Amusing, no?

In another life and time, Postman and I would have had a great deal to discuss. Perhaps we would have done so publicly, in large arenas, complete with cheering audience and five-hour time limit. Alas, destiny precludes it, so I am left to read and digest and respond to no one and everyone all at once. This blog, it is literary - steeped in typography. In its own way, it is also another piece of (mostly irrelevant) information contributing to our culture's information glut. It may even be entertainment.

I suppose, at my core, I am a relativist. My essential quarrel with Postman is not that television has reshaped our public discourse, our sense of truth and knowledge, our definitions of intelligence and information, but that we are in any place to pass a judgment on these changes. Things are not as they were 100-200 years ago. Much has changed, for the better and the worse (e.g. while I bemoan the heaps of irrelevant "news" trumpeted from every corner of the world, I embrace the mind-opening exchange of information and culture). I do not believe that it is possible to get enough perspective from inside today to accurately judge it against yesterday. We need a little distance.

But distance is a luxury that we will never have, for we are here right now, teaching and learning in this quagmire of headlines, tweets, texts, hypertext, moving images, and typography. Sure we can lament the "fall" of print, the "rise" of imagery, the shorter attention spans, the perceived decrease in complexity of thought and lack of exposition, the "reading problems" and learning disorders that Postman argues did not plague the students and educators of yester-century. Or we can work diligently and thoughtfully to provide kids today the best ways and means to process, analyze, reflect on, and thrive in and shape (for the better, the meaningful-er, the serious-er!) our culture.

On Media and Messages

A medium, by definition, is "an intervening agency, means, or instrument by which something is conveyed or accomplished; one of the means or channels of general communication, information, or entertainment in society, as newspapers, radio, or television."  Since it is impossible to transmit our ideas and emotions directly from mind to mind, we are are forced to use a carrier substance - language.  Often that language is then floated along in a secondary carrier, paper and pen, radio waves, cathode ray tube, tweet, text . . . . so that in the end the essence of what was thought or felt or dreamt is squished and squeezed and folded and deconstructed and reconstructed to fit the confines and purposes of the conveyor.  Thank you, Mr. McLuhan.

I love language.  I love polysemous words, the nuance of context, the subtle shift between shiver and quiver that opens up a whole new world of understanding and interpretation.  I love that we are unable to directly convey our thoughts and must pour them messily into linguistic containers and carry them on media's shaky cafeteria trays from table to table.  I love the work of analysis and interpretation that comes with deeply reading a text and I work everyday to pass that love on to the students I work with.

This love translates directly into a love of graphic novels.  Talk about nuance!  There is so much to synthesize!  As McCloud discusses in Understanding Comics, comics require the very active participation of the reader.  The reader must buy-in and construct meaning from the myriad linguistic and artistic tools employed by the author/illustrator - from words to pictures, from blank space to camera angles.

Perhaps because I love a good double-entendre, I take no issue with the idea of media impregnating our messages with their own.  Two messages for the price of one!  It is when we stop recognizing this that problems arise.  When we take for granted that the containers and conveyances are passive and idle, then we fall into the trap of assuming (wrongly) that we can use tools without them using us.  Thank you, Mr. Postman.  Tricky stuff, indeed.

Haiti

I'm not about to go a rant about Pat Robertson or David Brooks, in particular, or victim-blaming, in general.  I just don't have it in me right now. 

I'm simply urging anyone and everyone to help.  Here's a list of NGOs currently working in the disaster relief effort.

And I'm hoping.

It's been ages

And I'm sorry about that.  Fall into Winter 2009 will forever be remembered as the semester that did me in, which, considering my debaucherous past, is saying something!

Today I was passed a link to a NY Times article on geekifying our high schools.  Looking at the link and description, I hesitated to even click through.  Afterall,  I can still taste the disgust that I felt at Wired's short take on the subject of geek culture in high schools.  But click through I did, and I was pleasantly surprised to find an even-handed article on how we've been teaching high school computer science and technology classes all wrong . . . and some promising examples of how to do it the right way.  More theory and critical thinking, less word processing and spreadsheets!  More creativity and a better view of the big picture, less code-writing drills!  Woohoo!

Technology shapes and is shaped by humanity.  We both use it and are used by it.  A clear understanding of how new technologies function and evolve is critical to a future aided, rather than controlled by, technology.  Improving high school tech course: step one.

On an entirely different note - here's a collection of short fiction by New Jersey native Patrick Eamonn.  Funny, poignant, at times disturbing glimpses into the lives of a series of no-one-in-particulars from our own Garden State.

Giving Thanks

Eid Mubarak and Happy Thanksgiving! 

I have so much to be thankful for . . . loved ones, my work, amazing colleagues, wonderful companion animals, a vibrant city, a peaceful home, and a warm, soft bed.  Let me always remember lovingly those who do not. 

On credibility

In this article on Locus Magazine’s website, Doctorow (the author of Little Brother) discusses why young adult novels should have sex (or drinking, or drug use, or mild anarchy . . . ).  His argument is simple and elegant: because teens already do these things.   Doctorow posits that if YA fiction only portrays rule-bending, authority-defying, sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll-having behavior as having immediate and dire consequences, then it will lose its credibility.  After all, real life certainly does not work that way.  In fact, a little rebellion can be a good thing, as we test our boundaries, form our personal ethics, and develop our identities.  There is a certain amount of trial and error involved in growing up.

We champion literature because, as C.S.Lewis said, “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.”  Experience by proxy allows us to leap the confines of our daily existence.  It allows us to empathize with the stranger, to understand those we may never meet.  It broadens our world-view and opens our mind.  If we’d rather teens learn and “experience” the more unsavory aspects of  adult life through literature than through action, it’s vitally important that that literature honestly reflect reality.  Teens might read what rings false, but they certainly will not connect to it.  Furthermore, a literature devoid of reality, full of schmaltzy cautionary tales may well push our children to dangerous behaviors, as they seek to separate fact from myth through their own experience.  If reading about risky behaviors (which they know exist) will keep kids from engaging in them, or overindulging in them, then by all means - bring on the prose!

Luv Ya Bunches

My first reaction to the news that Scholastic had agreed to sell a “cleaned up” version of Myracle’s Luv Ya Bunches was, “Hmmmm, how cleaned up is it?”  I didn’t honestly think that Myracle would cave to absurd hetero-normative pressures, but I was suddenly unsure.  Thankfully, the gay parents of one character were left in, and the word crap was taken out.  Fair trade?  Myracle thinks so.  The book is still unavailable at elementary schools, however.  And Scholastic has yet to actually admit to any mis-judgement or to apologize for its bigotry.  On a brighter note, Scholastic has “committed to a review process that considers all books equally regardless of their inclusion of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) characters and same-sex parents.”  Well, it’s about time.

The books that children read inform their world-view.  The characters and events they encounter help to shape their idea of how the world is and how it should be.  What a shame to actively eliminate an entire population from children’s literature.  To deny the children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren of same-sex couples the experience of seeing their reality reflected back at them is unforgivable.  Equally atrocious is denying this reality to children who know no homosexual people.  Narrowing our children’s horizons creates narrow adults.

When a powerhouse like Scholastic demands that same-sex partners be removed from books aimed at the upper-elementary/preeteen set, they are upholding the hateful position that there is a right and wrong kind of love - a right and wrong kind of family.  Or that homosexuality is fine, but only for older kids, and somehow harmful to children. Memo to Scholastic: Homosexuality =/= pedophilia.  Let’s move into the twenty-first century together.