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...

New Blog site

Ok, I have been very very lax about this blog.
A. I have very little to say.  Refreshing or Boring?  You decide!
B. I am devoting my random thoughts to my new site which I urge, beg, entreat-- well, really, whatever--you to visit. No pressure.  My anglo-saxon friend below recommends it.

Check out: http://www.wendycturgeon.org/Blog/Blog.html

Tempus fugit

Well, here it is--July 25th--and you might be wondering (OK, probably not) what I have been doing all summer. Well, the answer is not much and a lot. It all depends on how you measure events.

My travel schedule falls under the "a lot" column:

May Rome and Greece with James Blakeley, a history professor at my college, and 19 freshmen, including 17 girls. (You do the estrogen math.)

June Queretaro, Mexico for the NAACI conference which I organized along with my colleagues Susan Gardner (Canada- the sane country in North America) and Eugenio Echeverria (Mexico.)

July Oxford, England for a Inter-Disciplinary.net conference on Childhood, followed by a visit to Pennine Community up in Wakefield

July-August South Carolina (as if it is not hot enough here in New York) for the AAPT conference on teaching philosophy

OK- so lots of traveling, presenting, listening. learning--all accompanied by packing and unpacking.

In the "not much" category is reading and really digging into new ideas. My colleague, whom I run into occasionally when I appear on campus to deal with various administrative stuff (a technical term, most likely unfamiliar to those of you who do not deal with the esoterics of paper pushing)-- well he is always reporting on having read about five books in the last week and just makes me:

(a) exhausted

(b) guilty as a student who is falling way behind on the homework and has the sinking feeling that there is no way in the known universe that she can ever, ever catch up.

So, in that department I am seriously lagging. But not to worry! Summer stretches luxuriously ahead, right? Oh no! Are fall syllabi due already??? What happened to the summers of my youth that lasted for months? And by "months" I mean psychological periods of long time, not calendar time.

So gather ye rosebuds while ye may. And, perhaps, have another pomegranate martini.

Betrayal and remorse

I had gone out east to visit Pat but I quickly realized that this was just a ruse. The overnight visit proceeded as always with much discussion but now there was another there. And I knew I would be revealed. My secret could simply not remain.

As soon as I arrived home, he knew. He took one look at me and he could tell. He could tell that there had been another. His eyes radiated questions, disappointment, unbelief. What could I say? What could I do? The scent of the other lingered on me and I knew that he knew and that he knew that I knew that he knew. Apologies burst from my lips, crying promises that it would never happen again. Never. That no one could ever replace him in my heart or my bed. No--there was only him. But the scent of the other formed a miasma of distrust, of betrayal between us.

I will win him back, I vowed! I can do this. With what charm or gesture can I recapture his trust and devotion, so callously and thoughtlessly trampled on my by wild, wanton and careless actions? I fell to my knees before me, begging his forgiveness. And he gave it. His generous heart opened and I was redeemed.

"Hektor," I promised, "I will never let Carly, Pat's lab, in my lap again. There is only you. Only you." But can love regrow where trust has been shattered...? Yes, in a dog's heart which is bigger than the universe and forgives us our sins.

Carly Hektor

There is a Unicorn in the Garden

Well, not actually. Instead there is a peacock on the roof. The roof of my neighbor, to be precise. The attached photo is evidence # 465.23 why I need a better telephoto lens, but I digress.

Sharp and particularly well educated readers (by that I mean educated with respect to American humorists of the mid-twentieth century and most likely limited to my brother) will recognize the reference to the short story by James Thurber in which a husband starts to comment upon the presence of a unicorn in his garden, much to the growing enragement of his wife. Let’s just say the whole thing works out well for him as his wife is carted off to the ‘booby hatch” for calling in a unicorn. But I digress yet again.

Last night a peacock did mysterious appear on the roof of my neighbor. No explanation. We all trouped out to marvel at the bird who strolled back and forth against the evening sky, blithely ignoring the growing crowds below. Despite threats to hose him off, everyone pretty much simply gawked, made lame jokes about whether the house owner had a license (that would be me) and eventually we all went inside to our respective homes, leaving him to roost as he chose. Later the bird flew (did you know peacocks could actually fly?) to the roof across the street and then onto another backyard. “Hey, dad, there is a giant bird here!” was heard by my husband as he walked Hektor around the block. No “Missing peacock” signs have yet appeared on the telephone poles.

I hope he found his way home or at the very least found an amiable pea hen. But then, isn’t the peacock sacred to Hera? Hmm... let that be a warning to all errant husbands.