Unless you live under a rock, you have seen the Pepper Spray Incident at UC Davis as well as the scores of the Pepper Spray Cop memes. Yes, I do have another meme of my own of this horrifyingly casual display of arrogant authority. Memes help cut the tension and technical people do have a warped sense of humor…..

* Dandelions think they are flowers until someone tells them they are a weed…….

The video is disturbing and compelling  There is the officer, strolling along the row of seated students – as innocent as dandelions* – spraying Round-Up on the weeds in the garden of UC Davis. There are the students, reeling in horror, pain and disbelief.  The nonchalant attitude of the officer stuns the sensibilities of all but the most cold-hearted person.  It has occurred to me that this video reveals something deeply troubling both within our society as a whole and within the University system in particular.

We don’t care about our young people – this much is plain to see. I could go on and on about the future that  has been devised for them -  a destroyed environment, a corrupt and self-serving political class and the economic injustice that is driving the Occupy movement. But many others are doing that work and my particular area of concern is the University System and what the Pepper Spray Incident says about the sorry state of affairs for young people pursuing what we have told them is their ticket to a better life – a college degree.

Student unrest in the UC System is driven by impending tuition hikes of possibly 81%, draconian  budget cuts that absolutely affect the quality of education the students receive and by the police brutality inflicted on their fellow students at the UC Berkley Occupy Movement.  At WellSpring, I spend my days surrounded by young people who are frustrated and disgusted by a university system that is failing them but afraid to speak out for fear of jeopardizing their fragile and perilous futures. Everyone knows trends start on the West Coast and migrate slowly towards the backwater that is Florida. What I see in that video are young people, finally losing their fear and exercising their freedom to air their grievances, because what, after all,  is the definition of freedom?

The University system  does not care very much for our young people either; students  – and undergraduates in particular – see it, know it and are sick of it.  If we cared, we would not saddle them with enormous amounts of student debt in order to receive an increasingly irrelevant education that in no way prepares them for the challenges of the 21st century. We would  put a stop to cattle-car  style education that packs hundreds of students into memorize-and-regurgitate classes that mostly test their ability to game the system and get out. We would hire instructors who actually WANT  to teach young people instead of regarding them as weeds in the sweetly-scented garden of university research.

The Walk of Shame video is so compelling -  I feel a surge of pride in the young people at UC Davis for having the  courage of their convictions throughout the protests that both preceded the Pepper Spray Incident as well as  in the volatile aftermath. The casual disregard shown towards the students in the Pepper Spray video gives a face and a place to the casual disregard the University  shows for the young people it is charged with educating on the whole. The self-serving instinct to protect itself at all costs is laid bare in this incident. As the students shout at the officers that day “Who do you serve? Who do you protect?”  it is apparent that they already know it is not them. For all the lofty talk and slogans like “Students  First”, universities could give a rat’s-ass about undergraduates and their very legitimate grievances over the impoverished future we have devised for them. The Big Lie  – that a 4-year degree is  a ticket punch to a great job and  the pathway into the middle class  -  is unraveling right before their  eyes as more and more students realize that their cattle-car courses and memorize-and-regurgitate programs of study leave them unprepared to enter the workforce yet saddled with enormous debt that they may never be able to repay. They are mad as hell and now they are doing something about it. The silent faces and peircing eyes that watched  UC  Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi as she walked to her car that night are watching us all – wondering, waiting to see what we will do next. There is not much distance between spraying and shooting and they know it.  They are no longer afraid.

This article caught my attention Sunday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html

I have done a number of Digital Divide projects since 2000 including the Dignity Project, the Reichert House and currently, the CRTA at Lutheran Social Services of North Florida. Most of my projects have been focused primarily on young people. The Dignity Project served young people in foster care who, having just turned 18, had aged out of the program with no means to afford a computer and not many good job prospects without a basic comfort zone using one. Riechert House focused on at-risk middle school children who did not have computers in their homes – we created a lab where student mentors worked with the young men on basic computing skills. Each of our Riechert students received a refurbished computer to take home at the end of the school year as well as a basic internet connection so that they could ostensibly do their homework, conduct research and eventually apply for jobs and scholarships online. 50 Large was similar to Riechert House – my student mentors tutored the young men on the basics of computer refurbishing, helping them learn how to care for their computer, which they took home at the end of the program. In addition to helping them with basic hardware skills, we also covered some software/online topics that we hoped would improve their academic and personal success.

In every instance, here is what I observed. To simply hand a child a computer is no formula for success. The Riechert kids, left to their own devices, went immediately to DirtCheapRims.com. When they got bored with that, they would then attempt to Google cuss words (only to find that I had filtered that kind of stuff out at the request of the sponsors, the Gainesville Police Department) or to search for pictures of scantily-clad women. The only reason they were not Facebooking is that Facebook had not been invented yet – the 50 Large kids spent plenty of time on Facebook when we let them idle for more than a few minutes. In every case, the first thing the kids wanted to know about the computers we gave them was whether they would be able to play games on them when they got them home. I have never had a child ask me if the computer would make it easier to do a book report!

When I was in the room with my students and student mentors – I generally try to keep the ratio around 3-4 kids per student mentor – we would begin to get some focus from our mentees on the skills we were trying to impart but left alone with a computer, there was not much more than foolishness going on. ALL of us knew that when these computers went home, these kids were NOT going to suddenly begin writing book reports, conducting research or accessing math tutoring online – they were going to play games, visit social sites and yes – look at porn. These are just the facts of how children use technology when its use is not mediated by adults.

So, we come at last to this question of whether technology improves learning outcomes and whether digital divide programs such as the ones I have run (and am running now…) actually make a difference in the lives of technology-disadvantaged young people. What I have observed is that technology without people actually produces the opposite effect – giving wandering minds even more places to wander to and more distractions from the result the computer is supposed to produce, such as increased literacy and critical thinking skills.

This is my last semester teaching at FSU. Over the past five years, I have taught hundreds of students in technology-enabled classrooms and my observations of young adults left alone in a room full of computers is pretty much the same as what I observed in all of my digital divide projects. Students wandering off to Facebook during a lecture is a common frustration among all instructors at the University level – there is no difference in what an 8 or an 18-year-old do when presented with a computer and no direct adult supervision – they goof off and get distracted unless they are repeatedly brought back to the task at hand by their instructor.

We seem to be relentlessly focused at all levels of education – from kindergarten all the way through higher ed – on reducing the number of instructors by increasing the number of computers. We seem to think that there is magic in the box that will somehow impart knowledge and skills to our young people that an ordinary human such as myself could not. Adding technology to classrooms allows administrators to pat themselves on the back because now they can pack more kids into the room without having to hire more instructors – just add computers and VOILA – now one instructor can ‘teach’ two or three hundred students – or more – and somehow through the magic of technology, they are supposedly getting a higher quality experience that will somehow improve outcomes for both the student and the institution. Meantime, everyone frets over student disengagement and wonders why, when we have given the kids all these cool toys in the classroom to help them learn, they are so tuned out and disengaged. The answer is so obvious yet no one seems to get it. Students don’t engage with machines, they engage with people. A computer does not get a young person excited about learning. It does not notice when a student seems to be struggling with depression. It does not hug a young person in distress and say ‘Come to my office later and let’s talk’. It just sits there on the desk, as deaf and dumb as a box of rocks and as replaceable as a toaster or microwave.

Engaged, high performing students will tell you that there is at least one person – it might be a parent, an instructor or another trusted adult – in their life, encouraging them to work hard and succeed, pushing the edges of their envelopes, alternately kicking them in the pants and hugging them as they learn and grow into productive, engaged adults. There is no computer on the planet that can perform these basic human functions – the bottom line is this. A computer can’t love you. Only I can love you. And love is the magic to engagement – you can put all the whiz-bang technology you want in front of young people but if you don’t give them a human being who truly cares about each of them and their success, all you have is a lot of disengaged tom-foolery that distracts from the task of learning.

