Tech Pioneers – Curt Lieneck

There were many pioneers of this revolution. I look forward to sharing their stories here.

Curt Lieneck has been a model for many of us for decades. He is, among other things, a Pillar Award winner from ATLIS, the Association of Technology Leaders of Independent Schools. Kind of like a lifetime achievement award.

Like most of us, he just “fell” into the profession. Thanks for his contribution.

How I Became an IT leader

I was an elementary school teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. I was always a restless teacher, never liking to do the same things repeatedly. When the Internet arrived at our school, the powers that be gave the OK for creating a computer room in the Lower School. Kids came into the room on a scheduled time to learn the basics of doing things online, though very basic to begin with.

Right around that time, I had booked a spring break trip to go dogsledding (don’t ask why during spring break) in the southern tip of Baffin Bay, in Cape Dorset, up to Cape Dorset, now known as Kinngait. The flight from Ottawa was 1600 miles flying from Chicago.  The trip was nothing like anything I’ve ever done. It was just me, my guide, and a teenager who lagged behind on a snowmobile in case we needed to get back to civilization in a hurry. 

The trip was unlike anything I had ever known. There was so much more than just big dogs to pull me and my guide along — My guide was a renowned stone carver with pieces on display in museums around the world. He built an igloo for us to sleep in with caribou hides after traveling 50 miles in a day. Remnants of the British presence from years in the snow. A polar Bear skin drying in the wind. There’s much more I could tell, but I knew on the way home that I would start working on a plan  with my 4th grade students to study other lands and people.

When I got back, I talked with the computer folks who were super generous with their time. I started to work with the kids in learning more about Inuit life. Soon after that, there were some traverses in the Arctic by Will Steger, who was a prominent spokesperson for the preservation of the Arctic. He and his team conducted the first confirmed dogsled journey to the North Pole….and if I recall correctly, was able to send their progress on guess what —-? — the internet. It was not like the internet we now know, but one of the computer folks were able to get the feed, and I would run down to the computer room with a handful of kids so they could see what was happening.

This opened the door to more adventures included our sending items from where we live, along with pictures and things we made, to an Inuit school  way up on the North Slope (sorry, can’t recall exactly where). They reciprocated with all kinds of things, and the kids could hardly believe we got one time —- a beautiful caribou hide — none of this was likely to have happened without the internet. 

In time, the powers at be asked if I would be interested in becoming the first Technology Director. I had done some other things for the school (remember the restless thing?) that turned out pretty well, and they wanted someone who knew about teaching to help build up the internet presence among different segments of the school. They were new to all this as well and as we talked about it it became apparent that they weren’t all that sure about what they wanted me to do, and truth be told, neither did I. With only a couple of weeks before the start of school, I said this: “I think you are not sure what you want me to do, but I trust you to help me figure out, and I will do the same with only one caveat—you need to give me three years to figure this out. If after the three years you want me to go back to teaching (or I want to)  that’s what we’ll do. They agreed, and the only one who was unhappy was the Lower School principal who had to find another teacher before school began.

So that, my friends, is how I got to be a Tech Director. I retired after 20 joyous years with a great team, terrific bosses, and a crazy number of ed tech friends whom I love dearly. It has been the job of a life time and I couldn’t  be happier for having been a part of it all!