I was pretty excited when I was offered a job last school year in a school that had gone high tech: a laptop computer with internet capability for every student and an interactive white board and document camera for every teacher. Since this is the coming trend, the latest savior of American education, I need to share my experience.
I am certainly no techie nerd, but I am fairly adept at using technology and quick to learn new things, so neither am I a Luddite. I could see real possibilities. I took the job with a good bit of excitement. That excitement, however, turned to ambivalence and then to negativity in about two months.
An internet connected computer is a great tool for the serious student. For the rest, which is most, it is the biggest distraction you could possibly provide.
Let me use an analogy we country folk can relate to. Let us say you are a farmer, and when your son comes to breakfast, you tell him you have gassed up the four wheeler, put the post hole digger on it along with the shotgun and a hand full of shells. You tell him there are a dozen fence post holes that need digging in the back pasture. He has to go through the woods to get there, so you tell him to bring home a couple of squirrels for supper. He knows there are no short term consequences for not getting the holes dug. Please answer the following questions: At the end of the day, how much gasoline will be left in the fuel tank? How many shot gun shells will be left? How many post holes will get dug? Now think about the electronic classroom with all its distractions and ask similar questions concerning school work.
Aside from the distractions, there are other real problems. Put yourself in a classroom of 25 seventh graders who have been assigned to go to a particular web site, but the computer can’t make connection. Fifteen minutes later, a third of the class still can’t connect to the site. These students are not going to sit quietly while waiting. A textbook would have been so much easier. Fifteen seconds will get you to any page you want.
Consider the day an assignment is due. The high tech equivalent of the dog ate my homework kicks in. “I had it all done, but it disappeared.” “My battery is dead and I don’t have my charger,” and so on. For those who turned it in, you must check closely for cut and paste jobs, which is so much easier than old fashioned copying from a friend’s work.
All these headaches would be worth it if in fact real learning was being enhanced, but it is not. I read a quote recently and regret I didn’t note the source, only that it was one of our big shot techies, maybe one of the founders of Google. In essence he said if you want real learning to take place, shut off all the screens, the computers, the Ipods, the televisions, the cell phones and open the books.
Technology is the latest fad. It is being pushed by the technology industry. We are being told that kids’ brains have become wired differently in the high tech age and so they learn differently, or that they need the technological experience to be able to compete in the world of work. Nonsense! If kid’s brains are wired differently, it means in some way they got rewired. So, apparently they are malleable. Wire them back. And since technology changes so rapidly, we don’t really know what to prepare them for. They will learn on the job the technological skills needed no matter what we provide for them now.
The technology, unfortunately, is producing a generation of kids who can’t work with a block of text, study it and think about it. They must have lots of graphics with short cut lines or they move on (the perfect mind for the 30 second, political sound bite).
A computer at every desk brings more problems than benefits. Instead focus on the teacher, giving each one an interactive white board, a document camera, a good laptop computer with support software and training. Then, equip the school with quality computer labs, with the ability to monitor every computer from a central place, for those projects truly enhanced by internet access.
If your school is going high tech, it is because the leadership is falling for industry propaganda. Listen politely, but for the rest of the story, for the side not getting told, read “High-Tech Heretic” by Clifford Stoll. For good reasons, Stoll is a techie very skeptical of the claims made by his industry for the classroom.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
The Real World -- commentary
"We must prepare our kids for the real world," has become the justification for the expenditure of mega bucks on technology in our schools. It sounds good but I think people who say this have in mind employers like Google and Microsoft. But, what is real world employment going to be for most of our kids in Northeast Arkansas?
To begin with, I find educators preparing students for the real world a bit ironic. Most educators went from their public schools to college and back into the public schools, having bypassed the “real” world. When I first set foot on the modern public school campus at age 50, I was struck by the artificial nature of it all. That aside, most of our kids will go to work for entrepreneurs and start-up companies in our communities where most new jobs are being made, and any needed technology will be learned on the job.
Real world work is different for each of us, but I'll share it from my experience, something for which neither school nor technology could have prepared me.
I landed my first real job at age 16 milking cows, $200 a month plus board and room. Not bad for 1958. My first 15 seconds on the job went like this: "Good morning Oggie; what do you want me to do first."
He was highly frustrated by a malfunctioning bottle capper which was missing every third bottle or so. He grabbed a quart, glass bottle of milk and smashed it on the cement floor. "Get out of here, just get out of here," he shouted in his heavy Danish, nearly impossible to understand brogue.
Of course I left, but I returned about 10 minutes later, and we restarted the relationship. He was mostly a good boss, but at times I could hear him shouting at some poor hired hand while I was a quarter of a mile out in the field. He went through hired hands like a philanderer goes through girl friends, but I kept my job and learned to put up with the occasional explosion.
As an 18-year-old Air Force enlistee, I worked for a warrant officer who had as one goal to see me in the stockade before he rotated to his next assignment, as reported to me by my lead sergeant. I frustrated the officer’s attempts to reach that goal, and in the process learned another of life’s many lessons: Life is a cat and mouse game and you are the mouse. Learn to play smart.
In my mid 20's, I worked for an editor who thought it appropriate to scream and swear at employees in front of the entire staff; yes, I was the victim on occasion. He couldn’t understand why I left when a better opportunity came along, one which didn’t have a screamer. In my late 30's, I worked for an insurance manager who thought it appropriate to berate me on an elevator full of strangers because I was selling products my clients needed rather than ones that made the most money for the company.
