May 1996 — Features

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The School Design Model at Brewster Academy: Technology Serving Teaching & Learning

DR. ALAN BAIN, Assistant Headmaster, Brewster Academy, Wolfeboro, N.H

The change process has also taken a personal toll on the community. Brewster experienced higher than normal levels of attrition as numbers of teachers left a school that bore little resemblance to the one they worked in three years ago. While the need for the type of change currently occurring at Brewster resonates from the dialogue of professional groups, talk shows, prime time specials, and within the popular press and professional literature, the compelling rationale d'es not necessarily result in a diminished resistance to change within schools. The inherent conflict created by implementing a model that draws on the best practices from all of education, but is implemented with faculty of just one institution, creates a discontinuity that can only result in a changing faculty profile. Change is not easy and creates pain for individual teachers, students and the school community at large.

At a pragmatic level, the development of more sophisticated and student–;centered teaching materials has added significantly to the workload in the start–;up period. Interestingly, the systemic nature of the technology program has minimized resistance with respect to computer use. The presence is so comprehensive that it is hard to avoid. When 15 students arrive in class and start–;up their PowerBooks simultaneously, an expectation that technology become part of the routine is created by its overwhelming presence.

With the growth in the network, it is easy to end up "out of the loop." Two of the school's administrative offices that were formerly resistant to getting on the network have recently installed Macintosh workstations to get back into the communications ¼cture. This d'es not mean that Brewster has fully achieved its objective. In terms of potential, it may be several years before Brewster has achieved the objective of fully embedding technology into the pedagogical life of the school.

Our intensity of use has helped us to identify all sorts of things about kids, parents and technology.

The Future

We practice our craft in an era of great questioning about education and the ways in which it is delivered to students. Administrators, parents and teachers are all searching for answers to difficult questions. Charter schools, privatization and vouchers appear and re–;appear in the lexicon of educational change.