadership consultant or expert. My own work inbox explodes every day with emails from some expert offering to make me and the other administrators in my organization the greatest leaders in our field. They advertise all manner of "keynotes" who have cracked the code of leadership excellence, and by just hearing their words, I will find my own leadership transformed they promise. But has anyone every really seen any data and evidence presented that shows that attending their conference delivers as promised? Probably not, if you set aside their anecdotal evidence.

Today, in the education field, if you want to be a "leadership expert" you really don't have to know a thing about leadership. If you are convincing, articulate, and looks help, you can open that leadership consulting business and make more money and be your own boss. It helps to also have a litany of inspiring stories, humor, and some overall "operational leadership model scheme" and you are on your way as a leadership guru.

But Pfeffer also points out in his book Leadership BS that "the leadership industry...has its quacks and sham artists who sell promises and stories, some true, some not, but all of them inspirational and comfortable" (p. x, Pfeffer, 2015). What is worse, there is very little "follow-up" research to see what really works and what doesn't.

I propose that the next time one of these leadership consultants sends you an email, send them one back stating: "I tell you what, I will listen to your sales pitch IF you can send me independently verified data and evidence (no anecdotal stories permitted) of how successful your services are. Or, if they dare call you, stop them mid-sales pitch and ask them if they have independently verified, supportive data (again not anecdotal stories or references). I have done this, and nothing makes these peddlers of leadership coaching services clam up faster when you ask. Most of them have not really taken the time to independently study the leadership wares they're selling.

What if we as educational leaders were able to establish our own version of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) whose task would be to test and analyze the claims of these leadership gurus and determine whether they really do produce the results claimed? Of course that is a dream unlikely to happen, but it be a means to dispense with much of the leadership consultant quackery.

The bottom line is that it is our role to be critical. I am not dazzled by individuals who brag about how many TED Talks they've done; how many books they've published; or even jobs they've once held. That is not evidence of efficacy of their consultant product. In the end, ask tough questions before you spend anything on these leadership products. Demand data and evidence and question their "success stories." If their consultancy can't stand the critical scrutiny, then spend your money wisely elsewhere.

Social Media Companies Need to Be Accountable and Better Contributors to Society

 "No, Facebook and the other big tech companies are, plainly, tearing the social fabric to threads, and pulling people apart." Justin E.H. Smith, The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, A History, A Philosophy, A Warning

Though Facebook and other social media companies have boasted about connecting people together, they have, in fact, been "pulling people apart." Social media as it is currently constructed, does not connect people or bring them together; it separates, divides, and polarizes. Its promotion of the sensational, the most engagement-causing content has created a machine that values nonsense, gossip, and the most outrageous over what is true.

In addition to being a misinformation propagator and spreader, it values the self-absorbed, self promoter regardless of the true worth or value of the content these "so-called influencers" spread. X, formally Twitter, is a bullsplat amplification platform that effectively spreads nonsense far and wide. Facebook facilitates and algorithmically groups people in homogenous worlds where users can escape any views or perspectives that diverge from their own small worlds. Tik Tok provides users with endless hours of nonsense in video format. Social media as a whole doesn't deserve the pedestal on which our culture has placed it, nor the amount of energy educational leaders have devoted to it.

What is even more tragic is that educators and educational leaders have accepted uncritically what the social media companies have said about the necessity and inevitability of their products. The whole social media promotion industry of social media gurus and so-called communication specialists have convinced both educational institutions and companies that they "need to be be on social media and participate or suffer irrelevance." Anyone questioning this social media dogma is branded a heretic and as being anti-tech or anti-progress. 

But it is time to begin questioning the place of all these social media platforms in our culture and society. It is also time to push for regulations of these platforms and to hold them accountable for the damage they do. We need to stop these companies from "tearing our social fabric to threads... pulling people apart" and demand that they be better contributors to society.

Educators Teaching Students to Live in the World Beyond the Beeping and Chirping of Devices

 "I have heard some say that we need to 'meet the kids where they are'--that is, to accept their world of chatter and multiple electronic devices. I see, instead, a need to offer them something that they don't already have, so that they may see more possibilities." Diana Senechal, Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture

As a long time high school English teacher, I often heard the notion described by Senechal that I needed "to meet the kids where they are." Those early years I did just that. I used modern cultural artifacts such as popular movies, popular music to try to teach my students the "curriculum." At some point, this idea of "meet" students where they were did involve "accepting their world of chatter and multiple electronic devices." We as teachers were simply to give up teaching students about the worlds of possibility that did not include "Silicon-Valley-Invented Devices." But with this giving up, we really caused students much greater harm, because in doing that, we were failing to show students the possibilities of life beyond the reach of technology.  And there is a world where we can thrive and exist among these, our devices but live with and beyond them.

