Not So Distant Future

“You gotta serve somebody….”  Bob Dylan

Who do we actually serve in our schools and who should we be serving?   What changes in our thinking when we apply the notion of customer service to the school environment?

In their book Innovation:  Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, Curtis Carlson and Wililam Wilmot raise three central questions about customer service that guides their innovation model: 

• “Who is your customer?
•  What is the customer value you provide and how do you measure it?
• What innovation best practices do you use to rapidly, efficiently, and systematically create new customer value?”

Taking these questions separately–

“Who is our customer?”

Obviously, it should be students and secondly their parents and families.   But are the decisions we make in line with the view that students are our customers?  Are we providing the kind of service that we would expect if we were customers to either our students or parents?   And does this analogy completely play out?   (Obviously customers aren’t required to be somewhere, nor required to shop en masse, nor to follow pre-defined rules for shopping, etc.?)    But how does our thinking change if we think of our students as customers?  What are the obstacles getting in the way of this kind of thinking?

“What is the customer value you provide and how do you measure it?”

Big question.  In recent years, we’ve viewed this from a very cut/dried perspective in terms of measurement.   But don’t we need to define what value we are trying to provide before we just start measuring it?  Is all of the value something that can be measured in one objective test?  Are we measuring ourselves as schools?  If we set up a  mission statement that we want to achieve a goal, do we come back at the end of the year and really look at whether we did some things towards that goal, or is it just a glossy statement?  

The same is true in our classrooms or libraries?  If we have some goals for our own learning spaces, did students help define what is of value to them?   How do we assess how we are doing?   Do we lay out some specific goal posts for ourselves in addressing the value we are planning to provide?   And once we do that, how are we measuring it?  

Our campus Vision committee this year has formed an assessment committee to work on defining our mission more clearly and then also outlining ways that we can assess our growth as a school–not just with standardized tests, but in taking a look at many different areas of our campus that fit into the mission.   This is a grass roots effort, and we are learning as we go, but it’s giving us the chance to really talk about how we could measure our success in different areas, and address weak areas as well.

“What innovation best practices do you use to rapidly, efficiently, and systematically create new customer value?”

Do schools think of themselves  as creating “new customer value”? ( I do think librarians tend to think this way, as we are used to being in the business of promoting student literacy, and have the flexibility to introduce new customer services fairly easily. ) But in general, how flexible are our school systems in introducing new customer value?   Do we even consider that as part of our mission?  

I think within specific classrooms, teachers do grow and consider this part of their work–introducing new concepts, methods, and tools as ways of creating value for their students.  And I think inside individual classrooms, if a school environment is not too controlling or limiting, teachers have tremendous flexibility in always growing their teaching and exploring new methodology and philosophies.   But are they getting the institutional support they may need to do that?  And is the school as a whole utilizing the best innovation practices?

Carlson and Wilmot suggest some innovation strategies that can be helpful, like the importance of “innovation champions.”   When I think of school districts or individual schools that are making exciting changes, it seems that in their system somewhere, there are innovation champions supporting that.

They have other excellent recommendations that I’ll share in a later post that I think have many applications for our schools.

So, who are we serving?

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

–When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

Yesterday, while live blogging with Maura Moritz’s class at Arapahoe High School, I realized just how imperative it is for me to have those moments of Symphony–those “aha” moments when everything comes together in a rush. During the class, the students were struggling with the question of whether it is better to live for today or to live for the future.  Their question seems to revolve around the challenge in Mary Oliver’s poem.  

And no matter their answer, it seemed to me they were trying to avoid simply passing through the world….that they wanted life to be significant and meaningful. They wanted to be married to amazement.

How often do we as educators forget to live with amazement?   Drowning in paperwork, the multi-variable needs of our students, the crush of so many papers to grade, the demands of our own lives, it’s easy to lose track of what brought us to the classroom doors.  

I realized while blogging with the students what brings me to those doors is that there is always something new.   And for myself, I have to keep it new.   I’m a librarian now, but in the teaching I still do, I am most happy when I am reinventing ways to share things, when I am discovering new tools or new ideas or new books or planning new projects with teachers.   I’m happiest when I am learning, too.

