After years of life in the dog-eat-dog business world, Ken Wedge thought it would be interesting to spend some time in the academic world. Much to his surprise, he found himself teaching the teachers...
As Director of Technology for a private, college-prep school, I was pleased to be surrounded by scholars and away from the hectic business world. But after a few weeks on the job, I quickly realized that smart people don't necessarily make a job easier. On most days, I would often go home at night shaking my head in disbelief. The two most recent and sad -- but hilarious -- cases happened on back-to-back days last week.
The first was during a conversation with our Technology Coordinator, who has a Masters' in Technology Education and is responsible for integrating technology into the curriculum. After building a new school website, I began to include the "daily announcement" on one of the pages. Once set-up, I approached the coordinator, whose also has the responsibility of updating the site. I told her that the announcements would now be online, instead of typed, copied 100 times, and hand-delivered to every classroom. She claimed that she really liked getting the hard copy, even though it was against our goal of becoming paperless. When I asked her why, she replied, "Well, to be truthful, it's because I'm really not a computer person!" Just what you expect to hear from the school's Technology Coordinator, isn't it?
As if that wasn't enough, the following day was even better. One of the administrators had recently changed offices and had bought a new computer table for her equipment. She approached me and asked if would stop by and move the equipment to its new location for her.
Since it wasn't a scheduled job, I decided to put it off since my schedule was pretty booked. Later that day she stopped by to say that she had moved it herself, but the monitor picture was "askew." Jokingly, I told her to put a couple of books under the leg of her chair to even it out, and I would take a look at it the next morning. She just looked at me blankly and didn't seem to get the joke.
The following morning, she stopped me in the hall to say that she had figured out the problem. Apparently she never noticed that one of the lenses from her eyeglasses had fallen out! And shockingly enough, when she put it back in, her monitor was fine!
Lesson learned: I guess this experience just proves the saying: "Those who can, do. And those who can't, teach."
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