You might find it odd to hear this from someone who teaches technology and does it for a living but you would only think that if you know did not know me and the hundreds of young people whom I have mentored over the years. They will all tell you that what they learned, they learned from ME – sitting at a computer, yes, but with me over their shoulder and by their side the whole way. The answer is NOT more technology in the classrooms, it is more PEOPLE. Personal interaction is what engages and inspires young people and all of this talk of putting more tech in front of young people at the expense of instructors is wrong-headed and will not produce the fantastical outcomes that everyone envisions. If we spent half as much on instructors as we spend on technology, our young people would be a lot better off. The next time you are asked to vote on a ballot measure that spends ever more money on technology in the classroom, perhaps you would be wise to ask how many instructors will lose their jobs as a result. How many more students will be crammed into a classroom as a result. Whether anyone will be there to notice that your child is struggling and needs a hug or a kind word to help them find their way back to the path. Without me and millions of other PEOPLE like me who truly care about your children – not because they can bubble the correct answer into an online quiz but because they are unique and wonderful individuals who are struggling their way towards adulthood – money spent on technology in the classroom is mostly a waste.

I am leaving FSU in part because of the relentless push to get class sizes up and personal interaction down. I am leaving because I am tired of being told I spend too much time with students. I am being told that I must automate what I do by using more technology to ‘teach’ more and more and more students – the goal is hundreds per semester – and that I must shoo those young people out of my office because what I do – one-on-one mentoring – is not ‘cost-effective’ and ‘scalable’ I am being told that I don’t matter – that all the students need is to use the expensive technology we have provided for them and the outcomes will be the same or better than anything I can provide through one-on-one interaction. I believe that spending time with students has a great deal more impact than putting a 32″ screen on every desk and testing outcomes on a scantron. I no longer want to participate in this relentless push to replace people with technology because while I like technology as much as anyone, it is NOT what makes a difference. A caring, committed mentor makes the difference and no matter how much time changes and technology marches on, there remains this simple truth. One caring person is the only thing that changes the life of a child and in fact, is the only thing that ever has. Because a computer cannot love you. Only a caring mentor/instructor can love you…..

Since 2007, I have worked within the FSU College of Communication &  Information  to develop Project SPARTA, a service learning program based on my belief that academic work must be augmented by practical, hands-on experience guided by  caring, involved mentors.   Approximately 700 students have participated in SPARTA in some form since its beginning, finding their bearings and professional success through a loose formula of instruction based on the ‘teaching moment’ and ‘learning by doing’. CCI provided the space for the program to take root and grow and  I am grateful for the support SPARTA has received over the years from my colleagues and students for without it, I would not find myself in the predicament I face today.  Like a root-bound plant, SPARTA has outgrown its original container. SPARTA is bigger than one student, one college, one university.  The vision has always been to drive fundamental, systemic change in the way we prepare young professionals to enter the workforce. In order for the vision to continue growing to its full potential, it must be replanted in a much larger container.  It is with this thought in mind that I have made the decision to create that larger container by forming a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging service learning on a much broader scale. The process of replanting the vision into this new container requires my full-time attention and it is for this reason that I will be leaving my current position at CCI at the end of the Fall 2011 semester.

As I move forward in creating this new non-profit organization, I am not leaving CCI behind.  I will continue to partner with the College, working with my colleagues and students as I always have to organize and manage service learning in a way that allows broad participation across the majors at both the undergrad and grad levels.  I will reach out to other colleges and universities, here in Tallahassee and beyond, with the goal of systemically changing how we prepare young people to enter the workforce.  The process of replanting this work into a new larger container will be a bit messy and require the support of those who share the vision.  Over the coming months, I will come to you, my SPARTAns – as I always said I would when you were first under my wing – and ask for your support in a variety of ways.

We cannot grow the project unless students and sponsors know it exits.  I need your help in spreading the word , helping to attract more students, more sponsors and now – donors. Without donors, we cannot do the down-in-the-dirt work required to replant the project in a much larger container.  SPARTAns. Talk to people about the value of your experience and encourage them to give in whatever way they can – whether it is time and energy, opportunities or financial support. We need all of it in order to thrive and grow the project to the next level.

In gratitude for all that has been and all that is yet to come.

Melissa*

* Your humble doorman. Sans the awesome uniform with the braid on the shoulder.