It’s easy to let rigor mortis set in.  To do the same thing day after day, year after year, and to let that content become solidified.  That’s really much easier than rethinking what you do.   That’s the easiest thing to do in any job.

But when we look back over our long lives in our careers, whatever they are, I’m sure the most satisfying moments for most of us are those that stand out, that inspired us, that challenged us, that brought out the best in us.  Those are the moments that we tell stories about, that we think about years later, and that keep us going.  

In The Big Moo, Seth Godin writes about the importance of renewing ourselves in his chapter, “Get Out.”   He points out, “you may be the master of your domain in  your office, but chances are you’re also a victim of your mastery.”   He challenges readers to:

“Go out and get some inexperience.  Go back to square one.  Put yourself in a position to discover something new.”

Like the exercises in Daniel Pink’s Whole New Mind, Godin suggests activities that help you see anew, like going on a field trip to somewhere you’ve never been, or engaging senses you don’t usually use(closing your eyes, for example) or just plain wandering.

What about visiting another very different school, if you’re a teacher?  What about working with someone you’ve never worked with before?  What about letting students select the text you’ll read together?   What about renewing yourself by giving yourself permission to attend a conference somewhere far away?   What about wandering through an art museum instead of doing the grocery shopping? What about giving yourself permission to play?  What about the things you love?  What about the things our students love?

Not only are we jaded about learning at times, our students can fall into that attitude as well.  How can we challenge our students to “get out” of their comfort zones, to see the world, to rediscover that sense of amazement they felt as children in kindergarden.  How do we give them time to do that?  How do we help them see “anew”?

 It brings to mind a slogan I love from Mabry Middle School, “Making Learning Irresistible for Over 25 years”

Learning should be irresistible.  It’s the most invigorating creative act we have as human beings.   So, as Seth Godin says, we must “get out!”  We must refresh ourselves, sharpen the saw, invite newness in, be willing to change, and embrace our lives. 

As Mary Oliver asks us in her poem, “The Summer Day”,

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

We just have this one time with our students.  We just have this one life ourselves.  What do we plan to do?

Some credits:

Thanks to Clay Burell and Diane Cordell for sending me in search of poetry.  And homage to Diane’s excellent post.  Thanks to John Pederson for sending me to the big moo.  And thanks to all of the amazing educators and students at SLA and Educon who inspired me to keep looking anew.

Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/stateoftheart101/296605924/

Garr Reynolds writes thought-provokingly on Presentation Zen about the concept of beginner’s mind and how we learn.

Reynolds writes:

The meaning of the beginner’s mind does not mean to retreat to the naiveté of a child. It is not about being simplistic or ignorant, it is about approaching life and its challenges with curiosity and enthusiasm. . . . The point is that we adults should maintain our curiosity and that sense that anything can be done, that sense that anything is possible. A sense that we all had as children but eventually all but lost as people mocked our enthusiasm and optimism. Those who succeed and change things are the ones who do not let the world change their mind. . . .

A child or a beginner says “why not?” An “expert” says “it can’t be done.” Shunryu Suzuki put it best in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,
in the expert’s mind there are few.’
—Shunryu Suzuki”

I think this is the very thing that trips all of us up when trying to convince teachers to reenvision their classrooms through the use of technology. Teachers are often accustomed to being considered the “expert mind,” so it is not just that we are asking teachers to see the uses of a particular tool in the classroom–what we are really asking is for is an entire paradigm shift–for teachers to approach their classrooms with a beginner’s mind, a child’s mind.

Children learn by playing, failing, experimenting. They don’t know what is possible, so they attempt things that we would consider impossible, or unwise. They approach the world differently than we as “expert adults” do.

The question is–what do those habits of mind cause us to miss?

In his post, Reynold’s links for more information to this lecture by Abbess Zenkei Blanche Hartman:, who further explains Suzuki’s work on beginner’s mind:

“When he spoke of ‘beginner’s mind,’ I think Suzuki Roshi was pointing to that kind of mind that’s not already made up. The mind that’s just investigating, open to whatever occurs, curious. Seeking, but not with expectation or grasping. Just being there and observing and seeing what occurs. Being ready for whatever experience arises in this moment. “

And how, if teachers or we ourselves are coming from a paradigm of expert mind, do we invite them to approach their classrooms with beginner’s mind? We can’t necessarily meditate in a workshop, obviously.

