In the last week, I’ve been a high school physics teacher, a high school math teacher, and a high school physical science teacher and all I can think about is “Harriet Tubman.”

Each time I entered high school classrooms, the lesson plans were almost exactly the same. In the physics class, a paragraph directing me to hand out a worksheet, with no structure or pedagogy present. In the math class, no lesson plans at all. They just left a note stating that another teacher would come and demonstrate what the students would be asked to do and that I “should just repeat” what I saw. The physical science teacher had a paragraph and worksheets. In all three cases, most students opted out of the assignments and the worksheets were left on tables, on the floor, in trash cans, and in rare cases in the bins where they were asked to turn them in.

Three different schools with the same outcomes. The most recent case, the physical science class, was absolutely fascinating to observe. The first hour, we had TikTok money phone videos. Talking to the actress, she explained that she shoots a video each morning during class. I looked at her in disbelief. Every day? Everyday. During class? During class.

How exactly was this student getting away with publishing TikTok videos daily while the teacher was instructing? How did the teacher not look at this student’s ability to record and market herself as an asset and consider how to integrate this into the instructional environment? HOW ARE WE STILL DOING WORKSHEETS?

Then I looked at the mountains of ungraded worksheets. I told the aspiring influencer to keep getting money and watched the hands of the analog clock slowly tick during the block period. I advised her to get to work. She didn’t. The bell rang and the students scurried out of the room. A few ritually engaged students turned in the worksheets that were left. Most sheets were left on the tables. I gathered them and returned them to the pile.

The next period I had a prep which gave me the opportunity to reflect. As usual, I put my headphones on. The band “Harriet Tubman” had just dropped a rather impressive album with Georgia Anne Muldrow. The band is named in honor of the abolitionist, feminist, spy who was famous for freeing enslaved people in the United States. The sounds of the album guided me to question what I had experienced in the last few days as a high school teacher. I thought back to my time as a math teacher earlier in the week. It was the most bored I’ve been this school year. The teacher had left no lesson plans. Instead, another teacher stood in the front of the class and rattled off a bit about some formulas, the students wrote the information down, and then the teacher departed. 10 minutes tops. No interaction. No collaboration. No questions. The kids wrote analog notes on random pieces of paper, notebooks, and loose leaf sheets. They were less garrulous than other high school students I’d observed. I attribute that partially to the old-school rows the classroom was arranged in. I couldn’t move around the classroom freely to talk like I like to, and neither could they. It was a totally forgettably unforgettable day. Harriet wasn’t coming through that door. There was no freedom and no hope of any.

When the next physical science class came in, I again passed out the worksheets that wouldn’t be done. The threat that “this is going to be graded” is almost laughable when I say it to students who have little interest in the assignments. I circulated throughout the room and found a young man sketching characters in his sketchbook. His work was exquisite and I asked him what his plans were. He said he wanted to be an art director. We conversed about DC’s Absolute Universe while he freehand sketched Remy LeBeau. He was authentically engaged, just not interested in the worksheet he had been assigned. (Perhaps the kids can free themselves?) The class period ended and I collected the worksheets that were left behind. There were more of them than in the previous period.

The final period, I met two rather impressive young ladies. They were juniors and had, through summer school and night school, been able to graduate a year early. We chatted a bit about how and why they had devised these plans. They explained they were tired of school and wanted to find the fastest exit. Given the evidence in the classroom, I could see the attraction to this idea.

I did attendance about halfway through the period and came upon a young man in the back. I asked his name so I could mark it off the sheet. He told me that his name wasn’t on the list.

Why are you here? I have a free period and I come into this class every day. I was incredulous. She’s cool with you just chillin’ in this class? Yeah, I go to sleep.

I agreed to let him stay as long as he didn’t cause any problems. True to his word, he went to sleep.

There was a group in the front having just the best time. They were all EL students playing a game in Spanish. I attempted to engage but they spoke so fast I couldn’t understand them. My interruptions seemed to annoy them so I just let them be. There had been no differentiation on the worksheets. At least two of the students had limited English proficiency. I wondered how they were being served in an analog-forward classroom.

