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The Didactron
Educators' Lives in a High-Tech Teaching-Learning Space ©
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Hans Cliner had visited with Fran only the day before and he was exhausted. He had not slept that evening and instead of preparing to work with his group, he had been thinking about what she had said. Hans was one of the few people in the Didactron who truly "thought things through," a frequently-heard phrase. He "lectured to himself" as he liked to call it, wrote outlines, cut and pasted the outlines together in many ways, and developed tables of options and counters and tried to follow each through to some conclusion. He was too much a student ever to use the phrase "a logical conclusion" for the proofs were too difficult; the probability of it being truly grounded in logic so remote he just assumed most things were illogical.
Fran had explained in a noon-time faculty seminar, one in a side 'Tunnel' of the The Mine restaurant, that as people or animals starve, the amount of ketones in their bodies increases. Sick cows, for example, have an acetone odor, one like fingernail polish remover. Ketones are conspicuous in the blood and urine of people with diabetes. These ketones are large and will only enter parts of the brain. The parts seem very selective.These ketones are now known to be the molecules that supply energy to the brain. The educational task is to keep them at an optimal level by diet and exercise. The amount of ketones used by the brain is proportional to the amount of them in the blood. Under starvation conditions, the brain uses more of these substances than normal and relies on these substances for there is little blood sugar left and because they enter the brain more readily.
"These ketones are the basic substances to enhance our students' progress. They are 60 percent of the fuel for brain metabolism. They are not used in all parts of the brain.
"It is my view," she said, "that large amounts of ketones are directly related to the bizarre and metaphysical events reported by people, the revelations of people on their death beds and those who have been brought back from 'death' such as drowning victims. It is as if there is more 'electricity' or energy supplied from them than the system can assimilate. This is probably in some part of the left hemisphere.
"In addition," she said, "I do not feel at all uncomfortable suggesting openly that the religious leaders of old well knew the physiological effects of starvation. They may not have known the primary causes, but they knew that fasting resulted in visions. The visions and mental experiences were 'the good news,' 'the gospel,' and they wished to share them. Admonitions to fast get the followers in touch with their heads. Conscious efforts fueled by excessive ketones from a serious fast were a very rational and physiologically sound prescription. After only a two-day starvation, the ketones will enter the brain 15 percent more rapidly. A fast will also redistribute blood flow, resulting in other rate changes.
"The religious basis for the metaphysical and so-called subjective and soft sciences is thus readily understandable. Proving it 'beyond a shadow' will be very expensive and even more boring, but it will eventually be done. The patterns are too clear, the structure too clean, the fundamentals too well known not to operate on them as the basis for a working hypothesis. We can only begin to test the final analysis on brain-damaged patients and those with lesions. We cannot inquire of a rat about its recent metaphysical experience.
"Thus we have the physiological basis for one of the more profound aspects of religion.
"Coupled in our prior seminars on religious laws and doctrines, the ketone concept matches well with laws of increasing energy efficiency or reducing energy loss, disease, land abuse, while increasing social harmony, and this concept fences off a pretty big area of theological open range.
"The origins of and limits to ethics are clearly well positioned in our current knowledge of evolution, biology, behavior and neurology. Balancing an energy budget while retaining some quality and assuring reproduction is a straightforward interpretation of the basics of biology.
"Without a concept of any kind of an afterlife," Fran said, looking directly at Hans Cliner, "These provide the scientific basis for a new engagement, a re-engagement of theology as it might become." She finished, compassionless, like a malevolent child poking a stick at a chained dog. She knew Hans' weakness; she could not resist probing the sutures that he self-consciously applied to his gaping wound. This was the only time in her life she remembered being unkind, almost sadistic. She did not enjoy it; but she would not stop. Hans Cliner was a special person.
Hans was not prepared for class. He usually was. He met with a class for one hour three times a week, 40 weeks a year. When he met, it was a performance similar to that of an actor. Every hour was preceded with abdominal 'butterflies,' well known to all approaching a part in a play, a wedding, or an appearance on TV. He prepared at great length doing writing, reading, organizing and … most significant… thinking. Unknowable, unbelievable, is the amount of work that occurs during such thinking. When it is done, the professor feels very tired. Fran had explained it to him as if his question had been flippant. "You run; you burn energy. You think; you burn energy. These ketones I told you about. You feel tired due to waste products from running. The same from thinking."
