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The Didactron
A Tale of Educators' Lives in a High-Tech Teaching-Learning Space ©
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1. The Group Space
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Copyright 2007 by Robert H. Giles, Jr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions Published in the United States |
The audience of 80 had been in their seats for 15 minutes. Seven minutes had been spent in the warm up, a phrase for an activity taken from earlier radio and TV programs and now used in education. The group had been told of how to use their handouts, how assignments were to be handled, and three were instructed in how to use the equipment at their seats. Four minutes were spent introducing the professor, but most of the time was spent coaching, the critical review for students by the assistant professor. He told of past lessons with Professor Rostock and how students were most likely to receive the greatest benefits from the evening session.
The lights went off and a small theatrical spotlight followed the gray-haired man across the stage. He stood by the podium, clasped his hands and began.
"My dear colleagues. Tonight is to be marked in history, and we are to make that mark.
"From this very evening shall be reckoned the genesis of an educational movement that will sweep the world. I conservatively say 'genesis', but I much prefer a firey idiom. Tonight the fire is kindled producing the sparks that will engulf this entire world, developed and developing country alike. The fire is the best idiom; it destroys and creates.
"What we need is a name, because most people need a name for the thing with which they mentally work. It is the handle, the aid for discussion, but most importantly is the name for the place they allocate in their brains for thinking.
"Here is the word: neodidactics neo-di-dak-tics. Tonight we give birth to, we kindle the educational movement that will change you, this university and the world." As he paused the word flashed on the screen, first red on a dark blue background. A woman's voice repeated it. In succession in 8 seconds eight different voices with different pitch and volume said the word as it was presented in varying print style. It could not now be forgotten.
"I fully expect your full participation in this educational movement which is called neodidactics. What I shall present for you is a concept, a system for some of you (but that is now a mongrel word and now made meaningless.) We must somehow in a brief period deal with students, teachers, teaching, and learning so that you see the entire neodidactic concept. You must not leave without the whole concept because that will lead to failures, to perversions, and to conditions worse than we presently have.
"I contend that our entire educational system is so primitive in method that it can only be viewed as outdated. It is so inefficient as to be viewed as wasteful. It is so ineffective at education that it must be viewed as flawed or blatantly unmindful of processes, and it is so inconsistent with a desirable national philosophy that it is pseudo-illegal. It is maximally stressful to citizens, minimally useful to students and the worst 'deal', dollar-for-dollar, in town."
At least he had a point of view! The excitement in the words and the sparkle from his eyes was followed everywhere across the stage by the spotlight. His nervousness was still evident in these lessons taught in the group space -- even after 22 years. The butterflies were equivalent to those of the students' on the front rows. Here was his chance to grab a young mind and embrace it deeply. But here also was the chance to fail and to lose control of the audience -- like some poor kid after lunch at school chasing his hat tossed between bullies. After 22 years the risks seemed about the same. The awful self-conversations that he had held before lessons had nearly defeated him again. The chances for failure became less over the years, but the pain greater, thus the risk about the same. The conclusions of these long-interval preparations were part of the lesson-structure he had built for the new class. They were one part of a scaffold for the lesson, a rickety thing, built by an old boy-scout.
"I think that adds up to an awful situation." It was the first time many in class had heard that word said with his inflection and they experienced one of the minor pleasures of a great lesson, like lifting an unnecessarily heavy extra quilt from a cold winter bed. "I think when we look at education we look for light and hope and leadership and all I see there is a mass of kindly, mostly good-hearted souls struggling and wrestling in darkness and despair.
"Enough of that!
"That is subhuman!
"Listen to me, please listen to me," he commanded and pleaded as he now began pacing, almost as if searching for just the right spot from which to make his statements. The spotlight followed him. His words were projected into a perfect acoustical space, radio and speaker enhanced. He turned sharply left and was very near the edge of the stage. He was talking, not lecturing, but all were holding their breath and they could hear well.
"Here in the special, secret haunts of this social forest called the university where people are interested in machines, plants and creepy-things, the tempo is tom-tom. The students and teachers dance to a pre-Victorian beat in the post-shuttle. Unlike the treatment received in the quiet, shaded groves where Socrates and Plato taught, ideas here are handled like cheap plastic statues. Men and women are tooled to satisfy the grunts of a pig-like society seeking pragmatic and inductive solutions to their social, economic, and environmental back-itches.
"From this very group, tonight, shall emerge a new concept that people can see themselves clearly, people can master their world and their fate. The concept is that they can change, that they can self-create, that they can relate well with others, and that they can do all of this better than before and that help is available in doing so. That is why I am here now with you. I want you, for from this group will emerge a new hope for humanity. I shall accept nothing less!"
He sensed he had over reached. Several students looked at each other grinning quizzically in tentative disbelief. Stepping to the right, as if over a log, he spoke to an imaginary subgroup of the audience up front.