The best bosses I have had by far have been school administrators: Grover Cooper, James Dunivan, Myra Graham, Keith McDaniels, Karen Curtner, Jim Best, and others. Unfortunately, we can’t all work for the schools.
I will talk about technology in the classroom in my next column; however, I was teaching in Tuckerman when computers first started showing up in the schools. It began with computer labs. I was surprised at how fast the students went from “Do we get to go to the computer lab today,” said with excitement, to “do we have to go to the computer lab today?” The change took place when they discovered computers were there to enhance their work, not for playing games.
Technology will not equip our kids to deal with the bosses I describe, but such bosses are still out there, and bosses, no matter their style, must be kept happy. Our students are not going to fail in the job market for a lack of computer skills. They are going to fail for an over inflated sense of self esteem based on hollow praise instead of actual accomplishment, an unwillingness to respect those in authority, the failure to get to work on time, and the failure to do anything worthy of their pay once they get there. If they can overcome these weaknesses, the technology skills will take care of themselves.
A good work ethic, a sense of responsibility, and respect for authority should be taught in the home, but too often they are not. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know computer skills will not compensate in the real world for lack of these skills.
To begin with, I find educators preparing students for the real world a bit ironic. Most educators went from their public schools to college and back into the public schools, having bypassed the “real” world. When I first set foot on the modern public school campus at age 50, I was struck by the artificial nature of it all. That aside, most of our kids will go to work for entrepreneurs and start-up companies in our communities where most new jobs are being made, and any needed technology will be learned on the job.
Real world work is different for each of us, but I'll share it from my experience, something for which neither school nor technology could have prepared me.
I landed my first real job at age 16 milking cows, $200 a month plus board and room. Not bad for 1958. My first 15 seconds on the job went like this: "Good morning Oggie; what do you want me to do first."
He was highly frustrated by a malfunctioning bottle capper which was missing every third bottle or so. He grabbed a quart, glass bottle of milk and smashed it on the cement floor. "Get out of here, just get out of here," he shouted in his heavy Danish, nearly impossible to understand brogue.
Of course I left, but I returned about 10 minutes later, and we restarted the relationship. He was mostly a good boss, but at times I could hear him shouting at some poor hired hand while I was a quarter of a mile out in the field. He went through hired hands like a philanderer goes through girl friends, but I kept my job and learned to put up with the occasional explosion.
As an 18-year-old Air Force enlistee, I worked for a warrant officer who had as one goal to see me in the stockade before he rotated to his next assignment, as reported to me by my lead sergeant. I frustrated the officer’s attempts to reach that goal, and in the process learned another of life’s many lessons: Life is a cat and mouse game and you are the mouse. Learn to play smart.
In my mid 20's, I worked for an editor who thought it appropriate to scream and swear at employees in front of the entire staff; yes, I was the victim on occasion. He couldn’t understand why I left when a better opportunity came along, one which didn’t have a screamer. In my late 30's, I worked for an insurance manager who thought it appropriate to berate me on an elevator full of strangers because I was selling products my clients needed rather than ones that made the most money for the company.
The best bosses I have had by far have been school administrators: Grover Cooper, James Dunivan, Myra Graham, Keith McDaniels, Karen Curtner, Jim Best, and others. Unfortunately, we can’t all work for the schools.
I will talk about technology in the classroom in my next column; however, I was teaching in Tuckerman when computers first started showing up in the schools. It began with computer labs. I was surprised at how fast the students went from “Do we get to go to the computer lab today,” said with excitement, to “do we have to go to the computer lab today?” The change took place when they discovered computers were there to enhance their work, not for playing games.
Technology will not equip our kids to deal with the bosses I describe, but such bosses are still out there, and bosses, no matter their style, must be kept happy. Our students are not going to fail in the job market for a lack of computer skills. They are going to fail for an over inflated sense of self esteem based on hollow praise instead of actual accomplishment, an unwillingness to respect those in authority, the failure to get to work on time, and the failure to do anything worthy of their pay once they get there. If they can overcome these weaknesses, the technology skills will take care of themselves.
A good work ethic, a sense of responsibility, and respect for authority should be taught in the home, but too often they are not. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know computer skills will not compensate in the real world for lack of these skills.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The Elite -- commentary
In his column published in The Sun July 26, Richard Cohen bemoans the fact that politicians have to dumb down their message and credentials in order to get elected. He claimed they have to hide their academic degrees from prestigious universities and avoid their erudite vocabularies and play down their intellectual abilities. He seems puzzled as to why we commoners don’t appreciate these elitists.
For the most part, I have avoided politics in this column, but I can’t resist taking this opportunity to enlighten Mr. Cohen. To begin with, his column reflected the condescending attitude of so many elitists. We commoners may not be the smartest people on the planet, but there are some things that insult our common sense. Intuitively, we know it does not take a 2,000 page bill, unread by those who voted on it, to reform health care or our financial institutions. In both instances, we were told it must be passed so we can know what is in it. Such actions tell us it is not intellectual aplomb that rules in our capital but rather political savvy and gamesmanship.
Secondly, those who are elite, erudite, and graduates of prestigious universities often promote an ideology unacceptable to us common folk. They eschew the label liberal and prefer to call themselves progressives. Either way, the ideology goes way back.
The late Malcolm Muggeridge, tells about his experience with progressives back in the 1920’s. He had grown up with a socialist father, and Beatrice Webb, the famous British socialists, was his aunt, fore runners of modern progressives.
