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Thursday, February 25, 2016

Using Teacher Shortage Talk to Justify Online Instruction

Using Teacher Shortage Talk to Justify Online Instruction:

Using Teacher Shortage Talk to Justify Online Instruction

Child looking at a computer. Computer addiction
A few weeks ago Nick Morrison wrote an article for Forbes titled “Sleepwalking Our Way into the Teacher-Less Classroom.” He insists that technology, specifically the takeover by online instruction in schools, is not the real danger facing education.
Instead, he claims it is a teacher shortage.
According to Morrison, teachers leave due to pressure, and if there are no more teachers left standing, the establishment has to move to online instruction because—well what else is there?
He was focused on England and he presented an audit report pointing to the problem there. England parallels America in its de-professionalization of teachers and the privatization of schools. The teacher shortage talk is just as prevalent here.
But the teacher shortage so-called concern has been around for thirty years! About the Using Teacher Shortage Talk to Justify Online Instruction: