I was recently listening to a book on CD that had come out in 2005. As the detective in the story would discover new things, he would phone in his findings to an attorney. However, he didn’t just pull his phone out of his pocket. No, he’d have to locate an actual telephone wherever he was. Strange, I know!
And a decade before that book, Dean Koontz released a book titled Intensity. In it, a serial killer comments to himself at one point that he may have to start to change some of his strategies when hunting new victims since more and more people were using these new-fangled cell phones and would have an easier ability to call for help in deserted areas.
Now if you’re of an age where cell phone technology has not been ubiquitous, you can appreciate these references. Things change, often more quickly than we realize.
Keeping those technologies in mind, just think back to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. When the President was shot, there was one film that was used often to scrutinize what happened, the Zapruder film. And there are a handful of other videoes made by people who were on hand and had that rudimentary technology.
Imagine something like that today. If the President were going by in a convertible, everyone present would likely have their cell phones out. If there was a shooting, every conceivable angle would be accessible to determine if there was only one shooter, if someone was on the grassy knoll, etc.
As Matthew Broderick so famously intoned during Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”
As you read this, I’m embarking on two new years. This will be year 23 as a teacher here at NRHEG. And it will be my seventh year writing in this space.
When I mention either of these to people, they’re usually surprised at how large both of those numbers are. To be honest, so am I!
When I started teaching, if you had told me that two decades later every student would have his or her own computer, my eyebrows would have raised. Really? When I began, we had computers in a lab that needed start-up disks. You’re going to tell me that kids will be lugging around their own devices? No way.
Of course, we don’t need to go back too far from there when many computers took up entire rooms, so it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. I often joke that by the time any grandchildren of mine get phones, they’ll be embedded in your head and will shine anything you want to see directly in front of your cornea. Jayna says she’d never want that, but when it inevitably happens, she’ll adjust, just like we have with everything else.
Michelle jokes that I used to comment that I didn’t really need to have texting on my phone. If I needed something, I’d just call someone, right? Well, I spend a lot of time texting now since it’s quick and is likely to get a response in a more timely manner. I love technology, but I do tend to buck against some new things until I realize how they can help. I didn’t like Gmail or Google Docs at first; now I use them almost exclusively.
In fact, I find that sometimes I’d rather use my email to deal with groups and committees instead of scheduling meetings. I always ask, “Is this something that a group email could solve rather than try to find a time everyone can get together?” I’m not overly fond of meetings unless they’re going to get to the point and accomplish something quickly. In that regard, I’m grateful that my principal only calls meetings if it’s absolutely necessary to have us all in a room. Most times, we can be told about things through email.
There are times you need to all get together and get something done. And I enjoy seeing some of my co-workers whom I don’t always get to see since we work on opposite ends of the building. I’m certainly not anti-social, but having a meeting for the sake of having a meeting doesn’t fit as well in our technology-driven world.
And sometimes other things change, items I never thought would occur. This coming school year will be the first year I won’t teach Tom Sawyer to my 7th graders. I spent part of my summer reading up on novel-teaching strategies and decided that my students weren’t getting what I’d hoped from teaching this classic. It took too long to get through the book since I read it out loud to help with the difficult dialect. And students were likely not getting better at reading because of that.
I have some new ideas that I’m working through, but the change is a bit tough. I love Tom, Becky, Huck, Aunt Polly, Cousin Sid, and even Injun Joe, all memorable characters to read and to read out loud. But just like with other changes, this will be okay in the long run and might even turn out to be a great decision with something even better taking its place.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is pathophobia, which is an irrational fear of disease, as in, “The lady dealing with pathophobia jumped at the meeting every time she heard someone cough or sneeze.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!