As a young reporter, he moved his family to Moscow, Russia, where he intended to live out the rest of his life and contribute to the development of the great, people’s utopian experiment known as Soviet communism. He was quickly disillusioned with this progressive ideology. Even as the failures of the experiment became obvious, there continued to be regular visits by American elitists, mostly college professors and government bureaucrats, to Russia to get a glimpse of this wonderful experiment.
Muggeridge reports in his autobiography that these elitist so badly wanted this experiment to be a success that they would believe just about anything they were told, and so, he would try and see how far he could stretch their credulity. It was common for the visitors to ask why there were so many lines of poor peasants at stores and government offices. Muggeridge would explain that these people were so committed to the grand experiment that they would work themselves from morning to night to make it happen. The only way the government could insure that the people would get some rest was to engineer these long waits. Yes, many of the elitists bought it, according to Muggeridge.
As an ideology, progressivism has been around long enough that it has developed its own fundamentalists. The latest iteration of this ideology is being expressed by politicians like Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. It makes no difference that their progressivism has been tried and found wanting around the world in a number of venues, these current progressive fundamentalists are going to try it anyway. In many ways, they are like the religious fundamentalist who says, “Don’t bother me now; I’m looking for a scripture to back up my preconceived idea.”
Those of us who live in what the elites dub fly over country, who graduated from common state universities, or didn’t even get that far, see political games being played with our borders, our taxes, our health care, our investments, our jobs and our energy. We look at the messes in our country and around the world, and we realize that these things are the results of policies of the erudite, elitists who graduated from prestigious universities, and we become suspicious of those who govern. We just want straight talk and solutions.
Mr. Cohen might ask himself why an intellectual heavy weight like Bill Buckley would rather, “entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Why didn’t Buckley, an erudite, intellectual elite, graduate of Yale University, trust people with his qualifications to run the government? What did he know that we don’t?
One of my college professors and a lifelong friend and novelist, the late Robert O. Bowen, once explained to me that a true intellectual is a person who observes life going on around him, thinks carefully about what he observes, and learns from it – nothing said about books.
So, Mr. Cohen, those of us who are suspicious of the elite, the erudite, and those with credentials from prestigious universities, are people who can learn from the past, something the progressives you want us to embrace don’t seem to do.
For the most part, I have avoided politics in this column, but I can’t resist taking this opportunity to enlighten Mr. Cohen. To begin with, his column reflected the condescending attitude of so many elitists. We commoners may not be the smartest people on the planet, but there are some things that insult our common sense. Intuitively, we know it does not take a 2,000 page bill, unread by those who voted on it, to reform health care or our financial institutions. In both instances, we were told it must be passed so we can know what is in it. Such actions tell us it is not intellectual aplomb that rules in our capital but rather political savvy and gamesmanship.
Secondly, those who are elite, erudite, and graduates of prestigious universities often promote an ideology unacceptable to us common folk. They eschew the label liberal and prefer to call themselves progressives. Either way, the ideology goes way back.
The late Malcolm Muggeridge, tells about his experience with progressives back in the 1920’s. He had grown up with a socialist father, and Beatrice Webb, the famous British socialists, was his aunt, fore runners of modern progressives.
As a young reporter, he moved his family to Moscow, Russia, where he intended to live out the rest of his life and contribute to the development of the great, people’s utopian experiment known as Soviet communism. He was quickly disillusioned with this progressive ideology. Even as the failures of the experiment became obvious, there continued to be regular visits by American elitists, mostly college professors and government bureaucrats, to Russia to get a glimpse of this wonderful experiment.
Muggeridge reports in his autobiography that these elitist so badly wanted this experiment to be a success that they would believe just about anything they were told, and so, he would try and see how far he could stretch their credulity. It was common for the visitors to ask why there were so many lines of poor peasants at stores and government offices. Muggeridge would explain that these people were so committed to the grand experiment that they would work themselves from morning to night to make it happen. The only way the government could insure that the people would get some rest was to engineer these long waits. Yes, many of the elitists bought it, according to Muggeridge.
As an ideology, progressivism has been around long enough that it has developed its own fundamentalists. The latest iteration of this ideology is being expressed by politicians like Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. It makes no difference that their progressivism has been tried and found wanting around the world in a number of venues, these current progressive fundamentalists are going to try it anyway. In many ways, they are like the religious fundamentalist who says, “Don’t bother me now; I’m looking for a scripture to back up my preconceived idea.”
Those of us who live in what the elites dub fly over country, who graduated from common state universities, or didn’t even get that far, see political games being played with our borders, our taxes, our health care, our investments, our jobs and our energy. We look at the messes in our country and around the world, and we realize that these things are the results of policies of the erudite, elitists who graduated from prestigious universities, and we become suspicious of those who govern. We just want straight talk and solutions.
Mr. Cohen might ask himself why an intellectual heavy weight like Bill Buckley would rather, “entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Why didn’t Buckley, an erudite, intellectual elite, graduate of Yale University, trust people with his qualifications to run the government? What did he know that we don’t?
One of my college professors and a lifelong friend and novelist, the late Robert O. Bowen, once explained to me that a true intellectual is a person who observes life going on around him, thinks carefully about what he observes, and learns from it – nothing said about books.
