Challenges for Teachers in the 21st Century

As part of the larger group of 21st century teachers, I am excited about the possibilities ahead.  Students are growing up today and being educated differently than 10, 20, and 50 years ago.  As always with change, there will be challenges to preparing our students to be productive in an increasingly-technological world.

I think one of the biggest challenges that educators today will experience is limitations.  These limitations come in many forms.  First, familiar to many districts is monetary limitations, budget cuts, and without money available, schools are unable to move forward in their technological growth.  Because of these financial limitations, students must make-do with outdated laptops and tablets or even no technology at all.  Schools are unable to purchase the adequate technology, number of laptops, etc. to prepare students.   Finally, teachers experience limitations in what they can and cannot handle, technically speaking.  Teachers need to be trained on Chromebooks or ipads before they are expected to use these in their classrooms.

Another challenge for educators today is time.  Time is valuable, and curriculum and paperwork demands make it difficult to add further topics into a jam-packed lesson.  I don’t think technology should be used as the goal to a lesson, rather it is a tool used to accomplish a goal.  For most subjects - Math, Science, ELA, Art, Music, etc. - technology is not the main focus and objective of the lesson, but it used to assist students with a science or composition project, or to do a complex mathematical formula, or present a digital Art project.  However, time is needed to teach the students how to use the technology.

Change is another obstacle that teachers face in educating the 21st century-learner.  Some teachers are afraid of or unwilling to change.  They are familiar with their old way of printing tests, creating student assignments, and running their classroom.  Technology changes everything, and the concept of the flipped classroom may look nothing like their idea of a classroom.  Some teachers, possibly because of their inadequate knowledge or their preference for familiar, are not interested in moving towards the 21st century.  However, this type of teacher will be empowering a class of tech-savvy learners with cell phones in their pocket and Facebook and Twitter on their mind.  How do they expect to gain their attention, focus, and excitement.  Technology can be used in education positively and with much guidance to motivate our students in any subject or topic.

If schools and teachers are at least willing and motivated to advance in educating young people to be prepared and productive for the 21st century, then there is hope.  There will be many more hurdles ahead of them, but starting the race is first.

I love reading quotes, and when I stumbled across this quote, it made me think and do some research.  This is a quote from 1955 by Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian professor and philosopher.  Is it that too often we are changing just the picture, putting it in the same old frame, when we should be changing the entire framework?  Are we trying to instruct and inspire 21st century learners with 20th century material?

Change and growth are inevitable, unstoppable, and unending.  I wonder what a 22nd century classroom will look like!

~Your not-so-techie teacher


(Graphics by Photo Clipz)