| September'99 | . |
This Journal |
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"Can I go get a disk from my locker?" "What? Why? A computer disk?" "Yeah." "I don't have a computer in here." "He does." I looked over to see, somewhat obscured by another student, a young man diligently clicking away on his laptop. Several members of his group huddled about, feeding him lines and correcting stuff as he worked. Just a few days ago we had discussed in department meetings whether students should be allowed to use their laptops in class. We quickly disposed of it as a nuisance (noisy, hard to monitor, a possible distraction, a possible disadvantage for those without, etc.), and yet here is a perfectly wonderful use. They are working on a group script for The Colonial Dinner Party. He's typing and the others are contributing . I see excellent interaction, totally on task with this very efficient machine. They have found their own way to work out some wrinkles in the group project. I'm impressed. Would I want someone to walk in at that moment and demand that he unplug and pull out his pencil because this was a violation of school policy? (It is not - yet.) I don't think so. Sure, I can see the problems (as listed above, and more), but the natural ease of this particular moment opened my eyes to some stuff I'm going to have to ponder. I suspect it will always be the adults who drag their feet when it comes to new uses for technology. (This, of course, is one of the necessary functions of adults.) The kids jump right in. I hear there are some high schools that require students to use a laptop. I believe the Carmelite-sponsored Whitefriars College in Victoria, Australia is among these. In another group of that same classroom today I overheard the members negotiating how they would get their final draft together for tomorrow. It was something like, "You e-mail it to me tonight..and you too...and I'll paste it together and print it all out." It's quickly become a cliché, but we really do have a "brave new world" sitting on our windowsill... as long as the power grid stays up. In other news....what? There is no other news? Well, that's how I'm feeling right now. What happened today? We had our second turn-in for the Street Scenes fundraiser. One of my sophomores turned in a single ad for $1650. No one else turned in a penny. Our homeroom quota is only $2300. I shiver with delight to think what might happen if everyone pulled their own weight. But I fear that most are planning to do very little, and I - as you may know - am no grand motivator in this area. What else? My freshmen should be busy tonight memorizing Joseph Campbell's description of the heroic monomyth, which I'm calling The Hero's Journey. They groaned a little, but at least it's a break from writing for tonight. (Though I don't know why anyone would want a break from writing...isn't that like taking a break from breathing?) What else? Bill, who has recently moved back to the Midwest after six years out West, is in for a meeting at the school and had dinner with us tonight. He's "doing vocations", one of the guys who makes contact with potentially future Carmelites. This has always struck me as being one of the most difficult jobs any of us can do. I remember this every time I try to come up with the names of some possibilities among my own constituency. I can think of some guys, but I'm pretty certain that at this stage of their development they would not consider it and would, in fact, think I had lost my mind. Is this just my own stupid excuse for not raising the issue? Probably. |
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