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November 27, 2006
In the adult class, we’re working on questions and answers to describe
people and clothing. Each morning, as we usually do, Monica and I trade
classroom ideas while I eat breakfast and she tends to the needs of her
children Simeon (who is almost 4) and Abram (who is 7 months old). Needing
some good visual aids for an in-class activity, Monica offered some
magazines her mother sent to her about 18 months ago—Time, Newsweek, and
Good Housekeeping among them. Paging through a May 2005 issue of Time,
with an article about former Israeli Prime Minister (and war criminal)
Ariel Sharon and battle between stem-cell research advocates and George
Bush (another war criminal), was like unearthing a strange time-capsule
from the distant past. As I pulled pictures from the magazine, I became
immersed in an article promoting the then-brand-new Xbox 360, a gaming
system hoping to trump its competitors Nintendo and Sony by simultaneously
billing itself as a communication device a la MySpace, a storage space for
mp3s, digital photos, etc. Later in the article, writer Lev Grossman makes
a disturbing assertion about how the convergence of digital media in film,
music, video games, cameras and phones will inevitably alter the American
lifestyle: “Whoever is king of the living room will control the flow of 1s
and 0s that very soon will make up the entire fabric of our living
culture.”
I picture, with horror, a family of four, gathered around a television,
children slack-jawed and glassy-eyed as they play the latest version of
Hero, not talking to each other except to fight over who has ephemeral
control of the gaming system and realize this is reality for a large
portion of the country. But not since cultural critic Neil Postman (to
borrow a Coen Brothers phrase) “merged with the infinite” over three years
ago has there been a thorough discussion about what we lose when we just
adopt the next technology regardless of immediate utility.
The best machines create their own uses. Advertisers, for example, tout
the inevitability of converting from film cameras to digital ones and stir
a competitive obsession in consumers of having the newest gadget. I think
of this every time an acquaintance, after admitting she uses her computer
for nothing more than word processing, music storage, and internet access,
informs me of her intention to buy a new computer when the old
one—provided it still works—can still adequately meet her limited demands
on it. Then, there’s email and text messaging which are obviously valuable
tools. But with the assistance of spell-check and in the interest of
concision, they’ve completely eroded the spelling ability and linguistic
creativity of their habitual users. How many people still receive
handwritten letters from friends? How many people still imagine they have
the time to write one?
Then, I watch Simeon in our television-less home in Galati play with a
corrugated plastic tube he calls Mrs. Teacher Worm, inventing characters
and stories with the simplest of props and remind myself that our “living
culture” is not inevitably dependent on the latest technological advances
from Microsoft and its competitors. There’s still room for the culturally
undervalued act of imagination that is stimulated when we’re reading a
story or making up our own but is entirely lost when we’re playing a video
game. Every morning, while Abram takes a mid-morning nap, Monica reads
children’s stories to Simeon, fostering a curiosity about other people and
other cultures. After wrapping up his one-act play, Simeon, who calls me
“our other Joel” (to distinguish between me and his father), then spent an
hour before lunchtime making Christmas tree ornaments. He painted pine
cones green (to make them look like trees) and then decorated them with
sparkles. He seems to be thriving without TV and video games. So what did
the rest of us do before they existed? This is not meant to be a blind
polemic against technology but to stress the importance of making
thoughtful decisions about whether the advantages of a adopting a new
technology outweigh the disadvantages of using it.
After conferring with other staff members, Gabi and I made a mutual
decision to eliminate the children’s class. She walked into my office just
before the 2:00 class was about to begin to break the news and/or confer
with me. At the time, Frank and his wife Anne, where sorting out the
electrical system in the staff section of the building and Nicoleta and I
were in the process of making more visual aids and classroom activities
for the adult beginner class she attends at 4:00. I had cut up the
pictures of people I’d pulled from Time magazine and Good Housekeeping and
Nicoleta was taping them to white pieces of paper. I’d also blown up a
couple of pictures from Side By Side about one person’s weekly schedule
that I was cutting up and rearranging in order to teach simple present
tense questions—that is, before the aging copy machine in the next room
finally gave up the ghost. “They’re not doing their homework,” Gabi
explained, “and I know it’s been really difficult for you.” And I thought,
“probably for you and the rest of the staff, too,” but decided my response
would be misconstrued as petulant and defensive. I’m certain staff fatigue
was a factor in their decision and didn’t want my speculation confirmed.
Instead, I said “Okay. But let’s do one final lesson on Thursday so I can
say goodbye to the children.” Gabi agreed and Nicoleta and I returned to
the tasks at hand.
I discovered that every WMF staff member has been bitten by a dog. And the
biggest surprise? It’s the silent ones, Paul and Bela tell me, that do the
biting. So my dilemma is now as daunting as an American soldier patrolling
the booby-trapped streets of Fallujah or suburban Baghdad: how am I to
distinguish between friend and foe? Probably best to not be there in the
first place but I still need to exercise. So I’ll continue to run in the
middle of the street and remain increasingly vigilant for the silent
animals that sometimes follow me after I pass them. Later, I heard from
Gabi’s friends that there’s a saying in Romania about the phenomena: “If a
dog barks, it doesn’t bite.” But that is unhelpful. If what I’m told is
true than the saying would be more useful if it were reversed: “If a dog
doesn’t bark, he bites.” This makes Gabi’s friend Ana laugh: “Wait until
you see the dogs in Bucharest. They’re so much worse.”
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