I’m thinking of ideas like these:

• Start a workshop with play. I think the only way this really would work is that the play has to be outside the area of expertise of the workshop participants. Give them a mystery object to explore, pull up a web 2.0 tool in a foreign language, find some way to begin a workshop by invoking a sense of play. This is risky and I think of all sorts of reactions teachers/librarians would have, but, it could lead to a discussion of the idea of openness and play and the barriers to that.
• Start a workshop talking or writing in journals about children and play. Have teachers recall a moment in their childhood that involved play. What did that feel like? What feelings does it evoke even thinking about it. Share a story about your own children and observations of them at play.
• Talk about learning and frustration. When do we learn by play and when does it become frustrating? What are the habits that frustrate us, like comparing ourselves to others, thinking we should get it faster, not understanding something, perceived lack of time, etc.? Then talk about that in terms of learning as children through play.
• Be invitational. Let workshop participants be independent and move at their own pace. Provide the opportunity for them to work together to problem solve.
• Dialog with people outside the field and create ways for teachers to do this. It moves the teacher out of the expert role, but opens up new and playful possibilities.
• Be open-minded as a presenter. But–think less is more. Ever watch a child at Christmas or on a birthday open up the first toy and start playing with it, while the adults encourage them to open the rest of the gifts? Maybe it’s overwhelming to have that huge amount of “input.” Slowing down and seeing one thing at a time has value. Sometimes we try to get teachers to open all the ‘gifts’ at once, and it’s overwhelming. Sometimes you have to share the whole toy catalog, but sometimes, you need to explore one gift and all it’s possibilities.
• In daily practice, when approaching teachers, keep a beginner’s mind. Sometimes perhaps because they don’t know the tools or research process as well, they may propose things that an”expert’s mind” might think are unworkable. But….can we let that beginner’s mind they may be approaching the problem with push our own thinking forward? Can we listen carefully to their perception of it and find a way?
• On a school-wide scale, principals can support play and innovation and learning. But in some schools more than others (and I would guess this gets more difficult as you move to high school and college level teachers), the culture of play and beginner’s mind is almost completely lacking. Being invitational can create a culture where change is possible.

In the conclusion to her lecture, the Abbess writes of a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver:

“In her poem ‘When Death Comes,’ Mary Oliver has a few lines that say, ‘When it’s over, I want to say I have been a bride married to amazement, I’ve been a bridegroom taking the world into my arms.’ This is beginner’s mind. . . .Just how amazing the world is, how amazing our life is. . . . Can you live your life with that kind of wholeheartedness, with that kind of thoroughness?

This is the beginner’s mind that Suzuki Roshi is pointing to, is encouraging us to cultivate. He is encouraging us to see where we are stuck with fixed views, and see if we can, as Uchiyama Roshi says, “open the hand of thought” and let the fixed view go. This is our effort. This is our work. Just to be here, ready to meet whatever is next without expectation or prejudice or preconceptions. Just “What is it?” “What is this, I wonder?”

So please, cultivate your beginner’s mind. Be willing to not be an expert. Be willing to not know.”

How can we all be “willing to not know?” and to approach how we learn and teach with a beginner’s mind. This, I believe, is the truest challenge.

Image credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikmartin/439986197/in/set-72157602784604042/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikmartin/439986173/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikmartin/439986177/in/photostream/

   Bob Witowski at our campus has just received a coveted “Kudos from Drape” award from Darren Draper (who created the Pay Attention video, if you’re not familiar with his work) for Bob’s experiment using cell phones in his Algebra classroom.

 We’re mixed in with some pretty good company getting this award, so big congratulations Bob, and thanks to Darren for the recognition!

A lot of posts among some of my online “acquaintances,” not to mention some issues at my own campus, have gotten me thinking about the disconnect between “the possible” and what’s permitted in schools.

