PaulAllison

PAULALLISON

Ideas

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Paul Allison has been been teaching ever since he graduated from Hunter College, CUNY in 1983. After a few years in the desert (Utah), and a couple of years at the High School of Art and Design, NYC, he had a wonderful dozen years at University Heights Secondary School, Bronx, NY, where he learned that doing school better didn’t have to be the same-old, with more effort. After that, Paul worked with English Language Learners at the International High School in Queens for three years. After 9/11, there was a lot of talk about doing meaningful work. At the same time, Paul was finding himself being seduced by new forms of literacy on the Internet. An opportunity to become a “studio teacher” of technology at East Side Community High School, NYC presented itself in the Summer of 2002, and Paul taught "New Journalism" at ESCHS for five years. In the Fall of 2007, Paul moved back the the Bronx to teach English in the 7th Grade at East Bronx Academy for the Future. Another community that Paul is a part of is the New York City Writing Project. He was a participant in the NYCWP’s Summer Invitational in 1985, and he has worked for the NYCWP in various ways ever since. Currently, with Felicia George, Paul is the NYC Technology Liaison for the National Writing Project.

Interests

education, blogging, webcasting, podcasting, writing process, Reading, teaching, learning

Most Recent Idea

Education

How is technological innovation changing the educational system?

01/17/2008

The second talking point about 21st Century literacy is: The world of technological innovation moves at a different pace than the educational system.

When I first looked at this sentence, I wondered how it could be a talking point: Of course the speed of change is faster with technology than it is with schools. But this is so obvious that I wonder why it's worth mentioning.

However, look at what happens when we replace "technology" with what I think these talking points should be about, "compelling communication." I think this talking point should read something like this:

Compelling communicators use writing in new ways (qualitatively different than writing in traditional classrooms, not just getting to the same goals faster) because of technological changes, and educational systems need to change to remain relevant in this changing world.

This leads to a different question. It's not about finding a way to reconcile different paces of change. It's not about how teachers can moderate between two different cultures, but more about how we can continue to live in both technological and educational worlds without going crazy. Much of what happens in schools--especially around testing--must stop. We don't need to change schools faster, we need to start again.