For Hans, teaching was hard, serious work. He used materials from previous lectures. He joked that all of last year's truths had not been refuted. The work was in sorting … how to compress. The harder work was in trying to re-enter the student's mind and to re-think what would fit. He compared ideas to organ transplants. Would they be rejected? A harder aspect was in deciding what to teach so that if it were stored it would be used for many years. Here was the effort to get to principles, to avoid elaborating on the recent fad or technical advance. His students gave him awful scores for he was "too theoretical" they said. He argued: "The point will be blunted; the wood rot. Foundations! These are what you need for a lifetime." The argument never ended. Finding the foundations was difficult. He was trying to find them, rearrange the elements, trim them up, create new ones.
He was not ready today, but the time had come.The session would be good, not excellent. It would be, as any theatrical observer would judge, about a 70 on a scale of 100. He could feel it coming. No thought of cancelling ever entered his mind. He was anxious to share with them his newest idea. To him teaching was a perversity, a love-hate relation he had with his students. He would layout his most creative idea, and they would kill it. Infanticide. "If they would only tend them," he thought, I"like ugly baby birds. Then they would grow up. Perhaps they would fly. At least they would have a chance." They hardly ever did. Perhaps the ideas deserved it. Perhaps it was the way he showed them. Did he make them ugly? He had to show them; his students had to attack them. Perversity -- everywhere.
Hans Cliner entered the discussion room of the Didactron. The students were standing around the sides, talking in pairs. Two stood alone, serious, asocial, cerebral, humorless. The atmosphere was like that of a courtroom, barrister brown and wooden. A large angular table was in the center. Heavy padded chairs surrounded the table. Under the table in an open drawer in front of each chair was a wire and ear piece. Around the room behind the chairs was a heavy double plexiglass wall separating a spectator area from the discussion area. The front row spectators observed the room room from a height of 5 feet. Their area was darkened.
Hans asked each student to sit in a specific chair. He was preparing them for the desired interactions. Seating can change a discussion, its flow, duration, conclusions and outcomes. Who can see whose eyes well; who sits at the acknowledged head; who sits to the right of the head, all influence the discussion. In this special place the design had been to teach about discussing, about small group action, committee performance, and negotiating. The world is run from small meetings. No one seems to make decisions any more, only three or more people. The perceived need was to teach behavioral excellence in the small group discussion.
Hans signaled those taping the session from inconspicuous cameras. There were large mirrors allowing all to see most parts of the room. Most activity and physiological monitoring devices used elsewhere in the Didactron were used here. The carpeting, walls, and furnishings reflected, as elsewhere in the Didactron, that here was quality, serious concern, and that important things were expected to happen here. Chance Carrow and Pete Spring had designed and built the place with the concern that cheap, poorly tended, institutional green rooms communicate to students many messages about society and education, none of which are desirable, even though true. Here was a quality space for quality students. High quality performance was commonplace.
Hans was the main user of the discussion space. He wished that it had not had a large TV screen. He was going to get curtains for it because it spoiled the grand mood for him and, he thought, for his students. A projection screen descended and ascended at the push of a button. He rarely used it except to show a few images when he discussed aesthetics and criticism. As elsewhere in the Didactron, this was a space of opportunity. Each teacher could use it as they best knew how. If he felt uneasy with TV clips, so be it. Another teacher used them often as a basis for discussions of ethics and morality. Another teacher used the screen to project the names of techniques each student was to use at least once within the period. She also projected names of logical fallacies and gave points on a daily performance evaluation to people who identified them during the discussions.
The large table was formed of triangles; it could be made to any size and shape upon request by a teacher. Distance apart, elbow room, lighting, temperature, all influenced the discussion. The literature was full of design criteria. These were integrated into this Didactron room. Flexibility was sufficient to allow experimentation. Several papers on physiological correlates of spacing and their effect on performance in groups had already been published. The designers started with: discussions are not pooled ignorance. They are situations in which facts and things learned are used. Use is fundamental to long term memory. They show models and allow standards or norms to be created. They do, on occasion, trigger newness.
"We now teach facts but not processes. That has to change," Pete had said, and so it had.