As an educator, you can begin to lead the way by doing simple things like "turning off your notifications in the evenings." This is living by example. As I write this, my phone sits like a paperweight. It is dead. It does not vibrate, chirp or beep, and I will not allow it until tomorrow morning when I walk into my office. As far as my Apple watch goes, I turned off permanently text, email, and any other notifications that have the potential to rudely intrude in my life. This is one world of possibility I would introduce students to today: a world where they can control tech and keep tech from controlling them. Such a world gives me time to sit, meditate, reflect, and read. The reading I do in these times are substantial works of literature and philosophy as well as science, social science, and world religions, not social media posts.

In addition to turning off notifications, and transforming my phone into a paperweight, I also do not allow social media in rudely intrude in my life throughout the day. I don't even have these social media apps on my phone. There was a time, evident by my Twitter account, that I spent a great deal of time using it. Facebook as well. But I have arrived at a point in life where I refuse to allow social media to intrude in my thoughts and life unless I want to read it. I have turned off all notifications of these too.  I have rid myself of the rude, boisterous call social media makes throughout the day reminding me that something in it needs my attention, when it really doesn't need my attention. This is another world of possibility, a world of freedom, that exists beyond technology too.

Instead of listening to the tech company marketing and the educational tech evangelists who want us to center the lives of students around their products, perhaps it is time for educators to show kids glimpses of a world that exists beyond the technology, where they can find time for themselves, uninterrupted by the intrusions of vibrating, beeping, and chirping devices.

Oh No! AI Has Arrived in Education: Educators' Misplaced Faith in Technology Again

 "...Thoreau questioned our faith in technology. First and foremost, the lives of workers in Thoreau's time, as in ours, were often forced to conform to a mechanical process, not an organic one. Machine work meant machinelike lives." John Kaag & Jonathan Van Belle, Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living

Educators seem to have an "unending faith" that the gods of Silicon Valley are going to deliver to them the one magical device-tool-software-hardware that will deliver achievement results for students. As a teacher in mid-1995, I remember that the Internet was the educational promise land, where our students have at their fingertips all knowledge and learning. We opened the cyber doorways wide and brought forth this new digital world, only to discover that it had its less-than-desirable places and people. There was then a scramble to try control access through new devices and new software, clearly a boon for the tech industry but an added expense in the education budget. No one seemed to question the faith in technology.

Over the years of my career as an educator, new technologies have been invented and peddled to the schools, and in the mid 2000s, the tech industry successfully convinced the entire educational institutional establishment that schools needed to invest even more in technology in order to "stay relevant" as they called it. For example, school leaders were told to get a Twitter-Facebook account in order to connect and be a part of the twenty-first century. I even bought that blather myself. Then, through the mid-2010s, social media began to fail in its promise to "connect others" by dividing us more than ever, spewing so much misinformation, so that today, we are so polarized we might never be able to unite as a country. Somehow calling Twitter "X" seems appropriate now, for it and Facebook have been left to continue poisoning discourse and people's minds.

Next came the "one-to-one" efforts to get a "device in the hands of every student." I again bought that story from Silicon Valley as well. If students only have a device then they will be able to learn. We're about ten years into that with little to show for it. Those who were learning are still learning, and those who struggled are still struggling. It would seem that it is not the technology that matters.

Perhaps the whole problem with our 21st century education is that we have this misplaced faith in technology. I am not writing some Kaczynski diatribe here where all technology is evil, but I see this faith alive again with all the professional development and books talking about the promise of Artificial Intelligence or AI. The educational tech gurus and consultants have been converted and are proclaiming the "Promise of AI" in bringing about student learning. No seems to be questioning this faith in another technology.

John Kaag and Jonathan Van Belle (2023),  point out that in writer Henry David Thoreau's time, the faith in technology was equally strong. But Thoreau was not as enthralled, because the "machines of the time" required workers to "conform to mechanical processes." Work lost its organic quality and workers engaged in "machinelike lives." Maybe that's the issue with all this tech in our classrooms...learning is no longer an organic process of growth, but a machinelike process that students are subjected to. Teaching and learning have become work that is machinelike making the lives of both students and teachers lifeless and mechanical.

Kaag and Van Belle (2023) write:

"When we idealize the mechanical, it often comes at the cost of dehumanizing workers; laborers have 'no time to be anything but a machine ,' Thoreau complains. There is no time, no energy, no strength left to reflect on higher goals and act meaningfully toward them." (p. 61)

As educators, why we continue to idolize technology disturbs me. It has failed in its promises time and again. What's worse, I think it has in some ways "dehumanized" and continues to "dehumanize" both teaching and learning. Teachers are expected to "produce results" like machines. Students are expected to "produce test scores" like machines. No one has the time to engage in "reflection on the higher goals of life" and act in a "meaningful manner" to obtain them. There is no longer any time to learn about those higher things in the universe that matter a great deal more.

