Are Teachers Inherently Innovative?
One of the blogosphere’s more intelligent educators, DanMeyer, suggests that a large percentage of teachers are innovative.
Realize that if you’re a teacher and you’re reading a blog post, you’re automatically seeded in the top 10% of innovative educators. You’ll try anything once. Let’s also go with Jack Welch and assume that 10% of educators are hopelessly and/or willfully incompetent.
Convince yourself, then, that 80% of teachers exist on a sliding scale of innovation and are basically up for grabs. Those who don’t want to try [x] aren’t necessarily bad educators. They may have made a rational calculation that [x] isn’t easy enough, fun enough, or free enough to adopt.
As evidenced by the many comments on Dan’s post, this is a hot-button issue.
Beyond the specifics of Dan’s X and Y musings, the foundation of the commentary got me to wondering; are educators truly innovative, or do they see new technology and flinch, when someone suggests that they try integrating it into their classrooms?
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