The period ended with the least number of worksheets completed. I went around the room picking up packets and returning them to the desk. When I organized them into piles, it was as if I never passed the pages out to begin with. I went around the classroom, tidying with my headphones on. These students had developed strategies to free themselves from the monotony they had experienced. Perhaps it’s not the students who need to be freed. They seem to have found their own paths to independence. The troubling part is this: the adults in the system believe they are Harriet. They revisit the same instructional strategies in the hope of convincing students that freedom lies at the end of a worksheet, when learners are already making their own ways out.

As usual, I emailed the teacher in advance and received a short paragraph about what learners would be asked to do. No procedures. No seating chart. No bell work. No slide deck. No problem. I’ve learned a long time ago to match the energy of the teacher leaving the plans.

I entered the classroom and eventually found the printed paragraph I had been sent via email and the copies of the worksheet to be passed to learners. I contemplated structuring a lesson, but realized I wasn’t being paid enough to do so.

When the first learners came into the classroom, I took attendance, read the instructions from the teacher, and passed the worksheets out. Almost to a person, they thanked me for the sheet of paper and most opted out of the work. Some said they’d do it for homework. Others didn’t make promises they knew they wouldn’t keep.

Conversations began. Headphones got put on. I observed.

During the first period, two friends got into a conversation about how one was chronically absent and how hungry they were. They asked if I wanted anything for breakfast. I responded that I didn’t and then asked them how they were going to have food delivered during school. They responded that they would meet the driver across the street and a friend would prop a door open to slip back inside. I laughed.

Period 2 was a mirror image of the first. Pass worksheets. Students largely ignore the worksheets and converse respectfully. Or listen to music. Or scroll through their phones. I circulated through the room and made small talk. The assignment was less than inspiring and it was no wonder why the students opted out of it. They were each polite, watched their tone, and the time flew by.

It was in period 3 that I was struck by something. This was the first of two AP course periods and for the first time I noticed what Schlechty refers to as strategic compliance and ritual compliance. During the previous periods, the worksheets had been attempted by few students and completed by fewer still. In this period, students had to log in to a website or continue working a project. As I walked through the classroom, some students were taking notes. This is not to say the majority were, but far more were “engaged” than in the previous classes.

I happened upon a young lady taking notes in her notebook and I asked her what would happen if she were to leave her notebook at home or, worse still, if she were to lose it. She said that she would have to get the notes from a friend. I asked what would happen if she were unable to understand the handwriting or shorthand of the friend. She said she didn’t know and that she’d have to “try her best.”

I then asked whether or not any teacher had demonstrated how to digitize her notes. She responded in the negative. It struck me as odd. I shared “How to Take Smart Notes” with her in hopes that she’d read it and incorporate Zettelkasten strategies going forward.

During the next period, the conversation dominated my attention. I gave these AP students the same spiel. Some did the notes. A UNO game broke out. I watched, half paying attention, while the words from the previous class turned ever so gently in my mind.

Why were learners solely using analog strategies for work without progressing to digital tools to catalogue and curate their notes for longevity?

Were teachers even considering longevity as they ask young people to write notes, or were they only interested in their coursework?

During my lunch hour, I drank my coffee and placed my headphones on. Each week I prepare a playlist of songs I’ll listen to while driving to and from each school and during my down time. “Dig” from Mama’s Gun became the soundtrack for my thoughts.

Scratch beneath the surface of what you think you know

Further down the rabbit hole, how far does it go?

Curiosity will get you closer to the proof

Yeah if you really, really need to know

You gotta dig 

Down to the heart of matters

You gotta dig

Shine a light on the truth

You gotta dig

Down to what really matters

Yeah can ya dig

Dig what I’m telling you

Period 5 came and everything began to make sense. This was a standard class. Worksheets were passed out. Work was ignored like the other classes. However, there was a young man with an Optimus Prime toy that caught my attention. He was on his Chromebook, but would fidget with the figure every now and then. I walked over to him, stopping by to chat with a young lady with a Sublime t-shirt about her favorite song by the band. She didn’t know any. She just liked the shirt. I was disappointed.

“When did you get into Transformers?”

“About 15 years ago. I loved the movies.”

“Really?”

“I remember seeing the original cartoon movie in the theaters.”

Over the next hour, he showed me pictures of his Transformers in his room. His LEGO sets. He showed me websites and kits for Transformers enthusiasts. He spoke about lore, future projects, and the figures he’d like to acquire. He was an expert on the subject. He was passionate and articulate as he pulled up websites and images to answer my questions.

