We're Not in Y2K Anymore

I think the most important thing I learned last night while chaperoning the homecoming dance was that if I ever have a daughter, she is not getting new shoes for any dance. Those girls marched in past the ticket table with their corsages, glittery clutches, and dates in tow, teetering on brand new four-inch strappy, sparkling platform stilettos (seriously, most of them were nearly identical save a few color differences here or there), making their way toward an unclaimed, poorly-camouflaged cafeteria table littered with paper plates full of pretzels and cheese puffs. No sooner did their tiny bags clunk onto the tables did their shoes fly off and their iPhones come out, and they were scuttling (now barefooted) into the gym to hit the dance floor. 

All while I stood there in my heels, wishing I wasn't a grown up so I could fling my shoes into a corner, too. 

And then I got to thinking (lots of time to kill while standing around watching high schoolers chug Mountain Dew and try to dance to all those 80s songs that made me feel like I was at a wedding...), how would I do things differently if I was back in high school? Or better yet, if time travel wasn't an option, how would my friends and I be handling the onslaught of technology? Because students just did not have cell phones back then. (Except for my friend Kelly, whose dad let her use it during musical season so she could call for a ride home. Man, were we jealous.) So we had to have actual film cameras at dances and the only people who got to see the pictures were our friends at the lunch table about a week after the dance IF we took them to be developed immediately. I mean, there are thousands of pictures out there that my peers took during, say, just ONE dance I went to as a senior that I will never, ever see. And meanwhile, last night, of the 800+ in attendance, probably about two thirds of those students saw at least 100 pictures on facebook or twitter that same night. (I'm ballpark-ing, but I think that sounds close, right?) 

I mean, let that sink in. Just in visuals alone, imagine the brain capacity that is being used up on a daily basis in comparison to when I was in high school a mere 13, 14, 15 years ago. No wonder they can't pay attention in class or respect their elders! Their brains are at max capacity! I mean, this isn't groundbreaking; this is the proclaimed age of information where we are constantly overwhelmed with content in a multitude of media. 

I don't feel negatively about it; I enjoy new technologies, and I embrace them in my classroom as much as humanly and fiscally possible, but it does baffle me from time to time. Like I just sit back and watch it all happen and sometimes can't believe my eyes. For instance, I just got an email on my iPhone from a student asking me to read over her college essay. I glanced at it in between commercials of the Steelers game; I didn't have to send myself into a small panic Monday morning amidst my other 10,000 tasks to print it and glance at it; instead, I brought it up on my phone and wrote back immediately with some quick changes and a note of admiration. Now she can go about her evening with a little less worry and some confidence that she will get her essay turned in on time. (A bit bold of a predicted result, maybe...but overall I'm sure she's pleased nonetheless!)

Tomorrow in the computer lab while students are reading articles with which they will respond in a rhetorical analysis essay, class will move along merrily as they will effortlesslly log onto the online classroom and download their .pdf files with ease, killing no trees in the process. And no one will blink or miss a beat. I loved being in high school, I did; but I love 2013, too.