So, Mr. Cohen, those of us who are suspicious of the elite, the erudite, and those with credentials from prestigious universities, are people who can learn from the past, something the progressives you want us to embrace don’t seem to do.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
An Adventure -- commentary
My last column, I applauded Abby Sunderland for launching her around the world sailing adventure and ended by saying it is better to reach old age with memories than regrets. To affirm that I live by my own philosophy, let me share one of my own adventures.
It was 1976. I was 34-years-old, married to Pearl, with a son, Greg, in the second grade. One afternoon, I asked Pearl if she would like to take sixth months off and tour Europe and the U.S. “We can’t afford to do that,” she objected.
“You apparently misunderstood my question,” I replied. “All I asked was how would you like to?”
“Well sure, I’d like to,” she responded.
“Good,” I said. “Now, let’s figure out how to make it happen.”
I was making about $10,000 a year plus housing; Pearl had not worked outside the home since Greg was born. The morning paper had an ad for a mortgage loan closer, Pearl’s previous occupation. My work allowed me to be home when Greg left for school and when he came home, so I told Pearl to apply for the job, which she got. And , I got a part time job for a custodial firm specializing in cleaning restaurant hoods. We banked all the income from these jobs for a year, except for money used to purchase a used Volkswagen micro bus, camper conversion.
This was the old timey kind of VW bus the hippies liked so much with the boxer, air cooled engine and manifold heater. With the vehicle paid for and $10,000 in the bank, we set out from Anchorage, Alaska, to drive to New York on January 2, 1977. We drove around the clock; Pearl drove days and I drove nights. As we travelled through the Yukon Territory, temperatures were a minus 50 to 55 degrees. There was so little heat in the camper that our water jug froze while setting on the floor in the middle of the bus.
A memory imprinted on my mind as I drove through the Yukon Territory is the most spectacular display of Northern Lights I have ever seen. The Northern Lights at their finest are truly one of the most outstanding displays of nature. Unfortunately, they seem to be at their finest when it is the coldest; most tourists go to Alaska in the summer and never see them.
Even though we took a motel two nights, we still made it to New York, in six days. We got tickets for London on the Freddy Laker flight and left our bus with a friend in Connecticut. Freddy Laker was a British aviation entrepreneur who tried to compete with the government owned British Airways. It was dubbed the hippy flight because it was a bare bones, cut rate, bring you own lunch airlines.
This was a time when hundreds of young Americans were traipsing around Europe, living out of backpacks and traveling on Eurail passes. They stayed in hostels, pensions, or just rode the train for a place to sleep, not caring where it went. We joined them with our own backpacks. The only thing that distinguished us from the hippies was that we did not have rich parents at home to bail us out if we ran out of money or got into trouble.
We went from London to Switzerland where I attended a study center in the Alps for a few weeks. Then we went on to Spain where we shared an apartment on the Mediterranean with Tony Cox, the ex-husband of Yoko Ono and their daughter, Kyoko. This is a story all in itself, but among other things, it involved me making a clandestine trip to Majorca with Tony, whose motto might have been “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
We went on to France and finally back to Connecticut to pick up our VW bus. Then it was off to Florida. Greg had endured the sights of London, Paris, the Alps, the Louvre, the Cathedrals, the museums, the ferry ride across the English Channel, the Eiffel Tower and other incidentals as something he had to do to get to Disney World. Once we got back to the U.S., we still had three months before I had to be back to work, so we had our fun at Disney World and then begin wending our way north and west to Kentucky, then Minnesota, where Pearl grew up, and out to Washington State, where I grew up.
While in Washington, I traded the VW in on a brand new Dodge Aspen wagon, paid for in cash, and headed back to Alaska. We arrived back in Anchorage with a grand collection of memories, a new car, and still had $1,000 in the bank. Lots of memories; no regrets.
It was 1976. I was 34-years-old, married to Pearl, with a son, Greg, in the second grade. One afternoon, I asked Pearl if she would like to take sixth months off and tour Europe and the U.S. “We can’t afford to do that,” she objected.
“You apparently misunderstood my question,” I replied. “All I asked was how would you like to?”
“Well sure, I’d like to,” she responded.
“Good,” I said. “Now, let’s figure out how to make it happen.”
I was making about $10,000 a year plus housing; Pearl had not worked outside the home since Greg was born. The morning paper had an ad for a mortgage loan closer, Pearl’s previous occupation. My work allowed me to be home when Greg left for school and when he came home, so I told Pearl to apply for the job, which she got. And , I got a part time job for a custodial firm specializing in cleaning restaurant hoods. We banked all the income from these jobs for a year, except for money used to purchase a used Volkswagen micro bus, camper conversion.
This was the old timey kind of VW bus the hippies liked so much with the boxer, air cooled engine and manifold heater. With the vehicle paid for and $10,000 in the bank, we set out from Anchorage, Alaska, to drive to New York on January 2, 1977. We drove around the clock; Pearl drove days and I drove nights. As we travelled through the Yukon Territory, temperatures were a minus 50 to 55 degrees. There was so little heat in the camper that our water jug froze while setting on the floor in the middle of the bus.
A memory imprinted on my mind as I drove through the Yukon Territory is the most spectacular display of Northern Lights I have ever seen. The Northern Lights at their finest are truly one of the most outstanding displays of nature. Unfortunately, they seem to be at their finest when it is the coldest; most tourists go to Alaska in the summer and never see them.
