Secondary Pig

n The Sticks, high school on the edge, Secondary Pig was happily teaching English to grades ten, eleven and twelve. Ms. Piggish had been teaching for fifteen years and was really good at reciting Shakespeare and simply loved everything about her subject – except the marking! When she first heard that Mr. Wolfe was coming for a visit, she wasn’t worried at all. She used computers in her classes all the time for word processing essays and researching essays and doing presentations on Power Point. Technology really wasn’t as bad as all the other high school teachers claimed. What was their concern? It was simple to add a little technology to an already full curriculum. Just ask Ms. Piggish - she could do it all!

he staff at The Sticks had decided to dispense with regular computer classes and opted for each subject area to use the computer lab in order to meet the technological directives issued by King Klien, ruler of Fairytale Land. The problem was that some teachers knew absolutely nothing about computers and were technologically challenged. Another problem was every class was expected to use one computer lab that was very difficult to book and didn’t have the capacity to have more than two people online at once without shutting down the server! The computer teacher spent most of his time on the phone to Central Office asking for something to be fixed instead of assisting in the lab and generally the high school teachers soon discovered it was not time effective to use the lab for much of anything except word processing.

he day Mr. Wolfe came to visit Ms. Piggish he noticed that Ms. Piggish’s course outline was really no different from the one she had written the year before.

    “Ms. Piggish”, he growled, “I’ve been looking at your course outline to see where your technology goals are and how you plan to meet them. I don’t see anything different than last year’s plan.”

    “Well Mr. Wolfe, that is because I already do everything I need to in terms of technology.” beamed Ms. Piggish.

    “Well I’m very concerned you are not thinking outside of your own subject area. You seem to be focusing on English all the time.”

    “Well what would you think ‘the English teacher’ should be focusing on?” she inquired somewhat politely.

Mr. Wolfe grinned, “On some new technology that’s what.”

     “Mr. Wolfe, I am so busy teaching eight classes, working on my masters degree and raising a family I hardly have time to do what I have to do let alone worry about extra objectives. Besides I told you I’m doing them. The students know more about technology than I do anyhow. They are probably doing more ‘technology’ where it is appropriate – in math and science classes. Go huff and puff to those teachers.” And Ms. Piggish, slightly rattled, decided to meet with Primary Pig and they together would go to see their friend Techno Pig and ask for her help.…