Will Technology Destroy My Teaching?

This morning my daughter announces that her class is going on a field trip to the University Astronomy Lab.

Her personal favorite planet is Jupiter.

All day, I've been thinking about the wonder she'll feel.  These planetarium shows, according to the website, "feature spectacular astronomical images from the surface of Mars, to dusty nebulae, to dazzling galaxies, rendered in three dimensions with the aid of special eyeglasses and projection screens."

This kind of technology might just provide a sublime experience for these children.  They might go on to study astrophysics, probing deeper into the mysteries of the universe.

I wish I were there with her.

But I had my own experience with technology and education today.  I received my classroom assignment for next semester, so on my way back to the parking lot, I casually pop into my future classrooms.  One of them hides deep within an ancient campus building.  The tiny room has 25 chairs and desks and a long table up front (for me).  I'm not sure I even have a chalkboard to use in that room.  These are the rooms instructors beg to get switched.  They shed tears over these assignments and bribe administrative assistants to send them to any other classroom. 

But I love rooms like that.  I request the simplest classroom.  

The second classroom resides in a building I haven't visited yet--the Business School.  I walk in, and I'm immediately transported to another universe.  A ticker on the wall brags out the stock market numbers.  Flat screen TV's broadcast major network news.  Coffee shops send out an aroma that, in this environment, makes me feel rushed and nervous.  Everybody's in suits, and the click of high heels on the floor breeds a strange insecurity in me.

I find my classroom.

It's spectacular, dazzling.  Each wall has a projection screen, and I count no less than 7 white boards that light up for my notes.  My podium up front features more buttons than I could ever figure out what to do with.  It has a microphone. If I touch this one button, the lights dim and a huge screen descends behind me.

Maybe another button ushers in my avatar who teaches for me while I go get a latte.

The students' seats swivel, and I'm not sure, but I wonder if each desk has its own laptop built in. 

I turn a circle in this future classroom, and then I immediately think:  "This is so . . . distracting!" 

What will I do with so much technology?  What could it inspire in folks trying to learn to use strong verbs and varied sentence structure?  Am I now putting on a show with lights and sounds? At what point does the technology distract rather than enrich?

I've posed the question to my technology-inundated students.  Shall I change my course?  One man leaned back (in his old desk) and said, "Don't do it.  Don't use the technology.  People want to talk about their ideas together in class.  That's what they really want."  

But is there something I'm missing? 

Living with flair means I figure out how to use technology in ways that enrich and offer sublime experiences.  Because it can.  I just don't know how--as a writing teacher--it will.

Do you know?

What You've Been Given

It's officially winter here. 

Snow swirls up and settles, finally, on the land.  

But it's the worst kind of snow because there's not enough to do anything with it.

But the neighborhood children, despite the lack of significant snow accumulation, still coax sleds down hills all afternoon.  And they still make snowmen no matter how little they are given.  In one child's front yard, I stop and notice she's made a mama and a baby snowman, in miniature.

Miniature Snowman

Lord, help me take what I've been given today and turn it into a beautiful thing. 

Living with flair means I make something out of whatever I'm given.   

How College Should Be

Last night, an entire class of students comes by my house with food for a huge potluck.  This isn't part of the job description of a college instructor, and I know it's unusual--at least at a big state school--to invite students into your home.

I'm supposed to keep my professional distance.

But my undergraduate education at the University of Virginia ruined me regarding professional distance.  In those days, I dined with professors nearly every evening.  As part of the Jeffersonian ideal of the "academic village," professors joined students in dining halls or else invited them into their homes for dinner, dessert, or coffee.  Some of my favorite memories from college have to do with meeting my instructors outside of the classroom.  I remember walking into the living room of my English professor and sitting around a table with a group of other students and just talking--like it were an ordinary, everyday thing--about beauty.

Another professor, Rita Dove--the Poet Laureate of the United States at the time and Pulitzer Prize winner --actually hosted class in my dorm room.  She actually sat on my bed and talked to me about my poems.  The other students sat in a circle on my floor.  How could I not feel like I'd entered a portal into adulthood, into intellectual communities that wanted to hear my voice?

Later that semester, Ms. Dove hosted us all for dinner.

I talked about my life.  I talked about things I hoped for and things I cared about.  Those conversations changed me forever.

Those conversations made me feel truly adult, truly independent.   It was college at its best.  

My class piles into my living room, and one student plays her guitar while others sing around the piano.  We decide to talk about creativity, future careers, and the burden of having to decide how to choose a career when you love too many things.  And these students actually want to talk about their writing projects.  They pose questions, make comments, and grapple with their revision process all while petting my cats and eating homemade apple pie.  One student says, "Dr. H., I want to write my memoir about this," as she gestures to our group gathered about her. 

I have to force them out the door so I can go to bed.  

When most people think of the college scene, they visualize the alcohol and the parties.  But for at least one night, a group of students sat around and talked about ideas--not because anybody was taking attendance--but because they wanted be together and share their ideas and their lives.  That's what makes college so good.