Even though we took a motel two nights, we still made it to New York, in six days. We got tickets for London on the Freddy Laker flight and left our bus with a friend in Connecticut. Freddy Laker was a British aviation entrepreneur who tried to compete with the government owned British Airways. It was dubbed the hippy flight because it was a bare bones, cut rate, bring you own lunch airlines.
This was a time when hundreds of young Americans were traipsing around Europe, living out of backpacks and traveling on Eurail passes. They stayed in hostels, pensions, or just rode the train for a place to sleep, not caring where it went. We joined them with our own backpacks. The only thing that distinguished us from the hippies was that we did not have rich parents at home to bail us out if we ran out of money or got into trouble.
We went from London to Switzerland where I attended a study center in the Alps for a few weeks. Then we went on to Spain where we shared an apartment on the Mediterranean with Tony Cox, the ex-husband of Yoko Ono and their daughter, Kyoko. This is a story all in itself, but among other things, it involved me making a clandestine trip to Majorca with Tony, whose motto might have been “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
We went on to France and finally back to Connecticut to pick up our VW bus. Then it was off to Florida. Greg had endured the sights of London, Paris, the Alps, the Louvre, the Cathedrals, the museums, the ferry ride across the English Channel, the Eiffel Tower and other incidentals as something he had to do to get to Disney World. Once we got back to the U.S., we still had three months before I had to be back to work, so we had our fun at Disney World and then begin wending our way north and west to Kentucky, then Minnesota, where Pearl grew up, and out to Washington State, where I grew up.
While in Washington, I traded the VW in on a brand new Dodge Aspen wagon, paid for in cash, and headed back to Alaska. We arrived back in Anchorage with a grand collection of memories, a new car, and still had $1,000 in the bank. Lots of memories; no regrets.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Risk Takers -- commentary
Sixteen-year-old sailor, Abby Sunderland, has been in the news following her rescue on her solo attempt at sailing around the world. Pundits have been quick to castigate her parents for allowing such an adventure. I say hooray for her parents and will try to put a few things in perspective.
First, most 16-year-olds have adult bodies and if physically active, they are in as great shape as they will ever be and can handle such challenges. Whether they are mature enough depends on their upbringing.
Secondly, her chance of doing this is better now than later as she has no other responsibilities. Such adventures done later in life usually involve the neglect of family or career. The movie “Seven Years in Tibet” comes to mind.
One pundit belittled the parents’ justification that driving a car down the freeway is also risky, but parents let their kids do it all the time. The pundit said the difference was that driving is necessary to get from point A to point B while sailing around the world is optional. The fallacy here is that most teenage driving is also optional. Do they really need to go to the mall or a friend’s house?
He further argued that the girl’s adventure cost the Australian government big bucks to rescue her. True, but we spend big bucks every year rescuing adventurers from Mt. McKinley, Mt. Everest, and many other places adult adventurers go. People regularly have emergencies while hiking or mountain biking on forest trails and have to be rescued. We also spend thousands getting victims from roadside accidents to emergency treatment whether their being on the road was optional or necessary.
There is a bigger issue here. It is the incessant drive by “do gooders” to eliminate all risk from our lives. If kids get hurt playing dodge ball, then we must do away with dodge ball. If kids get hurt on four wheelers, we must do away with four wheelers.
This “anti-risk spoiling life” syndrome even affects our military. A recent news article describes a 70 year tradition at the Annapolis Naval Academy where plebes, at the end of their grueling first year, scale a 21-foot obelisk. The obelisk is usually greased to make the climb more difficult. The tradition may be ended by the commanding admiral because of “unnecessary injury risk.”
I have argued and will continue to argue that our culture suffers, especially among males, from the lack of a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. I believe this lack is what drives extreme sports, gang initiations and the like. The more we work to eliminate risk, the more wimpy our culture becomes, especially our boys, and they will seek out ways to affirm their manhood. To some extent, girls undergo biological changes that confirm when they have reached adulthood. Boys, on the other hand, never quite know for sure unless there is a ritual which confers manhood on them and such rituals usually involve risk. If we shelter our kids from all risk, we will wind up with adults like T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock.
We are rapidly becoming a culture that experiences all risk vicariously. I think this is behind the popularity of reality TV. We sit and watch TV as ice road truckers, crab fishermen, and NASCAR drivers take all the risks. From our TV sets we learn how to survive in the wilderness or launch a business. The only risks we have to take are those that come from obesity brought on by inactivity.
The real key to living life to the fullest is risk management. Abby Sunderland’s father schooled her in the art of sailing and through proper planning, minimized the risk. Even at that, there are some things you cannot control. The storm she encountered would have broken her mast whether she was 16 or 26.
You can teach your kids how to safely ride a four wheeler and make them wear protective clothing to minimize the injuries they will probably experience.
We learn from experience, preferably other people’s, how to manage risk. There was a time when it was considered unmanly to wear a mitt when playing baseball, whether pitching, catching or playing in the field. As a result, there were a lot of broken bones, but the players developed appropriate gear. The gear has evolved over time as a way of managing risk.
It is risky to have high school football practice in the hot August, Arkansas sun, but wise coaches learn to manage that risk. Yes, there are heat injuries and an occasional death, but we still play football.
I applaud Abby and her parents. With time, we all grow old and it is better to have memories to share with our grandkids than regrets.
First, most 16-year-olds have adult bodies and if physically active, they are in as great shape as they will ever be and can handle such challenges. Whether they are mature enough depends on their upbringing.
