Today, I’m launching a new hashtag. I have no idea how people do this, but I suppose I’ll just declare it here and let it go viral. Ready?
#OneClipboardPerChild
My deep research on this topic indicates we have a long ways to go:
But we’ve got this, right? Has to start with someone. Let it start with us.
I imagine most viral hashtags didn’t start out with someone begging others to make it go viral, but rather the messages struck a deep chord with a few and then a few more and then spread like wildfire. But anyhow, maybe there are some rich veins of resonance here. Worth a try.
Why clipboards?
I think a lot about education technology. About its real benefits and its many unfulfilled promises. And its dangers.
In a society obsessed with technology and the future, at a moment when dystopian shows about virtual reality like Netflix’s Three Body Problem experience skyrocketing success, nature-based learning1 often feels very analog (just go outside), understated (too simple), and even quaint (put a bird on it). Especially when compared with sensationalist claims of how technology will transform learning. I feel like this:
This contrast is especially true when I add the “apple-a-day” modifier to connote modest, bite-sized changes to teaching practice (which, by the way, is how real, sustainable change happens in education) that I 100% believe could become routinized in schools everywhere.
I’m not a (total) luddite
Let me be clear, I am not advocating for getting our abacuses (abacci?) out of the attic or museum or wherever these things are stored these days.
I see all kinds of places where appropriately used “edtech” can buoy learning and make cooler stuff happen that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. As one example, I love the citizen science projects enabled by rad apps.
How cool is it that we can gather data from all over the globe about the health of specific birds or butterflies or air quality or the darkness of the night sky? So cool!
BUT…
Those of you who have read here before know I’m mostly a both-and sort-of gal. And, in this case, I’m using the word but.
Edtech has a place,
BUT I feel like I’m in some dystopian reality (I only wish it were part of the VR craze!) where conversations about improving education often/mostly start with AI/software/platforms/apps or 1:1 devices crusades. It’s like there’s this dense fog preventing funders, journalists, policy makers, thought leaders and so many more from seeing what’s happening on-the-ground.
On the ground — “Kwa Ground” as my Kenyan friends say in perfect Kiswahilish — I see piles of tablets and e-readers — and all the fancy apps they contain — crusted with dust, missing keys, with broken screens. In some parts, I see young people who are addicted to screens and afflicted by strongly correlated and ever-more-severe mental health conditions. And in other parts, I see students who are trying to learn to read or about how plants grow, even when they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Or when.
Through it all, I see teachers who are — regardless of their access to modern technology and often in-spite-of tech’s interferences — building real relationships with real humans in the embodied real world, caring for them in the ways they need In Real Life. IRL.
And when I think about the technology that can best support real humans in real life doing this real work “kwa ground,” I come back to apple-a-day nature-based learning.
Yes, because of nature’s mental and physical wellbeing benefits for humans. Yes because of the academic benefits. And the engaging, authentic, student-driven learning benefits. And the better attention. And the improved behavior.
And because of the (existential) planetary benefits of all humans feeling an emotional connection with more-than-human nature.
But today I will focus on this nature-based learning benefit:
Apple-a-day nature-based learning is “edtech” (however low-tech it may be) that supports — even enables — better relationships between real humans in real life. And relationships are what good education has always been about.
As for clipboards - they are the hardware for the nature-based learning relationship-building software.
They are low cost. They work every time. If they break (rarely), we can get out a binder clip and fix them in a jiffy.
#oneclipboardperchild
❤️ B
Nature-based learning = learning outdoors or bringing elements of nature indoors for learning.