Kaag, John & Van Belle, Jonathan (2023), Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

Schools Need Literature More Than Ever in These Authoritarian Times

 

"Great works of literature--works that are truly dangerous--question and expose that dictatorial impulse, both on the page and in the public space." Azar Nafisi, Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times

Why all the sudden "book bans" in our public schools? It is rather simple: to protect an authoritarian perspective of the world, because any literature that has the potential to cause students to question the legitimacy of that view is unacceptable and access to it must be prevented.

As Nafisi points out, great works of literature are truly dangerous. I would add that even not so great works that have the potential to cause students to think for themselves is also dangerous, at least to those whose goal is to impose their worldview on others. 

We live in a current climate where authoritarianism is vigorously asserting itself. It can't have citizens who can think for themselves, so the purging from the shelves of libraries is underway. The lesson that has not be learned is that such purges always fail in the end.

We as educators need to recognize that reading is a dangerous activity if it is done well and widely. Reading that disturbs our thinking and transforms us is powerful and is what is needed, not reading that simply confirms our mediocrity.

Living Leadership Deliberately and Ethically: Focusing on What Really Should Matter

 "I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing....The principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In this statement from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the author questions whether our "factory system" of production is the best means to provide clothing for people. As he points out, the factory has an unquestionable objective or purpose, which is to "make money and enrich its owners." Its objective is not to see that individuals are "well and honestly clad." In other words, by its existence, the factory is not concerned with how well, functionally or comfortably, individuals are dressed; it seeks to make money. 

Now, that certainly doesn't mean that factories or businesses can't have two purposes. It could seek both profitability and the good of its consumers, but Thoreau points to that, inevitably, the factory has to sometimes decide which object or purpose is primary, and sadly, too often, we live in a world where material advantages outweigh the good of individuals or even society.

Educational leaders face this ethical choice every day, and even make choices sometimes unconsciously. They weigh the "good of the institution" with its sole purpose being survival against what it actually delivers of value to its students, teachers, and staff. In these instances, "Survival of the Institution" reigns supreme when leaders make decisions that try to preserve the educational system, school or even university, and ignore the needs of its constituents, or even take actions detrimental to those individuals. For example, when a new initiative, new program is to be implemented, the consequential effects of that endeavor can be easily ignored or cast aside if it is seen to support the primary objective of an institution of self-preservation. In this situation, it may even implement at the expense of one of its constituent groups or individuals. In the modern school, these decisions are sometimes made at the expense of a student.

All this raises an important question for me: To what purpose or objective does my institution align itself to? Can I ethically accept and work and live according to that in my own journey of living deliberately as a leader? 

Ultimately, as a leader, you won't find answers to these questions in mission statements. The answers to these questions are found in what your organization does on a daily basis. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of a school system, school or institution of higher education can erase any carefully constructed mission statement. I choose to "live deliberately every day as a leader" and that sometimes mean I am a "thorn in the side" or even that scratching sound on the chalkboard." I do not live by mission statements, because they can be easily be manipulate, twisted or ignored. I try to live deliberately by making each day count.

Beware the AI Hype in Education: Let's Be Critical

 "Stop thinking about what technology does and start thinking about who technology does it to and who it does it for." Cory Doctorow,  The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation

The latest "AI craze" has hit public schools. Educators have begun singing the chorus of praise for artificial intelligence and its promise of improving education. Have we not learned anything from the destruction that social media has wrought upon our society? It's promises of "connecting people" has been false, as it has only accelerated division and hate among people. The promise of "personalizing learning through technology" has equally proven false as achievement has gone nowhere as schools pushed to place technology in the hands of every student. The educational hype over Artificial Intelligence or AI sounds like a bad rerun from an old TV show, and I, for one, can't help but say, "Here we go again!"

Has any educator brain enough to begin asking the question "Who technology does it to and who it does it for?" in regards to AI or artificial intelligence technologies? To me, the first half of this question is asking "What are the consequences of adopting AI?" Instead of accepting the industry's notion of "inevitability of the technology" are we asking what overall adoption of AI is going to do to people? Not at all. We simply uncritically accept that AI is a good thing. That is a recipe of future disaster.

Educational leaders do not need to uncritically accept the promises of the tech industries when it comes to AI. We need to be asking critical questions about what these technologies do to people, and who is likely to benefit most from all the hype. In the end, it might not be the students; it is likely to be big tech companies and its evangelists who have led us down this path of false promises before.