"I'm perfectly serious. Do not think so little of our potentials," he said gesturing. "At least do not debase my time with you. Time is the most precious element! Surely you'll not acknowledge you had time to waste or to spend pointlessly by coming to this lesson. Time -- that is our scarcity -- and you must dole it as cups of fresh water to survivors on a raft. We have to make our time together count -- it has to be worth something."
"My God, that is our problem," he said as he stepped back to some imaginary place where he should have been. "We will not take ourselves seriously enough. We spend our time as if it were limitless. We're not time-rich," he said in a nearly plaintive voice. He was now back at the spot before the aside and he knew the audience was once again with him. The communion was rich and growing and the signs were clear. No educational or psychological measurement specialist would want to record what happened. Their presence would probably change what was happening. What was happening was the formation of a group, tied by a common experience, related in feelings and aspirations that were fundamental and probably held in common, filled with the pleasure that comes from release. Thoughts are being articulated. They were being praised for the goodness they had, and given hope. Communion was being formed. It always exists along some graphical line from almost zero to very great and where it was in the group that day was very great. There was total silence, breathing had slowed, there was no movement, there were no furrowed brows, and there was extra light cast from the eyes of many -- from the small tears of excitement and pleasant expectation.
"You must sense the problem, feel it deeply, choke on it until you fear-clutch for breath. Unless you do, you will put off action until later; you will disparage my remarks; you will discount the importance of your own action."
Here in the lesson with music and slides as background, emphasis, and context he presented the awesome realities. On a second screen the list matching his words and pictures expanded point by point with a cymbal clash
It was clear he wanted to go on but he stopped.
"Have you not felt the need? Not 'felt the need?!'" he exclaimed, hitting his forehead. "Where have we been; what has so dulled our senses; how could we have been so pauperized?
"Here in this university, students and teachers are merely poor plaster copies of each other and here they do their daily dance. Students are treated as children by despotic parents. Greater transfer of knowledge occurred at the knee of a primitive elder by the campfire than in the average class. Teachers "meet class," they do not teach. Students "take courses," not learn. Graduates 'get out' not 'gain opportunities.' And costs go up, denying the efficiencies that are asserted to justify every educational study. Increasing efficiency suggests vast failures -- or that people lie in writing research proposals." It could have been an amusing comment, but the mood was gray and he didn't pause.
"I tell you that on the grounds of money and cost alone we have to change. On the grounds of humanity -- of people's inhumanity to each other -- between students and teachers -- we have to change. We cannot profess the use of advanced concepts, principles, and technology in all of our fields while using Cro-magnon educational concepts and methods.
"But all of this is selfish, selfish in the extreme!" The spotlight caused his forehead to glisten; his coat had become dark colored at the back.
"We must change because the people of the world need to change. We cannot meet the needs of warring nations and starving people by following our fathers.
"They failed! We have their same problems, and more. We must change and change in massive ways to meet the gigantic needs that face most of the people of the world. We are not to engage neodidactics because we want to, or think it would be nice, or that it will be good for us, or that it will look good on a resume! Citizens of the world! Your fellow citizens cry out. Don't send salve, they cry. Send solutions.
"Damn your statisticians' paltry 5 percent improvement. To be humanly significant we must become twice as good as we have been in the past. Not 5 percent improvement but 100 percent improvement is the demanding reality of billions of people. Billions, mind you, not millions. And then the demands will remain, for even that will not be sufficient."
The you emphasis, the awful pictures, the loud music, the dark red lighting, the warmth, was weighing on the group. Everyone felt the pressure.
"It is very easy to despair or become anomic - like rats awaiting their turn at the experimental table, or lifeless prisoners having surrendered themselves over to the totality of their prison and their captors. But we must not, and we cannot. We can change, and there is a way, and we must do it!"
And then he stopped and softly and sadly said, "Only you can do it" and "and it will be difficult."
They did only what they could do (and he knew they would.) They giggled. In unison. It was as predictable a response as perspiration in a hot room.
But now they were in dialogue. He had taken them from breathlessness to giggle and now he had the cue. Like a harsh father he scowled:
"What's so funny? You doubt me? You re not taking me seriously? Perhaps you're not taking yourselves seriously."
His eyes were raised, head cocked, and lips dropped to the parental statement of "Child, how could you be so foolish. Not you. It couldn't have been you!" He said it without a word in a blink of a student's eye. All understood. "To whom should I be giving this lesson if not you? Where are the creative ones? If not you, let me get the hell out of here and go to them. Where are the leaders, the creative ones? Who will shape the future for me and my children? Not here?! (Quietly) Perhaps at State [the state university; a notable rival]. (Laughter) Perhaps at Cornell or Duke?
"No, ladies and gentlemen, the job is yours. You have been selected. Your highschool friends who did not go to college are now in business, married, and assuming roles in their communities. You are now emerging into a social stratum in which you must perform. There is no one around you. You are in charge. There are no options, only problems, and now you must solve them."
He pleaded from a crouch, hands clasped as in robust prayer. He was near the peak…and then he saw him. The bastard on the third row was asleep! The sight had the effect of hearing a tap on the door during coitus.
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Last revision January, 2008.