In iPads We Trust

The equity issue in education (and the world) is complex. It’s been long known that the income of the parents in a district can strongly predict the outcomes of the students it educates. We’ve seen this play out, a giant human experiment, the entire time we’ve had a public education system. Want to know the likelihood of a child to graduate? Look at their zip code. For people involved in social justice work and education advocates this is a well known and ugly truth. 

It’s not a secret in education that it is harder to teach students when they don’t come to school well fed or with a steady home. And it’s easier for educators to effectively teach students when their focus doesn’t have to be behavior management. To put this into anecdotal perspective as well, the opportunities provided students are different. Despite extra funding going towards Title Schools (those for which free or reduced lunch rate is significant) things like Parent Teacher Organization funding varies drastically, as do community partnerships. This is the difference between a PTO being able to fundraise $5000 for enrichment opportunities like Senior All Nighter or extra craft supplies, etc. and PTO bringing in excess of $50,000 annually. The opportunities provided for kids are obviously going to be different. 

The difference between equity, equality, and justice in the classroom. Giving everyone a chrome book or iPad would fall into the equality category, where you are affording everyone the same opportunity even though not everyone needs the same thing to fix their problem. Image source

We’ve got a huge equity problem in the U.S. education system. How is putting an iPad in their hands going to fix it? Maybe more than you’d think. Giving students access to something that has text books, note taking, internet, and school resources preloaded doesn’t level the playing ground, but it is a start. It’s the difference between equality (giving everyone the same thing, like the same size slice of pie), and equity which would be feeding each person according to how hungry they are. You’re not going to give someone a big piece of pie if they tell you they aren’t hungry, but you might give a bigger piece to a kid who hasn’t eaten today. 

Giving tech to students is a small piece in our big equity puzzle. Giving students different ways to demonstrate their knowledge by giving them access to reliable technology is HUGE. Giving students the opportunity to lessen homework time by finding alternate sources of information on YouTube, or consulting experts who publish online research is a big step in the right direction. But it cannot replace good teachers, and it can only be a good thing if we are effective in teaching students how to use them. We need critical thinking now more than ever, and it is our job as educators to teach our students how to 

So is an iPad a fix? No. BUT - I think it can be a step towards the right direction if we let it. I think it can be a signal that we’re moving towards the kind of teaching that effectively engages our students to be global citizens - and that’s important. At the very least, we are doing our students a disservice if we don’t adopt technology in our classrooms, it’s the way that education is moving. We can lessen the gap between those who already have tech in the classroom, and the opportunities it affords them, by adopting technology in our classrooms quickly.