I’m so tired!

I’m so tired.

I’m so tired of arguing with idiots.

I’m so tired of educators making up useless acronyms.

I’m tired of being told how kids know so much more than me.

I’m tired of conference speakers telling us that we are in the midst of a revolution, but not supporting that argument with facts.

I’m so tired of blowhards crapping on about creativity and then appearing in Pearson videos.

I’m sick and tired of folks not understanding what happens to a kid after their first Logo program works.

I’m tired of dreaming of 1:1 computing 22 years after I first did it.

I’m tired of people telling me that a phone is a computer and that all you need is a browser.

I’m tired of teachers bending over backwards to find the good in things that are inherently bad.

I’m tired of whole class instruction.

I’m tired of charter schools.

I’m tired of mayoral control.

I’m tired of student speech rights being eliminated.

I’m tired of art, music and science programs becoming extinct.

I’m tired of The Common Core before it has begun.

I’m tired of BYOD and other clever ideas designed to make us feel good about screwing kids out of opportunities they deserve.

I’m tired of the blogosphere.

I’m tired of ISTE and what they’ve done to what used to be the largest gathering of forward-thinking scholars and education revolutionaries.

I’m tired of tech coordinators whining and shopping and blocking and not using computers to amplify student potential.

I’m tired of tech directors who have never made anything more than their CV on a computer.

I’m tired of computer-using educators who equate new with better and important.

I’m tired of teachers not defending themselves or their students from the evil forces set to destroy their public schools.

Oh, by the way… The entire teaching force of the State of Victoria (Australia) is going out on strike Thursday over a contract dispute. They’re not only not going to school, but they will be assembling en-masse in the state capital.

I guess that the murder of democracy, labor rights and public education is insufficient to incite the teachers of Philadelphia, NYC or Louisiana to stand up and scream, “Over my dead body!” If teachers won’t protect their rights, dignity or economic security, how can kids trust them to stand between themselves and the madness?

Gary Stager

Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.