What particularly set me off today was a twitter post from a respected colleague who was gradually having all web 2.0 tools cordoned off from her students, so that many of the projects she was trying to do or was already involved with were rapidly becoming denied to her students.   (And I could relate because although the situation is much, much better in our district, I still have been waiting for almost five weeks for approval to get Skype installed on a few teacher stations so I can use it for professional development and for virtual author visits.)

I find it upsetting because there are teachers out there who are committed and excited about education, and who really want to bridge the gap between the world many of their students live in (wired, connected, “on all the time”) and the world of education(me being one of those teachers).  These teachers are pushing the envelope, eagerly trying new things, and trying to use the best tools they can find to connect their students with a world beyond the classroom walls.

Yet too many of these teachers are met with roadblocks, and an ever mounting frustration at being unable to convince administrators or their IT department, or their district leaders..or someone in their district, that what they are doing can be done in a safe manner and is valuable, very valuable for their students.

So my fear is, naturally,  that we are going to lose some of the best teachers we have in the country.  Because you can only stand expending half your energies “convincing” people for so long.  And no one finds it rewarding to have their genuine love and enthusiasm for teaching reined in and constantly met with roadblocks. 

As schools, we have to support those who want to innovate and who want to provide this leadership.  We ask kids to trust us, and parents to trust us, and yet sometimes we aren’t endowed in our own districts with that sense of goodwill and trust.  We are professionals.  We are brought into a district to do our very best for our students.  We ask for the tools we need, that in our professional judgment are the very best for the job.  We should ask for no less.

So we know what the problem is.  My question is, what can we do to better support innovation with technology in our schools?  How can we facilitate the efforts of the best?  How can we not only support innovation but “grow it?”

Scott McLeod posted this question from a reader recently:

“What resources (contacts, advisors, print, online, etc.) do you recommend to our school leaders – and lawyers – so they can make informed decisions about student access to social networking tools?”

While he received some answers about some good social networking tools, I wish he’d gotten more answers about policies, statistics, and helpful information for sharing with districts about social networking, like the new NSBA statement on social networking that Will Richardson, David Warlick and many others have blogged about.

I have a few ideas–things that have been successful in our district, like opening up a dialogue and having a committee to discuss filtering and its ramifications.   (Our tech director assembled a team of many interested parties to enable this discussion).  It’s also helpful to have the opportunity to demonstrate what the tools can do for students.  It’s also helpful to have good policies and statistics handy.  

The fear factor is one of the primary problems, and the best way to counteract fear is with facts and examples.  (For example, Will points out that “fear” is one of the main concerns, yet the statistics don’t bear out that fear.)

So blogosphere, here’s your chance–what are some other helpful statistics, ideas, policies, and approaches for helping teachers who are facing this sort of frustration?   What tools can we give them?

Warning–this is a somewhat esoteric post, but something that grabbed my interest and I wanted to share.   This morning, to rev myself up for a day of workshops, I was listening to some podcasts on the way to work and ran across an Accidental Creative podcast interview with Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of Freeplay: Improvisation in Life and Art.

Nachmanovitch’s interview fascinated me because of the implications for schools of what he had to say about improvisation.

He tells a story of  a labor strike, which involves workers doing everything exactly by the book until the organization grinds to a halt.  

The reason all work stops?  Because all organizations function on improvisation and people functioning creatively and spontaneously to solve problems that arise all day long.  It seems to me that in schools sincerely trying to respond to changes in education, this ability to improvise is critical, and schools (and libraries) which cannot cultivate a culture of improvisation and flexibility will have a very difficult time with change.   

 In the podcast, Nachmanovitch and host Todd Henry speak about the dynamic between the “practical” and the “possible,” and how there is a delicate balance between the two that has to be maintained for an organization to function.

 Too often it seems that in schools the practical overshadows the possible, and thus squelches creativity, sometimes particularly in regard to creative uses of technology.

On his website, Free Play Productions, Nachmanovich writes:

“For me, improvisation is all about human relationship. It is about listening, responding, connecting, and about generosity. When a group of free improvisers gets together. . .it is like watching separate beings become integrated into a single nervous system and become, for a time, whole. It is a partnership, with each other and with the audience, in the deepest sense of the word. . . .”