Secondly, her chance of doing this is better now than later as she has no other responsibilities. Such adventures done later in life usually involve the neglect of family or career. The movie “Seven Years in Tibet” comes to mind.
One pundit belittled the parents’ justification that driving a car down the freeway is also risky, but parents let their kids do it all the time. The pundit said the difference was that driving is necessary to get from point A to point B while sailing around the world is optional. The fallacy here is that most teenage driving is also optional. Do they really need to go to the mall or a friend’s house?
He further argued that the girl’s adventure cost the Australian government big bucks to rescue her. True, but we spend big bucks every year rescuing adventurers from Mt. McKinley, Mt. Everest, and many other places adult adventurers go. People regularly have emergencies while hiking or mountain biking on forest trails and have to be rescued. We also spend thousands getting victims from roadside accidents to emergency treatment whether their being on the road was optional or necessary.
There is a bigger issue here. It is the incessant drive by “do gooders” to eliminate all risk from our lives. If kids get hurt playing dodge ball, then we must do away with dodge ball. If kids get hurt on four wheelers, we must do away with four wheelers.
This “anti-risk spoiling life” syndrome even affects our military. A recent news article describes a 70 year tradition at the Annapolis Naval Academy where plebes, at the end of their grueling first year, scale a 21-foot obelisk. The obelisk is usually greased to make the climb more difficult. The tradition may be ended by the commanding admiral because of “unnecessary injury risk.”
I have argued and will continue to argue that our culture suffers, especially among males, from the lack of a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. I believe this lack is what drives extreme sports, gang initiations and the like. The more we work to eliminate risk, the more wimpy our culture becomes, especially our boys, and they will seek out ways to affirm their manhood. To some extent, girls undergo biological changes that confirm when they have reached adulthood. Boys, on the other hand, never quite know for sure unless there is a ritual which confers manhood on them and such rituals usually involve risk. If we shelter our kids from all risk, we will wind up with adults like T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock.
We are rapidly becoming a culture that experiences all risk vicariously. I think this is behind the popularity of reality TV. We sit and watch TV as ice road truckers, crab fishermen, and NASCAR drivers take all the risks. From our TV sets we learn how to survive in the wilderness or launch a business. The only risks we have to take are those that come from obesity brought on by inactivity.
The real key to living life to the fullest is risk management. Abby Sunderland’s father schooled her in the art of sailing and through proper planning, minimized the risk. Even at that, there are some things you cannot control. The storm she encountered would have broken her mast whether she was 16 or 26.
You can teach your kids how to safely ride a four wheeler and make them wear protective clothing to minimize the injuries they will probably experience.
We learn from experience, preferably other people’s, how to manage risk. There was a time when it was considered unmanly to wear a mitt when playing baseball, whether pitching, catching or playing in the field. As a result, there were a lot of broken bones, but the players developed appropriate gear. The gear has evolved over time as a way of managing risk.
It is risky to have high school football practice in the hot August, Arkansas sun, but wise coaches learn to manage that risk. Yes, there are heat injuries and an occasional death, but we still play football.
I applaud Abby and her parents. With time, we all grow old and it is better to have memories to share with our grandkids than regrets.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Outdoors -- commentary
The common reaction I get from people when they find out I spent 30 years in Alaska is "I'd sure like to go there sometime," and I wonder, "Have you checked out Arkansas lately? "The Natural State" is not just our motto; it is also a reality. Arkansas can be just as spectacular as Alaska. Summer is a good time to take the kids and explore our wonderful state.
Since coming to Arkansas 20 years ago, my wife and I have explored the four corners of the state, staying in many of the state parks, as well as Corps of Engineer parks. When travelling alone, I often tent and when travelling with Pearl, we stay in our RV. Either way, I have been happy to see the parks being used by families enjoying the out of doors: kids on bicycles, swimming, boating, fishing, hiking and camp cooking.
Thirty-one state parks offer campsites, four of them have lodges, 11 of them offer cabins for rent, and three of them have golf courses. There are also many National Park Service camp grounds in Arkansas, many Forest Service campgrounds, and many National Forest campgrounds. These various facilities cover the spectrum from most amenities a camper could want to primitive sites with basic outhouses and no washroom facilities. Our state parks include much more than camping. Many of them incorporate museums and scientific attractions. Some of them sponsor educational events to help people enjoy the out of doors even more. It was at Lake Charles State Park several years ago that I took a class in Dutch oven cooking. The class included a Dutch oven which I use regularly.
A web site that will help you plan an outing to our parks is ArkansasStateParks.com. A good book to help in your planning is “Arkansas Adventure Guide.” It can be obtained at various tourist centers or from the web site Arkansas.com. The adventure guide lists the many campsites of the various agencies as well as private RV parks. It lists innumerable hiking and back packing trails and a number of multi-use trails for ATV’s, mountain bikes, and motorcycles, including maps. If you want to get out into nature but aren’t fond of hiking, there is also a section on back country drives along with maps.
There are serious reasons to get our kids out into nature. In 2005, Richard Louv published “Last Child in the Woods.” A quote by Bernice Weissbound, contributing editor to “Parents” magazine, appears on the cover and says, “Nature is a key factor in children becoming sensitive, expressive, and essentially human.” Louv says we need to save our children from “nature-deficit disorder.” There are serious mental health reasons to do so.
