Poland Community Plan History

"Along with the challenge of developing and implementing a program in the visual arts at Poland I have also been deeply involved in designing and implementing a new program of computer technology for the school. My first year position was as a half time art teacher, teaching first through fifth grades, and part time computer coordinator.

The school had previously halted its computer education program when all parties acknowledged that it was not functioning as a meaningful part of the school. A task force of teachers, parents, administrators, and school board members had begun to develop a strategy for designing and implementing a new program to meet the student and school needs. My 'secondary' job was to facilitate this process and implement the recommendations of the task force.

When I arrived the computer program literally consisted of about twenty five broken and obsolete computer systems stored in the back of the music room. We had an eighth grade class that needed to have basic computer literacy in order to comply with state educational mandates, and we had a staff that had little experience with using computer technology in their work (and less interest in taking the time to learn a new and frightening tool), and no money budgeted to support any program we could develop. Needless to say this secondary challenge began to threaten to overwhelm my time and resources as a new teacher. I viewed my role as an impartial facilitator and we got busy. By April we had managed to choose a computer platform, develop proposals and rationales which persuaded the school board to shift money around to fund an initial implementation of our program, and made a purchase of some sixty three computer systems.

This purchase allowed us to equip seven elementary classrooms with six computers each, scanners and other peripheral equipment, and provided a curriculum and on site training. The three middle school language arts classrooms each had six networked computers and I provided support and training for these teachers. By June our eighth grade students had experience and initial mastery of all aspects of the mandated computer literacy requirement. By any measure this was a hard won success. But, as usual, our success led to other challenges that had to be addressed.

Our inability to immediately equip all of the classrooms with computers caused a predictable backlash from some segments of the staff that felt they were loosing out in the allocation of resources. Also, the amount of time required to learn to effectively use the systems in regular classroom activities frustrated I many of the teachers who had received the computers.

The art position increased to full time my second year at Poland. I was offered the choice of a position as computer coordinator or art. I chose art on the strength of my conviction that computer technology represents a tool to diminish barriers to student learning and expands the horizons of their experience and access to resources but art is a fundamental way that we make meaning of our world, a content and a skill, and that the students needed a full and rich program as an important ingredient to their education.

Unfortunately the person hired to coordinate and develop the computer program was unable to work within the framework of the program and had effectively left the program by the end of November. The work of the coordinator essentially returned to me, although with over six hundred students in my art classes I was unable to fulfill many of the duties necessitated by the position. By April we had hired another coordinator who proved to be extraordinarily well suited to our program. We were able to develop and present proposals to the school board allowing us to equip all fourth and fifth grade classrooms with multiple computers and provide all of the regular teachers with computers at their desks. In response to teacher requests we organized the middle school computers into a lab to facilitate whole class instruction across the content areas.

This year has been one of consolidation and training the staff and seeing the majority of students in the school using the technology on a regular basis. We are currently working on detailed proposals to network all of the computers in the school and provide universal Internet access. Thankfully the coordinator is able to handle all of the regular system troubleshooting and general support so that I have been able to, at long last, focus the majority of my attention on developing my art program while helping out with puzzling computer problems and facilitating the sometimes acrimonious implementation of our program.

To develop and implement an effective computer program we need to focus on the adults within our community. The students are fearless users of this technology. They know to keep trying different strategies until they can get the machine to do what they want it to. Adults, on the other hand, are hesitant to try a variety of strategies until they find one that works. The tendency that I see is to repeat what is done on a typewriter, or what one expects to work, and then move away when there is not initial success. The most important lesson that I have learned about working with computer technology is that nothing works the first time you try to do it. But don't let that stop you from trying again and again until you finally get the machine to work for you.

If we cannot get the adults in our school communities to regularly use the computer technology then we cannot expect that they will lead their students to use it either. In these situations we run the risk of computers becoming another pull out program that regular teachers do not have to consider, that the technology is for someone else to worry about, and that students who could and should have this technology will still be our in the cold.

I find it wonderful to see students leading the way to new learning. This technology is one area in which students seem to be consistently ahead of their parents and their peers. A good example of this occurred last year when a third grade student asked for help installing software on one of the classroom computers. Initially I was concerned that he was allowed to install anything on the computers by his teacher. When I took a look at what he was doing I was thoroughly impressed. He was setting out to install a program that all of the third grade teachers wanted on their systems in each of their rooms. He had correctly installed the software (a seven step process) but had simply not activated the program by clicking on the application icon. He continued his installation on all eighteen third grade computers. Only one of the teachers he installed software for would have been able to successfully install this program. What interested me the most about this instance was that this particular student had very little success in his regular class work and was frequently in trouble because of his behavior. In this situation he was a fully contributing member of the school community, acquiring and extending his knowledge to a level that surpassed most of the adults he worked with.

My work developing the computer program here at Poland has given me the opportunity to experience first hand the dynamics of implementing change within an educational setting. I find that the key to success is facilitating the change rather than trying to impose it. Change will not happen if those who are vital to its implementation are either opposed to or frightened of the proposed change.

Another observation that I have made is that people tend to perceive a greater gulf between their views and those they suppose are in opposition to them than is usually the case. Opposing views often tend to sound more in opposition than they are in reality because we tend to drag in all manner of irrelevant differences to justify our opposition. Once these other issues are cleared out there is generally more room for agreement than initially supposed. At this point reasonable compromise and accommodation to allay fears and concerns tend to bring consensus.

What I have seen here is a good example of effective reform. A broad based group of interested parties got together and defined a problem, worked out a vision and goals to solve the problem in a manner that fit well with the philosophy and goals of the school and community. They then developed strategies to implement those plans and acted upon those strategies. The result has been a remarkably vibrant program well on its way to full implementation, suffering more from growing pains than frustrated implementation.

The key to all of this is effective communication. This can only be accomplished by a clarity of purpose and plan brought about by broad based discourse clarified through reflection and another round of discourse and consultation with all members of the community effected by the change.

What measure of success I have had in this process is a direct result of my willingness to listen, consult, and reflect upon what I heard. The measure of the quality of the Poland School Community is reflected in their ability to do all of this, and to take action as well."

By: Tom Chaisson, Art teacher, Poland Community School