I said to my TA a while back that I am a better mentor than a teacher. I have thought a lot about that pearl of wisdom since then and it occurs to me that there are two kinds of teaching – externally structured classroom teaching and internally structured mentoring.

Teaching that is externally structured revolves around the idea that what can or needs to be taught on a given day is a known. Thus, syllabi can be planned, rubrics can be developed, due dates can be set and both teacher and students know exactly what they will be doing, when and where,  for the next 16 or so weeks. Many students like this teaching style because work can be planned, grades can be calculated and expectations are known.  Students can check items off a list and the focus is mostly on the grade earned, not the lessons learned.

On the other hand, mentoring, which has no external structure other than work to be completed for a client, assumes that the teaching moment will occur in some fashion every time the mentor and the student interact – though what will be taught or when the lesson will be given are not known in advance. Learning happens in fits and starts  as the project progresses, challenges are met and confusion is slowly replaced by clarity.  There are no rubrics, only results. There are no timelines other than the delivery date we have promised the client and that is a constantly shifting landscape.  Anything can and does happen over the course of 16 weeks and both student and mentor must be flexible and adaptable to respond to the challenges – there is no box, no structure other than the minimal framework I provide to guide the project and no guarantee of success for the student. Ambiguity abounds and many students find this an extraordinarily uncomfortable place to be because they have never been here before.  Our test-oriented system of education boils down knowledge to four choices on a scantron sheet  and many students just don’t know how to react when confronted with the fact that – as my mother likes to say – life is essay, not multiple choice.

What I realize about myself today is that I am an unstructured person on the whole. I like to get in my car and go on agenda-free road trips. I drive in the general direction of where I am going and see what happens.  I like to go to strange cities and walk around without my GPS, stumbling onto things that might have otherwise escaped my attention. I don’t plan outfits or meals or weekends.  I like to work in odd chunks of time  - as mood and inspiration hit me, not by the ticking of the clock and the recording of hours in spreadsheets. I get a lot done when left to my own devices because I work best when I follow my internal sense of how to structure my time and energy for that particular day. Some days, I feel really strong and inspired and do the work of three days in one. Other days, I feel  worn down and can barely do a half-day’s work in a full day.  It all works out in the end though because the three days I put in on a good day more than compensate for the half-day I put in on a bad day and when left to myself, I have a lot of good days and not too many bad ones.  I am not only comfortable with ambiguity, my soul seems to demand it in every area of my life. Why then, has it taken me so long to realize that I am simply not wired for teaching  - my comment to my TA was a life-changing insight.  I am a mentor, plain and simple and that is not the same as being a teacher. I am not placing a value judgement on one over the other – mentoring is neither better nor worse than teaching, it is just a different way of going at the process of imparting learning to learners. At the end of the day, both teachers and mentors ask themselves “Has learning occurred?” – we both want the same end result, we simply approach it from different directions.

I am fascinated by the mystery of life as it unfolds – every day is like opening a gift-wrapped box and being  surprised and (mostly!)  delighted by what is inside. That is the essence of my experience mentoring students – I put them out there and see what happens next – often the outcome surprises everyone, including me! I can never tell which way it is going to go. Sometimes students whom I think are going to soar fall flat and sometimes, students whom I am pretty sure can’t tie their own shoes astound me with their brilliance when turned loose to follow their own internal structure. Mentoring is such a crap shoot and that is what I love about it.

To those who teach, I salute you. Yours is a hard job and I admire your well-planned syllabi, your rubrics, your learning outcomes, your grading scales. I have often wished over the years that I could be more like you because I feel like such a failure as a teacher – though I feel quite successful as a mentor. My comment to my TA jolted me into the realization that I can never be like you because I have to be more like me – unstructured and in the moment – which is the opposite of what is needed to teach in the classroom but exactly what is needed to be the great mentor that I am and am meant to be.  To the young people who have suffered through my ill-advised attempts to teach according to external structure, I apologize. You did not see me at my best. To the young people whom I have had the good fortune to take under my wing as mentees – you have received some of the best hours and days of my life and it has been and will continue to be a joy to take a journey into the unknown with you.