PROFILES | Shapers Of Our Future: 2000
Predicting the future of education and technology is as easy as talking to the ones who are creating it. In our second annual issue highlighting leadership, we pay tribute to those individuals who shape the future of education through the use of technology. These leaders and innovators exemplify what many of us work toward each day, yet they are one of us, partners in progress. There are many more just like them who deserve a place here, individuals from all sectors of education and technology. May this sampling of those making a difference now, so the future is that much brighter, inspire the leader and innovator in you. Vicor Rivero, Editor
Dennis Harper: Generation Y Guy
Inspirations
INDIVIDUAL: Murray Thomas from the University of California and previously the dean of education at Stanford. "He convinced me to get a Ph.D. and go overseas, and helped me develop my ability to write grants."
QUOTE: "Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." -- Chinese proverb.
BOOK: "Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation" by Don Tapscott, "because of the book's focus on kids and the fact that we can't reform things without kids -- that's one of the things Generation Why is based on."
Dennis Harper
Web site: https://genyes.org
- Founder and project director for the Generation www.Y (Generation Why) Technology Innovation Challenge Grants.
- Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
- Began teaching in East Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. Visited or taught in almost every country in the world, including the University of Helsinki, the Institute of Education in Singapore, the National University of Malaysia, the University of the Virgin Islands and UCSB.
For 34 countries on this planet, the first computers in their schools were bought by one Dennis Harper -- but this is a small clue to what the larger story of Dennis Harper is. Today, you can find Harper in Olympia, Wash., where he is the director of the district's Generation Why program. Generation Why focuses on today's youth as partners -- and often leaders -- in integrating technology into the lesson plans of the nation's classrooms.
Harper believes strongly that technology should be an integral part of education. "For someone to question whether technology should be integrated into education is like asking why we should integrate books or pens," he said. "No other business in the world besides education would even ask that question."
A distinguishing component to Harper's efforts lies in his approach to technology training. Harper believes much of the current push is on training teachers to use technology, with the intended result of improved student learning. Harper, however, demonstrates a successful inversion of that equation: directly training students to use technology, with the intended result of improving how teachers teach. "Technology can help kids learn more in less time, and make learning more efficient."
Harper believes a large part of reforming education has to do with changing the things Americans think are important. "When we have Shaquille O'Neal making around $400,000 a game, what does that say about our priorities? One NBA regular season game costs $3.1 million to produce, and we're willing to pay that without batting an eye," he said. "But try raising the tax levy by 1 cent per $100,000 valuation of a house and all hell breaks loose. If I could do anything to change education, I would start by changing the priorities we have when it comes to educating our kids."
Harper's proudest professional accomplishment thus far is getting others to begin to see students as change agents rather than solely as the objects of change. "We still have places and organizations that don't want kids sitting on committees, on boards, in meetings," he said. "But kids make up 90 percent of K-12 education [yet possess] 95 percent of the technology knowledge. If you can't involve kids in technology, where are you going to involve them? They often know more about technology than the teachers do. To exclude those kids is ridiculous. I think I've made some inroads in convincing educators to involve kids."
Harper said his message to the world when it comes to education and technology is that kids should be a bigger part of it. "Kids are 90 percent of K-12 education and should make up 90 percent of school reform," he said. "Right now they are nearly zero." But on Harper's scoreboard, the game has just begun. * Justine K. Brown
