Visiting ghosts, Being at home

We have been spending weekends out east going through 54 years of memories, well, actually far more years than that since there is so much theater memorabilia dating from the 1940s.  My family bought our old farmhouse in 1958; my brother and I were tiny children and we spent every summer and most weekends during our school years driving out in the dusk to the tiny town where potato farms ruled.  Amagansett at that time was a drive-through town between East Hampton, a gentile old town that moved slowly, even in the summer, and Montauk, a more rough and tumble beach community.  Our house was one of the few on Miankoma Lane.

As I peruse through piles of photos, old Playbills, scripts, letters from long past actors, it is hard not to think about my parents, my actor father and my ballet dancer mother.  Their personalities still move through the air of the house.   My mother was the gifted dancer who moved to New York City in her late teens to become a dancer, traveled Europe during World War II in a dance troupe, and joined a number of musical comedies in the dance corps during the heyday of the musical.  My father had friends from every corner of the theater world and indeed of the globe.  Images of happy young women, handsome men, old character actors mingle with family pictures of us growing up. 

This house has known happiness within its walls, as well as its share of small tragedies.  But the atmosphere is one of subdued light, the tinkling of glasses, laughter and music still seem to echo faintly.  the house, in its silence still suggests lives well lived. 

Technology in the classroom--my response to the New York Times

In response to the New York Times article “Teachers resist high tech push into Idaho schools” (1/4/12) I had worked up the following response.  After double-checking the Times website, I realized that this would need a scalpel to get it down to 150 requirement!  This was not easy for wordy me but I did it and was gratified to have the Times publish my revised letter on January 6th.  But here are my more complete thoughts about the push to move technology into the center of the classroom.  What follows is the original letter which is excerpted in the Times letter column. 

I would like to commend the teachers who are fighting for an engaged learning experience through Socratic questioning as opposed to computer-based module learning.  I teach at the college level.  Over the past ten years we have witnessed a dramatic increase in active use of technology among children and teens.  Despite the ready access to computers, tablets, smart phones and other information-rich tools, our students come to college with weak attention skills and too often an active dislike of reading and sustained engagement with ideas.  Their knowledge base is far less than that of their parents and older siblings who may not have had ready access to technology. While they can text-message the average adult under the table, they do not demonstrate that they have reaped the rewards promised exultantly by the manufacturers of technology.

Do we really think little Jessica is shifting through the overwhelming amount of peer-reviewed material available on the web and avidly absorbing knowledge?  Rather she spends five minutes copying and pasting from Wikipedia or SparkNotes into her assignment and the other hour and a half on FaceBook, Twitter or flitting from hyperlink to hyperlink. While video sites do offer rich material on history and current events, you have to resist the siren call of the hilarious “Hitler Rants” videos and the hundreds of other clever postings, wildly inaccurate but seductively entertaining. While the web may provide information if does not equip the student with the critical thinking skills to discern the good from the bad or ridiculous, despite what Governor Otto hopes.

I teach online graduate classes and really enjoy them but have serious reservations for their value for undergrads, much less pre-college students.  Our young people need to learn how to look someone in the face, engage with persons in active dialogue, read body language and develop their personhood.  None of this is done easily, if at all, on a computer.  Ann Rosenbaum strikes me as a tech savvy young teacher.  She is absolutely right in cautioning against the substitution of technology for quality face to face engaged inquiry.  Her students will succeed in college and in the business world because they will know how to talk with one another, work through differences of opinion, have and use information productively, and solve problems critically and cooperatively.  None of this is achieved by plugging into the web and interacting with a mouse.  

Amagansett: a magical name for me.  From 1958 I have viewed this place as my home, my secret garden, if you will.  As a child I roamed the streets, dunes, woods, fields and sought myself among the elements.  The people were always foreign to me.  As a solitary person, I cherished the night sky, the ever cresting waves, the horse in the field--who did not acknowledge my existence.  Here I could look, see and be invisible.  Here I was at home.

Reactivating my blog!  And dealing with two gmail addresses. What a challenge...