Period 6 was simply perfunctory. Worksheets. Instructions. A young lady told a story about a student being mad that she took his pizza at lunch. Two young ladies made plans for thrifting in California during the long weekend. The Transformers theme song replaced “Dig.”

As he took me on this journey, he fidgeted with his toy. Also, I misspoke. It wasn’t Optimus Prime. It was Nemesis Prime, his evil counterpart. He politely corrected me. It hit me that from a distance, one couldn’t tell them apart, just like it would be hard to tell the difference between a strategically compliant learner and an authentically engaged one. “More than Meets the Eye.” Indeed.

It wasn’t just that this young man could speak passionately and deeply about a subject — he was able to marry the analog and the digital to narrate a story worth telling in a way that the young lady in the AP course hadn’t. His “notebook” could be left at home and still be “with” him. The portability of his knowledge was the telling thing. His expertise was dynamic.

There’s a difference between strategic compliance, ritual compliance, and authentic engagement. The kid taking notes in a notebook in AP Physics? Strategic compliance and ritual compliance. Surface level hustling that will probably be forgotten as soon as a test has been taken. The kid regaling me with stories of Transformers? Authentic engagement. The stuff that stays with you forever.

At the end of the day, a question lingers in the air like Starscream’s voice. Whose job is it to make sure that students are authentically engaged? Who makes sure that they can translate their notes into curated ecosystems that can be referred to whenever necessary?

Yesterday, I was an 8th grade teacher and all I can think about is “Wish You Were Here.”

For the past two days, I was an 8th grade teacher. First, in a math classroom, then as an English teacher. I find that classrooms that feature repetition in instruction, that is, they teach the same lesson over multiple periods, whether in a departmentalized elementary school or a secondary classroom, tend to have lesson plans most devoid of detail. This pattern was maintained.

There was no mention of structures or strategies in either of the plans that were shared. Just worksheets to be passed out. So I pass the worksheets out and let it ride. The scenario played out the same in both courses. The absolute boredom of the assignments prompts a cavalcade of surreptitious glances at phones in laps. No work was being done. Doodling happened on the margins of the page. Heads were in desks. I was bored as well.

So…I call the classes to attention and give them the ability to move seats if they wish. I give them permission to converse with their friends and listen to music as they complete their assignment. I remind them to keep their voices to a conversational tone and then I walk around the classroom to observe.

I’m not interested in the work because there is nothing engaging about the work at all. Some students attempt to do it, some don’t. The most I’ll do is prompt students to try to finish the assignment or remind them of how many minutes are left in the period. What I’m interested in is conversation and actions. Learners will laugh and share with each other, sometimes with devices, often without. They’ll play card games. Others will continue doodling while in full-fledged conversation with their peers. Others still will mindlessly scroll through reels or TikTok. I talk to each of them. Each is a choice. I haven’t directed them to do anything other than the worksheet that most students seem to be avoiding.

As I make a circuit through the classroom, I look over shoulders and eavesdrop on conversations. Often I interrupt and ask their opinion of the class, what they do for fun, how they’d change their school experience. I ask if today is a typical day or an atypical one. I ask what they’re listening to or what they’re drawing. I ask why they aren’t completing their worksheet…or why they are. Regardless, the vast majority of kids are both interacting with digital tools and human beings concurrently. Even those buried deeply in the screens of their devices will pause their music or game to converse when prompted. NBA YoungBoy seems to continue to be popular in our schools.

During lunch, I got an alert from the New York Times. The title of the article caught my attention immediately. ”Chromebook Remorse: Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones.” I read the article as objectively as possible. The school being highlighted had banned phones and limited the use of Chromebooks in classrooms. As I scanned each paragraph, looking for what I knew I wouldn’t find. How are they designing instructionally for the world that young people would inherit?

Neither of the lessons I had been asked to proffer to students had included the use of Chromebooks. In fact, the ELA directions forbade the use of the tool entirely. The math directions mentioned them only as a time filler if students had trudged through the worksheet. Learners could use iReady for 10 minutes. I asked the learners in both courses about the technology in the class. They stated that they were never directed to create using digital tools at all. Their daily experience was to take analog notes and complete worksheets. The ELA plan even mentioned that the young people would have a notebook check of their composition notebooks upon the teacher’s return. Behind this teacher’s desk was a pile of notebooks.

