I couldn't agree more!  Geeks have helped the organization I volunteer for gain access to so many FREE tools/software that has made such a HUGE impact for our organization online, in the office and out in the field.  If we had paid for these same commercialized services/software/products we would have:

1. gone bankrupt

2. limited our possibilities

2. been unable to compete with larger non profits and

3. remained dependent

Much of the geek population is generous, creative, logical and problem solving.  If the folks at gnu.org can develop software/technological projects that empower users to free themselves from commerce and take a kernel of code and turn it into their own, imagine what this same belief system would do in other areas.

I agree with you that to change things permanently and allow for real, authentic growth we have to empower the individuals that will remain after the services/applications/support is no longer there without expecting them to come out as duplicate copies of what our perceived idea of the "norm" is.  We have to unify and empower these communities and allow them to grow into their own although better educated and equipped.

I don't know much about Teach America but if it is as you say it is, it could definitely use some geeking.

I wholeheartedly agree.  Our school has become a revolving door for TFA teachers.  We actually have coined the term "teach for a while"  due to this situation.  All of the teachers have been very nice, hard-working individuals, but the way TFA sets them up with two-year committments creates an ongoing stream  of temporary teachers.  Before they even step foot in a classroom, they already have one foot out the door. 

On the other hand, we have several teaching fellows who have made the decision to make teaching their career.  They come into the teaching fellows program knowing that teaching is what they truly want to do.  Many of the teaching fellows are the "geeks" you are referring to.  They bring a joy and sense of "stick-with-it-ness" and our students recognize this and have responded positively to all of them. These "geeks" are the gentle forces working in obscure ways to help our students discover their innate talents.

Michele's comment is the cherry on top.

Funny you mention Ira. He's going to be guest-blogging in a couple of weeks. You'll be a tough act to follow.

Hi,

I think the Geeks for America concept is clever.  It's a shame you chose to fold a creative idea into a critique of Teach for America.  TFA was an organization created to meet a need of teacher shortages and under-resourced school communities in urban and rural areas.  I'm fairly sure that Socol's over-the-top rant is as inaccurate as it is divisive.

Following their TFA commitments, some corps members leave for other professions.  But many stay in education and do their best to make a difference.  I joined TFA in 1993, and ended up teaching for eight years.  I just finished my 8th year in a school leadership role (3 as AP, 5 as Principal).  I've spent my entire career working to improve inner city classrooms and schools.  And I strongly believe in the mission of providing all students with an inspiring educational experience where technology and education are truly interdependent.

You show me a worthswhile, detailed platform for Geeks for America, and you can count me in.  But I'll be representing Teach for America when I sign up.

Jason Levy

TFA Houston 93

Principal, CIS 339

http://339dottodot.com

Great to read your promising story Jason.  As with anything, it is always what you do with what opportunities come your way.

Jason,

I thank you wholeheartedly from one teacher to another for sticking with it. I wish there were a whole lot more folks in TFA with your sense of dedication.

But the numbers are in. And, despite the rosy title 'Study Finds Teach for America Teachers Stay in the Classroom Past Initial Commitment', the 2008 research that came out of Harvard GSE showed only 14.8 percent of TFA teachers sticking with their schools for more than 4 years.

That just doesn't cut it. TFA can't make the kind of impact we need when 85% of their teachers split from their school after four years. Four years is barely enough time to get your bearings and earn a reputation in a school.

And I'm not speaking from the point-of-view of a saint.

I left my first school after one hellish year straight out of college. A bureaucratic nightmare of a school that was more interested in how its test scores looked in the local paper than how its students looked everyday they showed up. I tried my damndest, but by the end of the year, I was completely burnt.

And I didn't understand why. But I thought it probably had something to do with the fact that I felt like I was as much a cog in the wheel as I knew that the students themselves were, given the priorities of a grossly neglegent administration.

Later, I got the opportunity to start a Latin program at another school -- the school I've been with for going on eight years since -- and I jumped on it. I saw it as a chance to experiment with creating my own curriculum and teaching on my own terms; and if I failed, I'd fail on my own terms.

And since being pulled back into it, I've really learned how to be a teacher. I've learned to listen to the students. I've learned to truly appreciate the parents and not just give them some ed speak lip-service. And I realized that it takes time to become a teacher and that I was foolish to think otherwise in my first year.

I realized that the problem wasn't the school; the problem was my own unpreparedness. I'd never understood that it takes time and experience to learn to teach.

I'm sure many folks have similiar experiences because, at my first school, the principal told me that the avg 'life-expectancy' of a first year teacher there was three-weeks.

It is no wonder then that the HGSE study shows that almost 65% of TFA teachers leave education altogether after 4 years.

