In the fall, teachers and students return to school hopeful and full of new ideas. Winter semester is different. Christmas has passed, so has New Year's Day. The first semester is finished, and students have completed an entire round of exams and state tests. The days are short, and the nights are long and cold. All eyes are turned toward Easter and June, both of which seem a long way off.
Winter requires something more from us than fall. Winter demands commitment. Students have to know that they want to finish the school year, that they want to pass all their classes. They have to commit to making good grades quickly so that when spring and warmth arrive they can slack off a little and enjoy the change in seasons. Teachers also have to know what they want. They have to know that despite the mid-year blues their students deserve their full attention and that success in the coming months is just as important as it was when the school year began.
For those of us in the 1 to 1 Initiative, this winter semester demands special commitment. We teachers know what mistakes we made in the fall; we remember the lessons that failed because of problems with technology, the disruptions and interruptions the laptops sometimes created in class. We remember our own fear as we tried to incorporate new technology into our curriculum, the fear that we would make mistakes and that the students would find us stupid or incompetent.
Regardless of these problems, all of us in the 1 to 1 Initiative have renewed our commitment to the program. We know there will be missteps, but we also know that there will be successes. We know too that what we are doing matters. Working with technology and exploring the ways it can impact education has a tremendous effect on preparing students for the future. Colleges are increasingly using technology to deliver curriculum and assess student learning. Helping our students prepare for those experiences is one of the best things we teachers can do.
I hope that the students can join us in this commitment to the future. Competition for colleges and jobs is increasing, as are the consequences for academic failure. Gone are the days when a student might drop out of high school and go to work in a factory or low-level construction or agricultural job. Most of those jobs are gone, and the ones that haven't disappeared rarely pay a living wage. We must prepare well for the challenges ahead, and commiting to success this winter is good first step in that preparation.
