Well, yeah. But that's a blog for another day.
I'm back because of a conversation I had with a friend while driving home from work. I was regaling my friend--one my oldest and dearest, and frequently the recipient of both both my rants and my wrath--with my latest "this is going in the blog" story.
The topic--as it is more often than not these days--was the constant state of wonder in which I find myself after talking to my students. And I'm not talking about that innocent "snow-falling-on-cedars" type of wonder. I'm talking "I wonder what I did in a past life to deserve this" kind of wonder.
It's that time of year again, and later this week I'm collecting term papers. With the papers due in two short days, I'd like to think that most people's papers are done, and they will be spending these next few days leisurely and thoroughly proofreading and reviewing their work.
Yeah, and while I'm dreaming, I'd also like a pony.
The more likely reality was driven home today by the student that came up to me after class, practically in tears. She was just getting ready to start writing her paper, was one source shy of the five that I require, and was at her wit's end. There's nothing online, she said. I've looked everywhere.
When I asked her where exactly she had looked, she recounted a frantic weekend filled with Google searches and Wiki-reading, and trips down a variety of other cyber-dead ends. By the end of her tale, she was visibly rattled. I almost felt bad for her, until I asked what she had found in the library.
She blinked, and looked completely baffled. The library? she asked, looking honestly and completely baffled.
Now I've been here a while. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I ache when it rains, need glasses to read, and still bust out the cassette player from time to time. But I've never felt as old as when this told me she didn't know that she could use a book as a research source.
There's an article that appeared in The Atlantic a few years ago. I make my students read it every semester. Called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", it details how the web is slowly but surely "chipping away" at our ability to concentrate on anything slower than the speed of the Google search. No wonder the library's becoming obsolete.
Not that it stopped me from literally presenting my class with a map to the library, and ensuring them that yes, books are fine. Books are good. Archaic, perhaps, but in my class, they'll never be turned away.
Wanna see what I mean? Stop by my class anytime. Or check out the article:
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to curl up with a good book and call it a night.
I wonder who that friend is that you talked to on the way home... Lucky S.O.B. ;)
ReplyDeleteFunny. My son was doing a project for school and some of his sources he had to site were websites... I didn't know how to properly site them! Now I feel old :-(
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