You are an exception. Thank you again; from one teacher to another.

- Shelly

source for the HGSE study: http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2008/05/21_project.php

Hello,

I agree with Jason in believing in your idea, but not as a substitute.  I don't think you have to look at a Harvard study to realize the pay for teachers is very unattractive.  However, TFA could be reformed to prepare teachers better and there could be bonuses for longer stints.  Overall though, TFA is arguably as good of a way to serve the country as say, the military.

Schools need more public attention if we are going to be globally competitive and why not incorporate all of the above mentioned ideas and more.  I would like to see a senior-elementary reading program open up or subsidized higher education fees for tutoring high school students.

The more cross-sectioning of groups of people in education; the better.  The more program insurance and support; the better.  The more talking about it...:) the better. 

Great post!

maybe the problem is school itself.....school is not a 21st century medium of learning.....it is still organized by decision makers who were born towards the middle of the 20th century....

I have a confession to make...I am a vendor. Wait, don't just go the the next thread because this might be good.

I was told, by the first principal that partnered with us, that we were radically different than all of the other software vendors that they were used to dealing with. Why? Because, get this, we met with the teachers and asked them what new features they would like to have and what changes they would like to see. Thats it. I was shocked that nobody ever did that because it is the very basic foundation of customer support.

Now, when I get together with principals and superintendents, I proudly tell them we are not Schoolastic, Random House, or any of the million dollar corporations. We are just 3 GEEKS that built an application the best way we THOUGHT it should be and now we collaborate with our teachers to build it the way it should be.

I don't sell my application to the schools. I explain to the schools that they are partnering up with us and together we will build the application that the teachers need.

We, as geeks, just guide the professional educators.

Shelly, you rock and are always welcome to join our team. We could think of no other person representing what we are trying to do in education.

Roderick

There are too many times where I have seen the abundance of technology in a school system where neither the students, educators or the on-site IT support have a clue how to leverage it.

These students honestly are already digital in every sense of their life and as educators it is our responsibility to teach them how to use the skills they have already aquired on their own in the classroom.  This is where true geeks who are in tune with where technology is headed is needed as opposed to "IT professionals".

I will admit, I have a Computer Science degree and have worked in different IT roles at educational agencies.  The major different between an IT guy and a geek is that the IT guy knows everything about the tech, and the the geek knows how to bridge the tech into our world.  True geeks can get these students following a Twitter feed from their teacher, using wikis for a classwide research project, and collaborating both online and offline on thier assignments beyond the scope of the typical school day.

Shelly, Thanks for your ideas, as well as for what you do on a daily basis. I spent nine years on a school board, tryng to hire and retain the best teachers possible as well as draw every citizen I could into the support of public education. That's why it's hard for me to understand why TFA is so demonized by so many. It's hardly a replacement for trained, career teachers, but in so many challenged schools, these young people are there instead of no one at all being there. It's hard to see how that's worse for kids. While they may not stay a long time (neither do alot of other teachers who enter the system planning on a career but who decide to opt out), who's to say that some of them don't spark something in their students that will pay off? Who can really say that they don't offer something that will benefit students? And can we be sure that they have no respect for students' cultures and that they just want to teach them their own ways?

Public schools are everyone's concern and need so much support, and while I recognize the validity of some of your points, I just don't want to turn sincere people away when they can do some good, and there is no one else doing it in that place!

Shelly, thank you very much. I completely respect and understand your desire to have a process that helps young college graduates into a teaching career, with the focus on training and long term. Perhaps TFA will come to the place that they realize that and begin offering interested people a chance to do that -- perhaps a TFA division for those who really do think they want to be a teacher long term?

I think there are some creative things being done that could shared. In the Texas school district where I served as a school board trustee, the school district had a luncheon each year honoring the top ten graduates of each of the four high schools. Each student honoree brought his or her favorite teacher, introduced the teacher and told how that teacher had affected their lives. Those remarks provoked bucket of happy tears! The district then presented each of these 40 graduates with a teaching contract, good for them to come back and sign after college. Many actually do come back, after getting education training to be a teacher.

So perhaps good thinking would include getting at this issue in high school rather than waiting until kids are already in college and perhaps on some other track.

You are absolutely right that kids deserve competent, trained, committed teachers who see teaching as their passion.

Shelly, your analysis is spot-on including the parts about TFA (sorry Jason) and the use of agism to attack and marginalize veteran educators.

Sidney makes an extremely strong point about the need to not only make tech tools available to all, but to prepare teachers and others in the effective use of those tools. One of the most hopeful signs in that area appears to be virtual learning communities set up by teachers ourselves.