Roadblocks To Education

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Short Answer

“Advancing down one path is beautiful in itself… but it usually doesn’t go that way. Hesitation… mistakes… and diversions occur. Because of those, you try to turn around but you’re hit this way… and hit that way. Your path, which you lost due to hesitation… surely it expands more than anyone else’s…”

  • Matahachi Hon’iden, Vagabond (2010, Translation)

There are several types of blockers I’ll define:

  • Technical
  • Physical
  • Monetary
  • Interpersonal
  • Knowledge

Blockers depend on things like whether you teach in person/online, equipment you have, budget, and students’ disposition/education.

Long Answer

In a teaching environment, you’ll experience several types of blockers I’ll address below. Some blockers are manageable while other blockers may partially or entirely restrict different ways to reach your goals.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll sort blockers into four categories.

Technical Blockers

Before I proceed, I’ll make one assurance:

“Old school” style teaching, or teaching without fancy tech, gadgets, widgets, etc. is perfectly fine (and sometimes encouraged!). If this is the case for you, you may have fewer technical blockers.

  • This also includes fancy tech, but opting for less technical options anyways. It’s whatever provides the best learning experience for students in your educational system.
  • Personally speaking, I’d use pencil and paper when I could, but technology, like computers, for things I cannot reasonably do with low tech solutions.
  • Each new person using technology is one more person you may have to troubleshoot issues for.

Moving on!

In one sentence: is there a device that cannot operate the software and/or perform the tasks I need for teaching?

If no, proceed with whatever plans you have; you’re good.

If yes, it’s a blocker and you either:

  • Cannot use it
  • Need to find an alternative fitting technical requirements

For example, a Chromebook might not run Windows or Mac games, but it may be able to run Linux games, Android games, and cloud gaming. This is an example of a substitute to demonstrate a similar point.

Another example: you want students to run a flight simulator on school computers, but “dxdiag” on a Windows computer shows the computer specs are far too low. That’s OK, though, because there are less resource-intensive browser alternatives available for use instead.

Be warned, though: using alternative software may not meet all of your needs or accurately do what is needed to meet your objectives. As lfong as Plan B works and meets your needs, it’s good enough. You can always supplement other materials related to the subject(s) to fill in gaps.

The only time you are stuck with a given software/tool is if you’re trying to get students to earn a certification or licensure with it. You definitely cannot use alternatives with those; you must use the required software or they cannot get the certification or license. Some software may require the teacher to also hold a license to teach or administer tests related to the software, so double-check first.

Does this mean I should use technology when it’s available?

Not necessarily. Even if technology is available, whether gifted, bought, or contractually obliged to use, it’s still a question of should students have extended access to technology vs can students have that access.

What technology you permit and use depends on the needs of your class(es). Do not, however, discount any existing research on when informing your decision.

Additionally, with any new technology, there’s also a learning curve. Some tech you’ll have to know about, like emails (or a CMS like Google Classroom). Other tech, you may not have to know much about. There’s also tech where it’s nice to know about, and can enhance learning, but requires some level of learning investment before it provides a return.

The Typical Solution to Tech Problems

It’s simple.

  1. Turn it off and on again.
  2. If that doesn’t work, Google the problem.

Physical Blockers

These blockers refer to the space you’re teaching in or from and human physical limits.

For example, you need a specific type of equipment but the rooms lacks support, like gas lines, space, or high-voltage outlets, for your equipment. Some blockers, like moving desks around, are easy to fix and other blockers, like installing custom windows, are not easy to fix.

Creativity and ingenuity can overcome some physical blockers to make them less restrictive, but may still affect student performance and behavior. You could teach an entire classroom with everyone standing, but then taking notes, drawing, or writing is significantly impaired. You could also place people across the room in rows, clusters, etc., to influence how they interact with each other and you.

You may consider peer assistance first before alternative learning forms as well. The other solutions are either legally complicated or may be infeasible due to numerous obstacles like space, money, etc.

There are countless more cases of physical blockers. Still, your overall goal with any space is this: Rearrange the physical space to deliver best the material and expertise you want to teach.

For online teaching, you’ll still need guardrails to keep students focused on you and the material.

Monetary Blockers

You can accomplish a lot with sufficient funding. More often than not, you don’t have enough funds.

When funding is limited, be ready to resort to low-cost or free alternatives, or omit types of learning that require online or physical payments. Fortunately, new technology allows low-cost or free options like Notion, Google Documents, Google Sheets, DBeaver, pgAdmin, and Visual Studio. Some teacher planning and scheduling tools are also low-cost or free.

There are multiple types of websites–government, commercial, non-profit, and personal–with free simulations and interactive software available for student and public use, such as NASA’s Eyes for solar systems and USGS TopoView for topographic map viewing and manipulation.

With some software, you may need to purchase Educational and Student Licenses. These may not be cheap, but typically more affordable compared to business, personal, and professional use.

  • As an example, per Autodesk as of September 2025 (Further Reading), the standard Revit Individual subscription is one example of an expensive license for an expansive software. For qualified educators and students, you could get it for free instead (with terms and conditions).

Businesses typically have strict definitions for educational institution qualifications. If you don’t qualify, you’ll need other options or have to pay the license price of another category (typically higher vs education).

Interpersonal Blockers

There include societal issues, cultural fit, gender, political affiliations, and more often outside your control. There’s plenty of red tape and blockers you cannot avoid, so be mindful of how you navigate the many relationships you have with coworkers, students, peers, and more.

If you have a HR (human resources) department, follow their guidelines and you should be fine.

If you do not have HR, or an equivalent, I’d tell you to avoid the following:

  • Politics
  • Religion
  • Sexism
  • Harassment
  • Anything causing physical harm, intentional or not.
  • Bullying and bringing down people through your words and actions
  • Relationships with students
  • Relationships (personal/romantic)

There are rare exceptions to the above, such as if I need to talk about the potential physical harms of chemicals in a lab I’m doing for class, but it’s under the heavy caveat it’s specifically related to education and a part of the class curriculum and lesson plans.

In short: maintain a safe, acceptable, professional, and respectable distance between you and your students.

Knowledge Blockers

These are issues students have because they don’t have the requisite knowledge acquired before taking a specific class.

To give a straightforward example, it’s like having a student who doesn’t know basic math jump immediately into postdoctoral and graduate level mathematics.

Remedying knowledge blockers is exponentially difficult as it scales based on how large the knowledge gap is. For about 1-2 grades or semesters worth of difference it’s possible to review and get students mostly ready, despite being behind before. For 3 or more grades/semesters deficit, I found this difficult without specialized assistance as it becomes too cumbersome or costly to handle those students.

Knowledge blockers will be talked about more later, but know there’s always a chance that since student didn’t know topic A, they may not know about topic B.

Bibliography

  1. Inoue, T. (2010). Vagabond (Vol. 31). Kodansha: Morning KC. (Original work published 2009). ISBN: 978-1-4215-3631-6

  2. NASA. (n.d.). NASA’s Eyes. https://science.nasa.gov/eyes/

  3. Revit Subscription and License FAQs - Autodesk. (2025). Autodesk.com. https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/revit-subscription-faq

  4. Thomas A. Edison Quotes (2026). Goodreads.com. https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3091287.Thomas_A_Edison

  5. U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). USGS TopoView. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/

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