I'm thankful to start 2021 with Daisy Christodoulou's new book, Teachers vs Tech? The case for an ed tech revolution, published in March 2020 by Oxford University Press. In this post, I like to share my personal notes and reflections on some of the important key points.
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Christodoulou, who is the Director of Education at No More Marking and the author of Seven Myths of Education (2014) as well as Making Good Progress? The future of Assessment of Learning (2017) - is also an English language teacher. This has made the book all the more appealing to me. To deliver some of her arguments, she offers lots of examples and anecdotes from classroom experiences that resonate with my own. Of course, there are plenty of examples from other subjects like mathematics and science, too - but it is my belief that many English language teachers would find this aspect of the book helpful in so many ways.

The book's Foreword is written by Paul Kirschner. He ponders on the fact that despite all the hypes that surround it, ed tech doesn't seem to be successful in revamping education in the same ways that previous revolutions like the printing press and the blackboard (or the chalkboard) did. At least not yet. In Kirschner's words:

​(p. 10)

The questions that we need to ask

The introduction chapter opens with a quote by Thomas Edison from 1913 where he predicted that books will be obsolete and that everything will be taught with "motion picture" in ten years. Echoing Kirschner's sentiment in the Foreword, Christodoulou points at how education today has remained almost  similar to how it had been in Edison's time. She writes: "Compared to the change and disruption that technology has brought to practically every other part of our society, education is an outlier" (p. 14). 

Christodoulou argues that if education does indeed need to change, these are the two fundamental questions that we need to ask: 1) how do humans learn? and 2) what causes learning to happen? The main theme of the book is to find out "the gap between what we know about human cognition, and what often gets recommended in education technology" (p. 22). According to Christodoulou:

(p. 23)

On the last day of 2020, my social media feeds were lined from top to bottom with people reflecting on their 2020 highlights and biggest achievements of the year.

A friend urged me to share what I would consider my biggest achievement. She thought it necessary to celebrate every single achievement, no matter how small, to make 2020 (which undoubtedly had been the hardest year for many) worthy of celebration. I racked my brain, but I couldn't find anything worth sharing. I didn't think I had achieved anything - I had been spending too much of my 2020 on finding healing and trying to survive. 

But I posted this on Facebook, nevertheless:

I guess my friend wasn't too impressed with that - but I honestly believed that that was my biggest achievement of the year. I had procrastinated doing that for too long, so to be able to enter the new year with an organised closet was a magical feeling. 

But skimming through my friends' posts on my feed got me thinking. Is this what a brand new year is supposed to be about? Collecting trophies and achievements? Well, there's nothing wrong with that of course; it's never a bad thing to have goals and ambitions. But what if I don't want to have any achievement to brag about at the end of the year? What does "achievement" really mean?

I asked a dear friend of mine what she thought was her biggest achievement of the year. This was her reply: 

"My biggest achievement is remaining a Christian till the end of 2020. And not running away from God when things became hard."

She also wrote:

"This was God's grace in an ultimate sense, but it also felt like a major achievement somehow."

God's grace. 

But aren't all achievements God's grace? I don't think I would ever be able to lift my lazy bones to clean that poor closet of mine if it wasn't for God's grace. 
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I'm just a book

In addition to overwhelming posts about successes and achievements (which I enjoyed reading - they were like refreshing oasis in the midst of what seemed to be a parched year), I was also bombarded with newsletters about books that had impacted the world in 2020. I love books, and I always welcome these newsletters as they give me ideas on what to put in my reading list for the following year. The books that shaped 2020 from Penguin is one of my favourites, as well as the Best Books 2020 from Goodreads and Most Anticipated Books of 2021 from Times.

As I tried to decide which books to include in my list, I did more than just reading the reviews and synopsis. I also tried to learn as much as I could about the authors. The authors, to me, are always as important as (if not more important than) the books.

I pondered upon it this morning, and this thought came to me:

People can't enjoy a book without appreciating the author.
People can't celebrate a person without glorifying the Creator.

I was reminded then that I'm just a book. Without my Author, I'm nothing. 

In the Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis wrote: 

"Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest "well pleased." "

When I celebrate my achievements and blessings, I should be giving Him glory. He's the Creator who made this book. He's the Author who writes my story.

Have a blessed 2021.
​~ccj, Duvanson, 9.54am