Luddite:
one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change.
This is apparently in the top 10% of lookups on the online Merriam-Webster dictionary (which happens to be my online dictionary of choice).
I self-identify as a luddite. The irony of blogging about this is not lost on me.
I went to two workshops last week about using technology in the classroom. We learned about wikis, blogs, twitter and edmodo. I am not opposed to using technology in the classroom; there are ways in which it can be really useful. I do think that it's misused a lot though. Example: we were shown a blog where every student in a grade 1 classroom had their own blog. These kids do not know how to write yet! There were Smartboard screen caps showing the screen while an audio recording of their voices played explaining a pattern they had drawn. I would add a link here except I find the whole thing totally creepy and weird and do not think that 6-year olds should have an "online presence", so I am really not going to promote that.
Apparently it's really motivating for students to write for an audience. My question is, if everyone is producing, who is the audience? We are all caught in up in our technological illusions of grandiosity. As a blogger, I am no exception.
The future is here, and interpersonal communication is mediated through a cold, inhuman interface. Sure we can skype with people from around the world, but we can't hug them (but students are not allowed to hug each other in the school in which I intern anyway -- it's against the "hands off" policy).
I went to King's Landing today. It is a living museum that shows how people lived in the 1800s. Simple things that we take for granted took hours and hours to make. I, on the other hand, feel so removed from my own survival. My life is disturbingly abstract. I know nothing about agriculture, construction, or sewing. People were trapped in narrow, arduous lives 150 years ago by the lack of technology and the all-consuming task of surviving in the Canadian wilderness. Now I am chained to a computer because I am so dependent upon technology that I would most likely freeze or starve to death without it.
Good post. I know we pretty much covered all of this in our SKYPE conversation yesterday. You can learn all those skills you feel you are lacking. Seriously, go work at a living museum, it's where I learned almost all my practical, or at least, formerly practical, skills. I learned to sew, garden and cook there, and if I had some sheep (and someone to shear them)could make a sweater from scratch.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how our idea of 'practical skills' has changed so drastically from a few hundred years ago. What was once a reasonable, common and worthwhile skill (clothes from sheep, for example) is now actually outlandishly impractical and only exists as a novelty craft.
PS I know the above is fairly rambling and tangential to your post.
ReplyDeleteBut which traditional skills do you think are worthwhile and which have completely lost their relevance? Do you think hand-produced clothing, for example, is worth the exorbitant amount of time it takes to create? Is there inherent value in that skill even though it barely relates to modern life at all?