Response to a Comment on Mentoring Young Teachers on Building PLNs

Considered just posting a comment response to this comment from Reader Tom, but decided it was really worthy of a post -- both to get his point of view in front of your eyeballs and to better present reasons why I'm sticking by my original post.

Aside from generally taking this too seriously, I feel like you're being a little less confident about the future of social media than you should be. That is, there is no rush, because this stuff isn't going away. If you're getting ready to retire, you'd better figure out Twitter now, because it would be a shame to wait until you're in the nursing home to do it. But if you're in a nursing home in 10 years, you'll be twittering (or the equivalent). All these new teachers will be too. There is no rush. This stuff isn't going anywhere. Let people get comfortable.

For as much as I often get accused of being a Utopian, I think Tom's got me beat.

I agree with Tom that social media isn't going away, but I'm not so convinced that young teachers -- particularly in the range of 18 to 25 years old (i.e. those who grew up with social media, but never have experienced it modeled in the classroom, let alone for the purpose of PLN building) -- are going to suddenly 'get comfortable' with contemporary ed uses of social tech without a bit of guidance and mentoring.

As for whether or not I'm rushing this, let me just put it in this sort of perspective: young teachers are paying tens of thousands of dollars for ed school programs which by-and-large are failing them in delivery of the most successful professional development paradigm that perhaps has ever developed: namely, the PLN. I would think that after two years in a teaching program or a Master's track, most grads would have built a substantial and useful personal learning network. I was very surprised upon entering the ed school classroom as a teacher to find that in fact this is not happening.

If I were a young teacher, I'd be peeved.

And so, though I agree with Tom's general enthusiasm for social media, I don't think this situation is just going to fix itself by itself. We now have a very large community of teachers throughout Twitter who have years' worth of experience building and getting the most out of professional social networks. I say it's high time we make a conscious push to mentor young teachers in the ways of PLN building; it's time to give young teachers the tools they need to take control of the fate of their own professional development.

A Challenge to Teachers: Mentor Young Teachers in Social Tech

There is something wrong here.

This picture (and please, if you are viewing this on a feed where the pic isn't showing up, please visit the main TeachPaperless page to see this) is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable on so many levels. But let me give some context.

This is a screen capture of a Tweet that reads: "I am scared of twitter". It was not written by a 35 year veteran fearing that social media is undermining his or her career. It was not written by an overburdened administrator fearing another lawsuit. It was not written by an overworked IT guy or gal nervous about whether the local network will be able to withstand the pounding social media has the potential to dish out.

This Tweet was written by a twenty-something new teacher in an ed school classroom.

My ed school classroom.

This is unacceptable.

What have we done? How have we allowed social media to become so seemingly monolithic that a young teacher would write this as his or her ONLY tweet?

We have to do better. This one's on us.

This is the result of scaring our kids into thinking predators were the de facto users of MySpace. This is the result of banning mobile devices in our classrooms. This is the result of teachers being threatened with termination for using social media and kids being blocked from using email at school.

This one's on us. We have to take responsibility for this. We have to turn this around.

Now, maybe I'm just overestimating this. After all, I'm sure it was just a joke, right?

Well, I would think that, and I'd appreciate the joke, if it weren't for the fact that in this first week of building our PLNs, this particular student had a total of four followers and one Tweet.

That's unacceptable.

But it's not just the student's fault for being unwilling to try out the network; it's also our fault for letting it come to this. Because the way most ed school programs are currently set up, there's no reason WHY any young teacher would think they'd be expected to have a professional working knowledge of social technology.

We've got to change that.

So here's what I'm calling on my fellow PLN members and ed school teachers to do: find three young teachers in your building, in your ed school, or through your PLN. Mentor those teachers. Teach them WHY they should build a PLN. Teach them what it means to participate as a professional. Don't worry about teaching them every little gimmick and gadget that comes down the pike; just teach them what it means to be part of a network, what it means to be connected, how to use a PLN to grow professionally as a teacher.

Furthermore, contact your local ed schools. Contact your alma mater. Tell those schools that as a teaching professional, you demand they include mandatory courses teaching and modeling the integration of social technology into classroom instruction; tell them that facility with social media should be a qualification for earning a degree.

We can't afford to let young teachers slip through ed school without a working knowledge of social technology and a foundational PLN. This begins with us. Serious or not, this is no joking matter.