Louv says, “A widening circle of researchers believes that the loss of natural habitat, or the disconnection from nature even when it is available, has enormous implications for human health and child development. They say the quality of exposure to nature affects our health at an almost cellular level.… humans have an innate affinity for the natural world, probably a biologically based need integral to our development as individuals.”
I can’t help compare my own nature rich boyhood with the video game environment of today’s youth. We lived on the edge of town in my pre-school and early elementary years. My brothers and I went out the back door, across the alley and we were in the woods where we spent hours and hours discovering periwinkles, tad poles, pine tree pitch, and how to dam a stream. We climbed huge sand stones and wore out our shoes and trousers sliding down them. Even when we moved, we were never far from the woods where we spent hours of free time.
How different from what Louv points out: “Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle maintains that each hour of TV watched per day by preschoolers increases by 10 per cent the likelihood that they will develop concentration problems and other symptoms of attention-deficit disorders by age seven.”
In another quote, he says, “We can now look at it this way: time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health.”
The state and federal governments have spent millions to make it possible and easy for families to make “The Natural State” more than a motto, and there are very serious reasons to do so.
In a recent cartoon, Ziggy was standing on the scales and his doctor was saying, “I’m taking you off the food channel and putting you on the exercise channel.” This summer, let’s help our kids do more than just change channels. Making time to play in the great Arkansas outdoors is a terrific way to get them away from the inactivity of TV, their video games, and their computers.
Since coming to Arkansas 20 years ago, my wife and I have explored the four corners of the state, staying in many of the state parks, as well as Corps of Engineer parks. When travelling alone, I often tent and when travelling with Pearl, we stay in our RV. Either way, I have been happy to see the parks being used by families enjoying the out of doors: kids on bicycles, swimming, boating, fishing, hiking and camp cooking.
Thirty-one state parks offer campsites, four of them have lodges, 11 of them offer cabins for rent, and three of them have golf courses. There are also many National Park Service camp grounds in Arkansas, many Forest Service campgrounds, and many National Forest campgrounds. These various facilities cover the spectrum from most amenities a camper could want to primitive sites with basic outhouses and no washroom facilities. Our state parks include much more than camping. Many of them incorporate museums and scientific attractions. Some of them sponsor educational events to help people enjoy the out of doors even more. It was at Lake Charles State Park several years ago that I took a class in Dutch oven cooking. The class included a Dutch oven which I use regularly.
A web site that will help you plan an outing to our parks is ArkansasStateParks.com. A good book to help in your planning is “Arkansas Adventure Guide.” It can be obtained at various tourist centers or from the web site Arkansas.com. The adventure guide lists the many campsites of the various agencies as well as private RV parks. It lists innumerable hiking and back packing trails and a number of multi-use trails for ATV’s, mountain bikes, and motorcycles, including maps. If you want to get out into nature but aren’t fond of hiking, there is also a section on back country drives along with maps.
There are serious reasons to get our kids out into nature. In 2005, Richard Louv published “Last Child in the Woods.” A quote by Bernice Weissbound, contributing editor to “Parents” magazine, appears on the cover and says, “Nature is a key factor in children becoming sensitive, expressive, and essentially human.” Louv says we need to save our children from “nature-deficit disorder.” There are serious mental health reasons to do so.
Louv says, “A widening circle of researchers believes that the loss of natural habitat, or the disconnection from nature even when it is available, has enormous implications for human health and child development. They say the quality of exposure to nature affects our health at an almost cellular level.… humans have an innate affinity for the natural world, probably a biologically based need integral to our development as individuals.”
I can’t help compare my own nature rich boyhood with the video game environment of today’s youth. We lived on the edge of town in my pre-school and early elementary years. My brothers and I went out the back door, across the alley and we were in the woods where we spent hours and hours discovering periwinkles, tad poles, pine tree pitch, and how to dam a stream. We climbed huge sand stones and wore out our shoes and trousers sliding down them. Even when we moved, we were never far from the woods where we spent hours of free time.
How different from what Louv points out: “Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle maintains that each hour of TV watched per day by preschoolers increases by 10 per cent the likelihood that they will develop concentration problems and other symptoms of attention-deficit disorders by age seven.”
In another quote, he says, “We can now look at it this way: time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health.”
The state and federal governments have spent millions to make it possible and easy for families to make “The Natural State” more than a motto, and there are very serious reasons to do so.
In a recent cartoon, Ziggy was standing on the scales and his doctor was saying, “I’m taking you off the food channel and putting you on the exercise channel.” This summer, let’s help our kids do more than just change channels. Making time to play in the great Arkansas outdoors is a terrific way to get them away from the inactivity of TV, their video games, and their computers.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Survival Stories -- commentry
I enjoy reading survival stories to students, but I also like for kids to find practical applications from what they read. This is a little harder to do with survival stories, but in at least three such stories I use, there are lessons that can be applied to the students’ lives: “Hatchet,” by Gary Paulsen, “The Cay,” by Theodore Taylor, and a movie, “The Earthling,” directed by Peter Collinson.
In “The Hatchet,” Brian, a 13-year-old boy is flying in a small plane to Canada to be with his father. As he leaves, his mother gives him a present, a hatchet. The pilot has a heart attack and dies as they are flying over a wilderness area and the boy crash lands the airplane into a lake. He now must survive in the wilderness with nothing but his hatchet. It is an exciting story as Brian learns to build shelter, hunt for food and hope for rescue.