While there is definitely evidence of predatory practices with technology companies as there are with textbook publishers, what the article doesn’t address is that the most important component in this ecosystem is purposeful, practical, pedagogically sound design. This design should embrace the lessons of the past while connecting the modern tools that a young person would need to use to survive in the future. It’s not an analog or digital problem. It is a design problem. The only way to know who you are, where you are, and what you see for sure is to design the process.

As I contemplated the article and my current experience, I heard a guitar, and a song I have grown more and more fond of started to play.

“Wish You Were Here” is the title track of the 1975 Pink Floyd album. The album deals with feelings of loss and alienation. The genius of the song is that Roger Waters’ words are for Syd Barrett, founder of Pink Floyd, who was away from the band physically but very much on their minds. This is a song I’ve listened to thousands of times since the passing of my brother. Each time I listen, it’s like he’s still in the room with me. It’s almost as if he’s standing behind me, looking over my shoulder, pointing me toward a truth. That’s the quality that lesson plans for a guest teacher should embody. While not physically in the classroom, the teacher’s presence should be felt by the structure (or lack thereof) in the plans. The classroom functions like a song, an ode to an absent teacher whose presence lingers like an apparition.

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell? Blue skies from pain?

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

The only way to prove that learners can demonstrate mastery is intentionally empathic design. This is essentially what is lost in these debates about analog and digital tools. Without a framework to answer questions and pursue truth, the tools are worthless anyway. The tools don’t create the curiosity. The design does.

What was very apparent from my experience was that neither of the classrooms had an operating system independent of the teacher. Photocopying a worksheet and asking students to complete it reinforced that left to their own devices, students would not (could not?) find their own way to demonstrate what they know. It also reinforces the ableism embedded in ignoring how learners who aren’t neurotypical, are physically disadvantaged, or need translation assistance depend on digital tools in analog-only environments.

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange

A walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

The operating system and the quest for answers should dictate what tools a learner requires and how those tools are used. It shouldn’t come down to “analog” and “digital.” The question a young person (and their teacher) should be contemplating is: What journey am I taking, and what do I need to pull it off? If that requires writing with pencil and paper, then so be it. If it means designing an app in tandem with Claude Code, then so be it. Learners should have the skill to do both. They shouldn’t be limited by the preference of the adults in the system to eschew modern tools because educators are largely unfamiliar with how they function.

How I wish, how I wish you were here

We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year

Running over the same old ground, what have we found?

The same old fears, wish you were here

I was a librarian yesterday, and all I can think about is John Wick.

I generally have low expectations of the lesson plans I receive as a guest teacher. I only take jobs that are pre-arranged, so I surmise there has been some thought in terms of what the learners will do during the day. I’m generally disappointed, and I adjust. There is usually something missing: some angle they forgot to include or some tidbit that was left out. Often this isn’t a big deal; sometimes it can be maddening.

It’s one of the reasons I email the educator the week before and inquire as to what the lesson plan is and the schedule for the day. Most respond and send whatever they have. Others ignore the email entirely. It’s a crapshoot. I had no communication with my latest assignment.

When I walked into the building, I had no idea what I was to do. It’s a very interesting feeling. You’re expected to navigate a new network of adults and learners without knowing what you have to do. I was given the keys as usual and told how to get to the library. I opened the door and went lesson plan hunting.

As a rule, I don’t search behind locked doors or in drawers. First, it’s a privacy issue. This is someone else’s space, not mine. If there is something for me, it should be easy for me to find. This is why I usually insist on lesson plans up front. An email conversation generally informs me of where materials will be, what I’ll be asked to do, and so on. Not in this case.

Eventually, I found the lesson “plans” and realized this was going to be an interesting day. I get to schools early enough to review lesson plans, understand them, and edit if necessary. These plans were uninspiring. I was told that there were whiteboards available for my use and that there was no need to use the Newline interactive board at the front of the room. I chuckled and turned the board on.

