AF: Mario and Beto (and Neil)

I honestly don't remember exactly what year these guys were in my class; I could look it up, I guess -- or ask them.  I just know that now they are grown up, college educated, and busy getting the next part of their lives started -- they have entered their "building years".  They make me proud.

I saw Mario the other day, and he was telling me how Amusing Ourselves to Death blew his mind that summer long ago -- and how it blew Beto's mind -- how they would text each other about what they were reading and thinking about all summer.  He laughed about how he didn't post much to the blog until the very last minute, but that he and Beto talked about Postman and AOTD long after they had finished reading the book.

Some of you are talking about Postman as a game changer, too.  This is why I love, love, LOVE reading this book with young people.  For many, reading AOTD merely a chore, but for many others, it sort of pops open a portal, and all kinds of things start moving into focus.

I also think Postman introduces a habit of mind...a inquisitive (even skeptical) attitude and an open curiosity about the network of relationships that we live within. If we don't know how to notice how technology and the media landscape shapes our ways of knowing the world, and our ways of thinking about things, then we can't even get started on a rational critique.

All of this talk, "Technology: good or bad?" or "Cameras: good or bad?" misses the point. These things don't exist on a teeter totter, and they are NOT going away.  Technology and media are part of our network, and short of bombing ourselves back to the Stone Age, they are part of our lives FOREVER.  The question is not about these clever, external devices and apps that we invent and then come to rely upon; the question is about US.  We are human beings on our planet, with a history, and with the agency to create the world as we go along.  Creation isn't over.  It's happening every day. We have to learn to be active, critical participants in the universe of gadgets and things.  We need to make our own boundaries -- not to try to erase, or to ban, or to remove things.  (Ask any teacher who has tried to keep cell phones out of their classrooms!)

The boundaries and the wisdom to build a healthy balance around yourself HAS to be self-imposed.

OK.  I gotta go.  Like you, I have just a few days of summer left, and there's so much to do!