In “The Cay,” 11-year-old Phillip lives in the South Pacific with his parents during World War II. His father works in an oil refinery and German U-boats are attacking the oil tankers and freighters. His mother insists they return to the states. Since she is afraid to fly, they take a ship. The ship is sunk by a U-boat and Phillip finds himself stranded on a small island with an old black man and a cat. Phillip received a tough blow to the head as they were abandoning ship, and he soon goes blind.
In “The Earthling,” the young, pampered Shawn Daley is with his parents in the Australian outback. The father accidently drives their RV over a cliff and the boy alone survives. In the area of the wreck, an old man is making his way through the wilderness back to his childhood home. He has cancer and wants to get back to the abandoned homestead where he can die in peace. If he guides the boy back to civilization, he can’t get to his destination before he dies. If he takes the boy with him, the boy won’t survive on his own after the man passes.
In each situation, the young person finds himself in an environment in which he is unprepared to cope. The survival stories are important to our kids because soon they too will be cast into strange environments.
One time I read the following and I believe it involved an Eskimo and a white man: “You are not stupid if you don’t know what I know. You are stupid if you don’t know what you need to know to survive in your environment.”
In each of these stories, survival of the boys depends on how fast they learn. And in each case, they learn in different ways.
Brian is on his own with no adult resources to call on. He takes the one thing he has, a hatchet, and learns how to use it by experience. He also learns by closely observing his surroundings as he struggles to get food and create shelter. He is the consummate self educator.
In “The Cay,” Phillip has a different problem. His roots are in the old South, so he has to overcome prejudice and learn to trust the black man. The old man becomes his teacher and mentor and their key to survival is not education, as Timothy already knows what they must do. Their key is preparation. There is work to be done, but Phillip isn’t used to working and tries to use his blindness as an excuse not to do anything. With a sharp slap to the face by Timothy, Phillip comes to realize he now lives in a different world with new rules and he begins to play the game a new way.
In “The Earthling,” Shawn Daley also has a teacher, but he is a hard teacher. The old man knows the kid has a very limited time to learn his lessons and if he fails, there will be no second chance. There is no time for nurturing and softness. It is the Spartan approach to education; learn or die. He is harsh and demanding with the kid, but he knows what awaits the kid if he fails.
These stories give us the three things our kids need to survive in the world they will inhabit: the ability to learn from experience and observation, a mentor who helps them prepare but will give the equivalent to a slap in the face when needed, and the demanding teacher who knows that most of us will only get one try at success.
These survival stories are more than just entertainment; they show our kids what it takes to survive in the hostile world in which we all must live.
In “The Hatchet,” Brian, a 13-year-old boy is flying in a small plane to Canada to be with his father. As he leaves, his mother gives him a present, a hatchet. The pilot has a heart attack and dies as they are flying over a wilderness area and the boy crash lands the airplane into a lake. He now must survive in the wilderness with nothing but his hatchet. It is an exciting story as Brian learns to build shelter, hunt for food and hope for rescue.
In “The Cay,” 11-year-old Phillip lives in the South Pacific with his parents during World War II. His father works in an oil refinery and German U-boats are attacking the oil tankers and freighters. His mother insists they return to the states. Since she is afraid to fly, they take a ship. The ship is sunk by a U-boat and Phillip finds himself stranded on a small island with an old black man and a cat. Phillip received a tough blow to the head as they were abandoning ship, and he soon goes blind.
In “The Earthling,” the young, pampered Shawn Daley is with his parents in the Australian outback. The father accidently drives their RV over a cliff and the boy alone survives. In the area of the wreck, an old man is making his way through the wilderness back to his childhood home. He has cancer and wants to get back to the abandoned homestead where he can die in peace. If he guides the boy back to civilization, he can’t get to his destination before he dies. If he takes the boy with him, the boy won’t survive on his own after the man passes.
In each situation, the young person finds himself in an environment in which he is unprepared to cope. The survival stories are important to our kids because soon they too will be cast into strange environments.
One time I read the following and I believe it involved an Eskimo and a white man: “You are not stupid if you don’t know what I know. You are stupid if you don’t know what you need to know to survive in your environment.”
In each of these stories, survival of the boys depends on how fast they learn. And in each case, they learn in different ways.
Brian is on his own with no adult resources to call on. He takes the one thing he has, a hatchet, and learns how to use it by experience. He also learns by closely observing his surroundings as he struggles to get food and create shelter. He is the consummate self educator.
In “The Cay,” Phillip has a different problem. His roots are in the old South, so he has to overcome prejudice and learn to trust the black man. The old man becomes his teacher and mentor and their key to survival is not education, as Timothy already knows what they must do. Their key is preparation. There is work to be done, but Phillip isn’t used to working and tries to use his blindness as an excuse not to do anything. With a sharp slap to the face by Timothy, Phillip comes to realize he now lives in a different world with new rules and he begins to play the game a new way.
In “The Earthling,” Shawn Daley also has a teacher, but he is a hard teacher. The old man knows the kid has a very limited time to learn his lessons and if he fails, there will be no second chance. There is no time for nurturing and softness. It is the Spartan approach to education; learn or die. He is harsh and demanding with the kid, but he knows what awaits the kid if he fails.
These stories give us the three things our kids need to survive in the world they will inhabit: the ability to learn from experience and observation, a mentor who helps them prepare but will give the equivalent to a slap in the face when needed, and the demanding teacher who knows that most of us will only get one try at success.
These survival stories are more than just entertainment; they show our kids what it takes to survive in the hostile world in which we all must live.
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