I had lunchroom duty, so I scurried off to pace through wave after wave of toothless smiles, giggling faces, and pre-middle schoolers. Upon my return, the library aide was there. I peppered her with questions about how the classroom worked and whether the young people came in with their Chromebooks. She answered my questions and indicated that learners arrived with no technology whatsoever and she had seen no technology used in the classroom.

John Wick, I thought. John Wick.

I retired from teaching in 2021, but not for the reasons one might think. The pandemic had demonstrated to me what was possible as an educator, and I didn’t want to go back to doing business the way we had. When we came back to in-person learning, what I saw was education returning to what it had been prior to the pandemic, and it depressed me.

Deficit thinking. Covid gaps. “Devices had destroyed learning.” There was little talk of how the system was ill-prepared for the shift in philosophy, presentation, and pedagogy that was called for during the pandemic. The devices had failed, “distance” learning didn’t work, and, once we made it to the other side, it was time to return to “basics.” No mention of the mandatory passive vampirism that edtech companies had wiggled into classrooms. The issue wasn’t the devices; it was what was being done on them.

The John Wick Paradox is what I have dubbed the philosophy of many educators post-pandemic: an unbridled focus on analog tools and pedagogy without using them as a springboard to digital tools and pedagogy.

In the 2014 film “John Wick,” there is a poignant scene where Viggo the crime boss informs his son, Iosef, that he once witnessed Wick kill three men in a bar with a pencil. This, of course, breeds fear in the mind of his son and is meant to demonstrate what a formidable hit man Wick is. However, the focus of the story isn’t the pencil; it’s the skill of the wielder. The story is actually saying: if he can do this with a pencil, imagine what he can do with the other weapons at his disposal. Teachers are focusing on the “pencil” instead of the reason behind the story.

The fear isn’t that Wick would attack you with a pencil. It’s inefficient at scale. The fear is that this is a master of any tool his hands can touch, analog or otherwise. He’s been trained to use any and everything in the pursuit of his goals. While a pencil will do in a pinch, it’s probably not the tool of choice when there are katana-clad ninjas and pistol-waving assassins around.

Being trained in hand-to-hand combat is important, but your training should not stop there. It should continue into the use of modern tools and techniques as well. The problem is focusing on the pencil and forgetting that for the entire movie, Wick dismantles his opposition without the use of a pencil at all. He channels his passion, perseverance, and “sheer will” using a variety of tools.

Given that I didn’t have time to amend the lesson plans or any way to inform teachers that their Chromebooks would be required during library, I started to sketch in my notebook a plan that was feasible given my limitations. No Chromebooks. No relationships with learners or teachers. No idea what was going on in classrooms. I asked the library aide more questions while staring at the clock to gauge time. I was looking for “pencils.” I finally had a workable concept finished when the first class walked in.

I looked at the graphic organizers I was asked to use during the lessons. For the younger grades, I was to read a story and have the young people write sentences and then color. For the older grades I was to read a few pages from two books, have them ask questions, and then draw and color. There were no scaffolds, no engagement. No “sheer will.” It was probably the worst day of my guest teaching experience, to be honest.

As the classes came in and took their seats, I asked what they were reading in their homeroom class. Some could answer; some could not. We used the interactive whiteboard to write down ideas as they arrived, without pencils, paper, or devices. Using the list that was generated gave me a good idea of how to tie the books I was going to read to their classroom experiences and make the lesson somewhat purposeful.

The younger grades had been studying the different continents and how plants grow. The book I was to read them was about helping. We discussed how helping could be applied to sharing the world and caring for plants. We listed possible ways on the whiteboard so that those who needed scaffolds for their sentences could use the board as a reference. They then illustrated their sentences.

For the older grades, I followed the same protocol, but I wanted them to think about the books they had just finished and returned to the library. We made another circle map on the board and asked for ideas. This gave me insight into how to present the two books I was to read to them. They were able to see the connection, make their decisions on the graphic organizer, write their answers, and illustrate as needed.

I would have liked to have had the lesson plans beforehand, but it worked in a pinch. I found my pencil, used the technology I was asked not to use, and got through the day unscathed. I also made a great contact with the library aide.

In 2026, the pencil is still useful. Nobody is saying burn it. But what happens when there’s no pencil in the room and something more complex is waiting? Learners deserve to walk in ready for any tool. You can’t build that readiness by staying strictly analog.

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