Progress...but at a price?

Teaching Pre K-8, Nov/Dec 1999 by Raymond, Allen

I began this memo to you on Friday September 17th, as rain from Hurricane Floyd pelted the windows of our offices on the top floor of the tallest building in the area. With nothing to break the power of the wind, it was an incredible spectacle.

Such a storm is not unusual in New England, and specifically in Connecticut. The entire East Coast, from Florida to Maine, has experienced many exciting and often damaging hurricanes.

It's the "damage," in fact, which gets the attention. If this storm happened to occur somewhere in the world where there were no buildings, no people and no development, it would be like the tree that falls in the middle of a forest-there is no sound, because there is no one to hear the sound.

Thus, while there have undoubtedly been storms going back millions and millions of years, we have only archaeological evidence those storms ever occurred. No one was around to record the events, or to lament the loss of a million dollar home on the beach.

As a result, although entire continents moved hither and yon and glaciers came and went, those cataclysmic events probably had little impact on the few individuals who may have been around at the time. No one there, ergo, no damage.

Even the Native Americans, who lived here before your ancestors and mine, undoubtedly weathered the storms with equanimity. Maybe a tent blew apart, but that was it. No fancy yachts to be tosssed up on the shores, no cars to be crushed by a falling tree.

We anticipated considerable damage from Floyd here in Connecticut, but the direction of the storm took it to our west. Not so for three or four other states; Floyd hit them hard - but then, they were there to be hit. Five hundred years ago, who would have cared?

Progress, then, has its price. More homes on the shoreline, more damage. More people, more loss of life. And so it goes, endlessly.

This progress even has an effect on our daily lives, yours and mine. As I am using my computer to write this memo, I divert my attention - and spend a lot of time - by going to the Internet in order to research the history of storms. The computer and the Internet haven't made me more efficient, just more intense.

Sometimes, as a result, I get the feeling I'm doing more but accomplishing less, and I'm sure you feel the same. Copiers, computers and the Internet may bring more "stuff" to you and me, and to the kids in your classroom, but that doesn't neeessarily mean these new gadgets have now given you more time to teach.

Three hundred years ago, when the population in one area of my town would grow large enough, someone (usually the church) would build a one-room schoolhouse within walking distance of those new families. As settlers arrived, schools began to pop up everywhere.

Classes were small, kids wrote on slates and the place was heated by a wood stove. No phones, no lights, no computers.

We shouldn't go back to that, of course, but somehow, in spite of progress, we ought to be able to find ways to make the task of teaching kids simpler, more userfriendly, more relaxing and more fun.

I don't know how to do it, but maybe someone else will. For your sake, I hope they do.