"Educators are still spending way too much time trying to control what kids learn, bending the content to their own purposes, hoping beyond hope to change - by using technology - but not change too much"
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Greenberg’s line lands like a calm indictment: the real problem in education isn’t that schools lack new tools, it’s that they keep using every tool to reinforce the same old obsession with control. The phrase “still spending way too much time” carries the weary patience of someone who has watched reform cycles come and go, each one promising liberation while quietly tightening the screws. He’s not arguing against educators having goals; he’s calling out the managerial reflex to treat learning as something to be administered, not grown.
“Bending the content to their own purposes” is the tell. The subtext is about power: whose priorities get embedded in curricula, whose anxieties are soothed by standardized outcomes, whose worldview becomes the default. Greenberg frames this as an adult project disguised as a child-centered one. Kids become the medium through which institutions pursue order, legitimacy, and measurable success.
The sharpest twist is the closing clause: “hoping beyond hope to change - by using technology - but not change too much.” Technology here isn’t innovation, it’s a fantasy of transformation without risk. Schools want the sheen of modernity, the efficiency of platforms, the optics of progress, while keeping the core hierarchy intact. Greenberg is pointing to a familiar contemporary pattern: adopting devices and software as if they’re neutral, when they often become new delivery systems for old constraints.
Context matters: this reads like a critique shaped by alternative education traditions (and decades of “edtech” hype). It’s less a rejection of technology than a warning that tools can’t save a system that’s afraid of what genuine learning might disrupt.
“Bending the content to their own purposes” is the tell. The subtext is about power: whose priorities get embedded in curricula, whose anxieties are soothed by standardized outcomes, whose worldview becomes the default. Greenberg frames this as an adult project disguised as a child-centered one. Kids become the medium through which institutions pursue order, legitimacy, and measurable success.
The sharpest twist is the closing clause: “hoping beyond hope to change - by using technology - but not change too much.” Technology here isn’t innovation, it’s a fantasy of transformation without risk. Schools want the sheen of modernity, the efficiency of platforms, the optics of progress, while keeping the core hierarchy intact. Greenberg is pointing to a familiar contemporary pattern: adopting devices and software as if they’re neutral, when they often become new delivery systems for old constraints.
Context matters: this reads like a critique shaped by alternative education traditions (and decades of “edtech” hype). It’s less a rejection of technology than a warning that tools can’t save a system that’s afraid of what genuine learning might disrupt.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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