In the room the teacher may address the class or not. All chairs swiveled to easily allow everyone to face the teacher. These introductions were always short. A teacher, like Hans, would go to a glass-paneled box, temperature controlled, with microphone and input switches to the ear-piece of each participant. He could speak to one person only via his microphone, one side of the table only, or to the entire group.
In some cases, observers behind the glass were taking notes, observing what was truly going on in the meeting. They had oscilloscope monitors at the base of the wall so they could see activity patterns and correlate them with their observations of facial expressions and general flow of the discussions.
"Alex, use time as an excuse, and shift the discussion to a more general aspect of the problem," he would say, unknown to anyone but Alex.
"Helen, did you just hear a logical blunder? Slow down the group and clarify it before you let them continue?"
Helen looked puzzled. She blushed, embarrassed because she did not hear it and could not pick it out of what she remembered hearing. Sensing it would get away, Hans said, "Get help."
She blushed, not knowing how. "Say that you think there's something weak in the argument and wonder if anyone else feels the same way. Get a summary of the last few minutes."
The Aha! look in her eye during the quick summary was a delight to behold.
"Jim, assume a more dominant role."
"Jack, see if you can get this group off track for a few minutes. I want to see if Jim has learned the chairman's techniques we went over last week."
"Jane, why are you so withdrawn today. Get in there!"
"Attention, everyone. You're making excellent progress." He addressed them all from the microphone. He was still in his coaching box. Some turned; some just stared ahead waiting for the next instructions.
"I'm now going to read two paragraphs to the two sides of the room.
The paragraphs are identical except for one fact. You are to discover as quickly as possible the difference. I"
"Jane, play the part of a highly outraged committee member at the next appropriate place. Leave the table and join the spectators. I want to see the leader's reaction as well as the others. Play your part very convincingly."
Hans and others, could lecture to the spectators too for their 'booth' was soundproof. They may be a student group learning to analyze groups in action. He said to them, "I have now created a conflict in fact and another in value within the group. Which do you think will be resolved first?
"There are three equal problems. I give instructions in group problem solving techniques only after the first and second. Please use the stop watch beside your chair to time the rate at which the problems are solved by the group. Tomorrow we shall compare group size and their rates."
"Record for the student in the discussion seat having the same number as yours. Note which of the 10 new words from the reading assignment were used. If they only use 6 of them, their score is 6 et cetera."
The students were all seated. The monitoring panels worked well. There were no spectators. Everyone had gotten out a two-paged typed paper which they had picked up in their mail boxes. Classes meeting irregularly almost required some between-meeting correspondence. Email and the Internet provided the extra contacts.
The two pages were as follows:
The Sketch
"I want you to discuss 'The Sketch' today.I particularly want you to clarify among yourselves within 80 minutes any parts. I shall expect a well-reasoned paper in 7 days, supported by citations of other writers. You may find the arguments useful to you and thus the basis for a more full exposition. You may find the arguments wanting and thus I expect refutation as well as an alternative -- one that seems most appropriate to you now. I expect you to follow the general flow of the ideas, the pattern used in 'The Sketch.'
"I would like for Anette to assume the role of leader." Rostock had mentioned her to him, encouraging him to give her as much action in class as possible. She had developed well in two years since her hesitating speech in The Barn. The hair was out of her face and cut short allowing an upturn in the previously gloomy lines of her entire being. New glasses brightened her face as did a frilly lace collar.
"Let's get started," she immediately said. "What part among the first five most troubled you?" She had narrowed the problem. She posed the question for everyone, 'hooking' them, then said with a smile, "Sue?" Hans coasted a minute for as he skimmed through his class handout, his eye caught No. 14 and he recalled Fran's presentation and her look at the end.
"Here I provide no basis for or even room for revelation in the face of vast quantities of religious writing on that topic. Here the theological bases are personal and perhaps social. Fran takes the leap to the biochemistry of revelation. Perhaps in special physiological conditions it is possible 'see' the basic brain patterns and the stored, genetically-fundamental truths. Perhaps these are states, much like in hypnosis, in which a person can recall things, like license plate numbers at a robbery, that are in their brain but not available under normal conditions."
He was, tentatively. He was, as Martin Buber, in a state of holy insecurity. He was a seeker, an heuristic.
Sue was carrying the ball well. There were the traditional comments about writing style.She quickly moved away from that. One lad, predictably, piously quoted Bible verses.
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