What year are you getting your students ready for? Are you getting them ready for when they graduate from college, or when you graduated? Was that the 80s when the soda (or pop) world tricked us with NEW Coke? Was that the 90s when grunge meant more than just a dirty man in the garage? Was that the turn of the millennium when Netscape and AOL changed the way we found information?
What have you done to keep up with your changing students? Is the butterfly lesson you’ve presented in your classroom for years still engaging the kids the way it did back in the day? Is the VCR still blinking 12:00 in your home? (You still have a VCR?!) If you seriously reflect on your ministry, is it time for you to take a leap of faith and realize that your education needs “to be continued”?
I don’t have the time! School doesn’t have the money! I’m only a few years from retirement! The list of excuses can go on. And with each excuse, another class of students is denied the special opportunity to receive both high quality and Christian education.
Continuing education of teachers is a core feature of what makes successful students. The single biggest factor in student achievement is the person in the front of the classroom (Rice, 2003). If the teacher in the classroom possesses a 1986 teaching style for a student who will graduate from college in 2025, there is a problem. The need for teachers to be continually learning is evident. And the dividends far outweigh the perceived inconveniences.
Collaboration: Every person in your school should be engaged in some sort of continuing education. That’s right, every person. While some school leaders may cringe at the cost this may incur, it need not be expensive. For some, continuing education may mean formal instruction toward an advanced degree. For others, it may be as basic as an educational book discussion among faculty. The key is this: the more teachers are engaged in continuing their own education, the more they engage with one another in meaningful change within their school (DuFour, DuFour & Eaker, 2006). The “do-your-own-thing” mentality needs to be replaced by a spirit of collaboration and communication about our most precious commodities, our students and our Lord.
Time: This four-letter word can be friend or foe. We all have the same amount of time; what we do with that time is what determines whether we have enough of it. Formal programs of study, with travel to and from campuses, may pose challenges for some, but with online learning the travel is eliminated, and in most cases classes meet when you’re free. Current models like those from Martin Luther College and Wisconsin Lutheran College offer asynchronous class environments where class is always in session and you’re able to contribute whenever you’re free.
Money: Formal education costs money, but it doesn’t need to be a budget breaker, especially in our technological age. Recently Shoreland Lutheran High School faculty engaged in an MLC webinar series on differentiated instruction. This webinar allowed the faculty to watch a video presentation on their own time, convene with colleagues to discuss their reflections on the video, and finally reflect via a short, individual written assessment. All of this cost $20 per teacher, a small price to pay for incredible, synergized continuing education that will last for many years. For approximately $500, the entire Shoreland faculty engaged in a year’s worth of dialogue that would have cost thousands of dollars if done separately at university or college campuses. Webinars exist in a number of varied settings and are offered by many colleges and educational entities for a minimal cost and, in some cases, no cost at all.
Just ten years ago, the educational world was different. Author Thomas Friedman (2011) humorously quips that in 2003, Google was a number, tweets were the sounds birds made, Facebook was the position our noses were in when we fell asleep in class, the cloud was a place in the sky, and Skype was a typo! Yet these tools are now readily available and inexpensive, allowing us to continue our education without excessive dents in our schedules or pocketbooks.
Is it time we as professionals catch up to meet the demands of our changing learners? Or is it okay to remain satisfied with our antiquated approach to education because “it’s easier for us?” The stakes are too high, the need is too great, and the future of our kids is too important for us to sit on the sidelines and wait for the next person to pick up our slack. Our role as leaders demands that we create a plan to continue our learning. And the best part is that it’s never been easier and more affordable to do than right now.
Written by Jason H. Lowrey, PhD. Jason is the Dean of Academics at Shoreland Lutheran High School, Somers WI.
DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2006). Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN: Learning Tree Press.
Friedman, Thomas L. & Mandelbaum, Michael (2011). That used to be us: How America fell behind in the world it invented and how we can come back. New York: D&M Publishers Inc.
Rice, Jennifer (2003). Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes. Retrieved
On March 23, 2013 from
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Well said! I got my teaching credential in 1979. I continued to take various classes for years. While teaching I tried to read an educational book each week. When I turned 50 I got my Masters in Science Education from an online school. Being a lifelong learner means never losing your curiosity or your thirst for learning. I teach nothing like I did 30 years ago. I am current with teaching methods and enjoy working with public school at-risk youth.
Dr. Lowrey, I appreciate your candor and your frank presentation of the facts. If a school leader plainly paints a vision of the future, has a humble attitude of serving the school, and has a ferocious will on behalf of Christ, then change will come through continuing education.
Unlike my friend Perry from Iowa, I don’t think this article is really about technology at all. I feel Dr. Lowrey paints with the color of technology to show how people are slow to adapting to the more modern times and ways. It talks how our educational and theological leaders are not moving us to where the WELS needs to be in education.
It is true, that the students in our WELS schools are living in a technology age and as Lutheran educators we need to reach them where they are at. We also need to study brain -based research that wasn’t around 24 years ago when I started teaching. We need to take that research, make it captive to the Word of Christ, and work to apply it to our classrooms and schools. Our classroom composition has changed and we as educators need to change. Yes, it is going to be work. It is going to take money to go to school and see great teachers in action. It is going to take time (rats, I can’t golf every day this summer), and it is going to take collaboration–working together to best serve the lambs that Christ has entrusted to us. We need strong leaders in our WELS schools to take us there.
Great article Dr. Lowrey, but now tell us; how will we develop leaders that will take us boldly and confidently into the new future?
Looking back on my time teaching since 1986, I find that this article, which pricks the consciences of us all, could easily apply to the past. I remember writing computer code and building digital tools to enhance teaching and learning back in the late 1980s and into the 1990s at the college level. I recall the conferences here in Iowa (called ITEC) where many forward thinking educators presented on how to use digital tools in the classroom. We also ran courses that utilized those tools.
Even in the late 1980s, the college I was teaching and working for here in Iowa, had an Applied CS program with all the courses built with hands on components using the computers. Collaboration, teamwork and communication skills were stressed alongside the content to be learned. We built our own network of digital tools on early versions of the web services (crude by today’s standards) to help students learn. Prior to that we even had terminal games where students had to build their own robots to go into the arena of competition against other student bots. Green screen gladiator battles!
Already back then, those of us teaching with computers in subject areas like applied science, economics and natural science saw the benefits. I remember trying to convince our faculty at William Penn about the coming age of digital video in 1990 when QuickTime was taking a foothold and CD encyclopedias were options to paper versions. Teachers were not convinced video could be used beyond content presentation. Now we have video used in simulation and modeling. Students can create their own video easily for portfolios in demonstrating what they have learned – both in terms of skills performance and content.
Given all that I have mentioned, there is a mindset in teaching that run the spectrum from “not being a lifelong learner” to “being an active lifelong learner”. I am not sure that the carrot method can be used without modification. I am very certain the stick method will not encourage teachers to change. I would be interested to experiment with team teaching where the strengths of a “older classroom style teacher” are combined with the technology oriented skills of another teacher. There is the idea of teacher mentoring being talked about in Iowa’s future as part of legislation on education, however it is not focused in this area of teaching our future students. Perhaps teacher mentoring for WELS can address that angle whereby our teachers can learn from each other’s strengths.
Well there you have it. An older teacher’s perspective.