It all started when I found this cream-colored phone at a garage sale a few weeks or ago. It brought back fond memories of tactile button pushing and talking to friends for hours on the phone back in the 1970's -- the Dark Ages. Then I thought it would look nice in my new classroom. Only then I wanted an old rotary phone instead. I found this one on Ebay, and won the auction.
I have memories of using those phones, too. They were even more tactile. It was easy to dial a 1 or a 2, but the 9 or the 0 seemed to take forever for it to clickety-clack around back to the starting position so that I could dial the next number. Now it just takes seconds to click the right person's name on a smart phone. Things were just calmer and simpler back then.
In the 1970s, I bought a 40-foot cord for the princess phone (pictured below) I had in my bedroom so I could talk for hours and walk all over my room.
I remember my dad having a portable phone (WOW!) like this in the late 1970s. He would take it on the golf course and lug around the big battery charger with it.
In the 1990s when we got married, we were thrilled to get a cordless phone. No cord at all!
And then we got cell phones . . .
And now everything is at our fingertips with smartphones.
This whole concept got me to wondering about what my children and students are missing in this fast-paced cell phone internet world. Everything is right at our fingertips. There is no "Grandma, can I call mom?" and then taking three whole minutes to dial the number on a rotary phone. No pushing buttons that actually moved and went up and down, or hearing the beep, beep, beep and an old-fashioned riiiiinnnngggg.
Then there is the internet. Even more alarming is what all this technology is doing to our students' brains and their writing. I've heard teachers tell of whole paragraphs being cut and pasted from the internet into a writing assignment. Honestly? My students don't do that. I have a plan that works.
I knew a pastor who said that you can't complain about something unless you have a solution. And so, dear readers, I have an attempt at a solution, at least. I think that students should write with a pen and paper a little in class everyday. Even if it's just a few sentences. And it should be interesting, fun writing-- not boring stuff. (See Journal Writing 101 for more ideas on that topic.)
And if we give our students more time in class to write, time to make real note cards, and time to work on writing assignments, they wouldn't be hurrying and cutting-and-pasting at home. I know, many students don't do that, but I'm not worried about them, because they are fine. (But I still see better results from them this way.) I'm worried about the others.
We also need more science experiments, art classes, shop classes, home economics classes, etc. The more hands-on we can mix in with all the academics, the more well-rounded and happy our students will be. I know I've gotten better academic results from my students when they have had some hands-on creative time and just quiet work-in-class-time with no phone or computer luring them away or distracting them.
We could also switch back to rotary phones.
Maybe not.