He goes on to write about teaching:

“If you are going to teach, you will plunge into encounters with people who come from different cultural backgrounds, with different tastes, different personalities, different priorities. Your capacity to improvise is one way into these encounters: the art of listening and responding to other human beings.

Each tone and gesture can be seen as an invitation to deepen the information and feelings that are unfolding. The discipline of improvisation is to learn to accept these invitations, to say yes, and to support each other. This is not only a recipe for making wonderful music, it makes for a happier life. “

 When I think of things that cause difficulty at my campus, it is when we have systems that aren’t allowing for the spontaneity of events–that are setting up roadblocks at every turn that we must overcome.  It’s when the inflexibility of the system is blocking the creative efforts of educators that I get most frustrated. 

How can we find, in schools, that balance between what is “practical” and still allow for what is “possible”?   How can we say yes to each other, and create a “happier life?”

 On Tuesday night, I attended a service for a family friend and one of our students, Jack Jenkins.   A family member read a poem that Jack had written in middle school, and one line resonated with me.   “I am an important person and I have something to contribute to this world.”

As we talk about web 2.0, school change, or what each of us can do to create authentic learning experiences for our students,  this is what it is all about.   Hearing our students.  Hearing them as people.

One of Jack’s friends spoke about his passion for changing education.  He loved people and loved his teachers and friends, but, his friend said, he wanted to see a place where students could be more engaged and more enthusiastically involved.   Many of us walked away from the service as the sun was setting in the park where it was held, vowing to carry on some small service in memory of Jack.   My small service is this–not forgetting that there are students that we need to be reaching, students who care greatly and who really want to contribute to our learning community.

It’s hard to begin to know where to change your classroom or teaching practices (or library) or my own.   But as a community, we can walk this walk together.   And there are many guides for us as well.   Due to our unusual teaching schedule this year, we’re going to have time each week to talk to one another and collaborate on rethinking and improving our practices.

Yesterday, in one of our workshops, our principal said, “Sometimes more interesting than the answer is the question itself.”  I believe Jack might have agreed with that, from what I heard at the service.  She talked a little bit about risk taking, and supporting a culture where people on our campus feel safe to take some risks in the classroom.

Recently, Chris Lehmann, the principal at the innovative SLA, wrote an excellent post about how to create and support a culture of innovation.   He points out that innovation needs to be purposeful, that it needs to be supported with room to play and reflect. 

I think time to reflect and play particularly get lost in our rush for content and our enthusiasm for our subjects.   Do we allow students to just sit quietly and absorb something for a minute?  to listen to the things around them?  or to just have the release and joy of play, even educational play and experimenting?  

In American Libraries magazine yesterday, I read an article more specifically about libraries and innovation, and want to add one point from their list to Chris’s suggestions–Be Kind to Your Risk Takers.

Our students often are risk takers.  It’s the nature of adolescence.  We need to be kind to them, scaffold them, support their explorations and create an environment where their contributions are valued and enriched by knowing us, just as we are enriched by knowing them.

So how can each one of us consider “shaking it up” so that we never forget that each of our students is an important person who has something to contribute to this world?  Let’s keep thinking about that for all of our sons and daughters and for Jack.

Download Video: Posted by bionicteaching at TeacherTube.com.

image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/99107397@N00/653396228/

    Yesterday I wrote about the TED Talks, how inspiring they were, how the Encyclopedia of Life got jumpstarted there, and how I was thinking we should begin an innovation group at our campus.

Then tonight, I read on think:lab that a group of education folks have been quietly planning a world wide “TED Talks” for educators, called Learning D.N.A (Design.in.Action).   To understand why I’m so excited about this, try watching a couple of the TED Talks videos, where world innovators come together to share and brainstorm and urge each other forward.  Just imagining the same kind of forum for education has me thrilled.

As Christian Long explains it on think:lab, like the TED Talks, it’s planned to be a place for “a cross section of bold ideas and passionate thought-leaders.”

