On most topics, Rose, a former next door neighbor of mine, was sweet
and wonderful, a feisty, diminutive old lady who would leave a grocery bag full
of rhubarb hanging from our back fence every week or so throughout June and much
of July. (Rose and her husband had a massive bed of the stuff – they didn’t even
like it much, so we got it all, and bunches of tomatoes and squash to boot.)
But every fall, leaves brought out a very different side of Rose.
Our massive oak and maple trees would provide a multi-colored blanket neatly
covering several back yards. Ours were not the only large trees in the
neighborhood, but Rose’s property was different, she had only one small
ornamental tree within reach of her back porch. More than once we woke up to the
sound of Rose raking up those big yellow maple leaves, and throwing big piles of
them over our fence. She was quite happy to tell us exactly what she thought of
those leaf-spewing behemoths, and tried hard to convince us that we should cut
them down.
My wife and I, of course, were quite proud of those trees, and
couldn’t imagine anything crazier than killing off two living things much older
than we were, which contributed shade, nesting sites, not to mention
carbon-dioxide scrubbing and water retention. It was the height of silliness.
Also, being the “young moderns” we considered ourselves to be, we knew the law:
leaves are the responsibility of the person who owns the property on which they
fall, regardless of how, and from whence, they came. We did occasionally help
her rake, but we were certainly not swayed.
My wife and I have moved, and aged, and Rose and her dear husband
are no longer “with us.” After spending the last three weekends cleaning up yard
trash and dealing with other people’s leaves, I’m just a little more sympathetic
with her problem. But I’m trying to hold onto my previous slant, even as I hang
up the rakes and break out the ibuprofen.
A cover article on this Sunday’s New York Times (Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction, Sunday, Nov. 21,
2010) is yet another story on tech-savvy young people whose lives are seemingly
one text and hyperlink away from academic inattention and failure. “Several
recent studies show that young people tend to use home computers for
entertainment, not learning, and that this can hurt school performance,
particularly in low-income families…Research also shows that students often
juggle homework and entertainment…using the Internet, watching TV, or using some
other form of media either ‘most’ (31%) or ‘some’ (25%) of the time that they
are doing homework…” (p. 20, print version). I guess it isn’t terribly
surprising that many teachers are just a bit reluctant to open the floodgates –
to provide flexible use of student computers in the classroom, or worse, allow
students to use their cell phones and other personal gadgets. It would be a
little like giving every student their own TV on which they could watch
anything, right there in the classroom. Only, of course, this is worse, since
current tools also provide them with a means to engage with anyone, anywhere, on
anything. And they do…
The article is also about a school embracing the idea that engaging
students means leveraging the same technologies they use. But the end of the
article describes an English teacher there who has finally resorted to having
students read aloud in class. This upside-down approach (read in class, engage
outside of class) is this teacher’s attempt to counter her inability to induce
students to read at all. Although I’m not quite Rose in this instance (I
actually use the same tools the students in the story use), there are times when
I find myself shaking my fist at the “stand of tall trees next door,” just like
the English teacher in the story does at these tools. Pursuits which require
extended time and attention, and products which reflect the results of same,
seem to be disappearing, and there are lots of folks who point to the tools
themselves – “slates,” smart phones, social networking sites, even just plain
old hyperlinked Web delivery – as the culprits.
Are we, like Rose, just old geezers whining about change and
inconvenience? There are a few things missing from this discussion, and I’ll
mention two here.
Chickens vs. Eggs
There is a good explanation for why young people have sorted these
technologies out as entertainment platforms, even as much of the rest of the
world plunges into their use for productivity, commerce, and learning. Most
kids, of course, in the absence of other forces, will naturally look for
the entertainment value in anything. After all, if they didn’t, they’d be
adults. Teachers, for a variety of reasons (some good, some perhaps less so),
have not exactly rushed headlong towards embracing these tools for their own
personal use. As a result, they can’t model effective use of these tools for
their students, and, more importantly, have little interest in requiring such
use out of their students. It’s not surprising then that, if given
access, students use the technology in school for what they always use it for
elsewhere.
Although there are implications for us here, this, of course, does
not directly address what we should do to change things, or why…
Who’s Distracted, Really?
Interestingly, in the same edition of the Times, in
her Magazine weekly column, “The Medium,” Virginia Heffernan makes the case that, in fact,
the whole issue of short attention span and distraction is a myth. She contends
that we, as humans, attend to that which we view as important. The ability to
stay focused on something doesn’t exist in a cultural (or, by extension, a
technological) context. It’s much more deeply embedded than that. Hence, if
people (or students) are distracted, it’s for good reasons, or reasons of
boredom.
For the short term, engagement can be enhanced by a gadget or sexy
delivery method, but such engagement will have a very short shelf life, and will
not produce the same results that true engagement in the underlying content or
goals would. That is, we should not expect a technology tool itself to tip the
balance towards engaged learning. But that works both ways – we also cannot
indict our technology tools for distracting students from the interest and
engagement of an assignment either. Yes, their capabilities can be distracting,
but following a distraction implies more than an avenue of escape – it also
implies the need to escape in the first place.
And that is the key to how to dig ourselves out of this conundrum.
Technology tools have the ability to support our students in doing things they
can’t do without them – connect, create, share, and construct in completely new
ways. That is the reason why these tools are so powerful in the workplace, and,
not incidentally, why kids find them so entertaining. But we cannot simply
decide to credit, or blame, these tools for providing engagement or distraction.
The topic, activity, and our personal involvement in it as educators and
advocates must provide that. The real proof of engagement comes from making an
assignment one that a student is interested in doing.
So, yes, these “trees” will produce an obligation on our part to
clean up after their excesses. They will not take care of themselves, nor will
they induce our students into doing so. But we will not be served by simply
“cutting them down,” either. If we do so, we may have produced a leaf-less fall,
but the rest of the seasons will be blanched and dry.
Here's to you, Rose. You’re still wrong, but I do miss those
rhubarb pies.
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