There will be both ongoing learning network and an annual conference showcasing innovation.  And the conference will be held in two locations, one overseas and one in the U.S., but it will also be available online.   That’s a conference I can’t wait to attend next summer –maybe it should be appended to the NECC conference next June??  (which happens to be in San Antonio…hmmm.. ) 

The other thing that really excites me about it–other than having a forum for truly talking about innovation in education–is that the network will include students from the get-go, at both the conference and in the online network.  What a way to excite kids about the vitality of learning!

This really spurs me forward on the thought I’ve had in the back of my head this spring about starting an innovation group here, so I’ve just now this minute decided to volunteer to do that for next year.   Anyone want to join in?

(cross posted at our  Vision-ary — Tech committee blog)

photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/quicklikeamule/232733722/

I’m distressed.  I just finished reading this article in the New York Times, which is on the front page of today’s print edition–“Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops.”

I’m trying to imagine a similar headline:  “Seeing no use for them, Google drops laptops”….or “Seeing no purpose for them, NyTimes drops laptops.”

When are we going to get that laptops, internet, and technology are here to stay and becoming more and more part of our lives and our students’ lives?

I was very disappointed in the reporting in this article.  I’m sure some schools have had problems or have chosen to drop them.  But on the other hand, some schools like the Science Leadership Academy have had success with laptops, and have worked through the problems in a meaningful way.  At least the reporter could have bothered to interview some schools with successful programs, and written a headline:  “Laptops have mixed results” or “Laptop successes differ at different schools.”

If you read almost to the end of the article, there is a caveat:

But Mr. Warschauer, who supports laptop programs, said schools like Liverpool might be giving up too soon because it takes time to train teachers to use the new technology and integrate it into their classes. For instance, he pointed to students at a middle school in Yarmouth, Me., who used their laptops to create a Spanish book for poor children in Guatemala and debate Supreme Court cases found online.

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”

After reading the article, the same thing hits home to me almost every time I read an article about technology implementation.  It isn’t the tools that are at fault, it’s the implementation, training, and support of staff use of the tools.

Schools need to have the teacher buy-in, the support staff or lease-agreement to quickly repair the laptops, and the training on classroom models where laptops are used successfully to make it work well.

But the time is coming when every student WILL have a laptop, PDA or some device with their textbooks on it that is their personal productivity school, so I hope we are preparing for that day–it’s not too far away.

I wish articles like this also talked about the difficulty of desktop computers on campus.   Students who are working on projects at school have hordes of compatibility issues as far as sending files back and forth from their own computers to campus (if they have a computer) and if they don’t have access at home, they are disadvantaged because their fellow students do.   Desktops mean the students have to come to the computer rather than the computer being a readily available tool in the classroom, lunchroom, or library. Schools are limited to the number of projects per period that they can provide computer spaces for, putting restrictions on how many different uses of online sources can happen at any given time, due to the sheer number of available desktops.

Yet we rarely see articles debating the value of desktops in schools.

Another thing that irked me about the article was that it brought up the Ed. Department study of math/reading skill drill software, as though that was proof that technology is ineffective.

I guess we should tell Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, and Dell that technology is an ineffective tool and that they will never make money marketing it because it’s not useful, doesn’t give us tranformative abilities, or provide us access to anything much of use.

Lastly I want to point out that many of the problems mentioned here were the schools’ implementation.  Not to criticize these particular schools, but I noticed remarks about the repair issues(the school should have the infrastructure for that if taking this on), the network bandwidth(again, the school should have provided that if they were embarking on this project), the teacher training or lack thereof, issues about library databases and students not using them(which staff and librarians should be helping with), kids playing in the classroom when they should be working(is this a technology issue or a classroom management issue?), etc.

I know there will be challenges with implementing laptop schools, but I feel educators and districts have the ability and responsibility to consider what those are and plan for them, and adapt.   As institutions, we have to improve our ability to implement projects like this, and learn from them.

We need to get prepared, because the $100 laptop is going to bring this issue into our schools sooner rather than later–soon it won’t be about the money because they will be affordable.

I worry that articles like this make it all too easy for those who are afraid of technology advances to, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” instead of asking what will be best for our students who are graduating into a technology-infused workplace and life.