AARP Hearing Center
A friend shared this with me today, and it just made me giggle! Yup! So many reasons why itโs great to be โof a certain ageโ !
โฆ.๐คญ
โฆ..Yes! โฆ.I sometimes become wistful when I think about those simpler days, and yet I too relish the perks of technology! I enjoy the iPad upon which Iโm typing this reply, and I marvel at how I am wearing a watch just like the one Dick Tracy wore. ๐
MsStretch, I have to share a moment when, so many years ago, I echoed your โget out and smell the roses for realโ sentiment, but not quite as eloquently.๐
I was sitting at a round table meeting. Present at this โbrain-stormingโ were over a dozen local bigwigs, several even bigger bigwigs, ๐ and three teachers, including myself. The bigwigs from the upper echelons were just waxing euphorically about how the internet was going to revolutionize teaching and save school districts across the country boatloads of money. They foresaw a golden future where, with just โthe click of a mouseโ, students would have the world of knowledge at their fingertips. Truly, a new dawn was just around the corner - including sky high tests scores as well as the eradication of truancy - a veritable utopia.
(Now, up until this point, I had been behaving myself and was dutifully listening to what was being described by those in Supervisory and Administrative positions, and successfully stifling my impulse to speak outโฆ.).
But then, one of the bigwigs added that another perk of school districts having internet access would be that Field Trips would be totally unnecessary - a quaint โthing of the pastโ. Because, with โjust a clickโ, students would be instantly transported to a museum,, an apple orchard, or a farm.
โฆ.It was at the moment when yet another bigwig joyfully quipped, โJust imagine - no more money wasted on fields trips for your Elementary and Special Education students! โ, I just couldnโt take it anymore,
I threw up my hands - palms forwarded - and blurted out, โBut you gotta smell a farm! You gotta touch a cow!
After a cringe-worthy and very awkward silence, I further explained that, if my students simply watched a video about a farm on the internet, theyโd never have the opportunity to pet a cow, to feed a cow hay, to crouch down and look at its udders, to watch its tail flick away a fly, to smell manure, to bottle feed a young goat and then watch it dance a fast-motion ballet on haystacks, to hear a horseโs rumbaing nicker in response to a voice, to hold a palm flat out and feel a horse's lips nibble a treat, to run a hand down a horseโs amazingly long jawline, to feel its rough mane, to touch that feather-soft spot on the top of its nose, โฆ.at one point I even muttered something about โthrowing out the baby with the bathwaterโ. โฆsigh
Oddly enough, after I finally completed my oral epic, they all got it!
They realized that while the internet might be a groundbreaking tool, we needed to proceed with caution, and that we should strive to maintain a balance when we chose to use it.
(And, about a month after that meeting, my students, for the first, and for many of them, the only time in their lives,, went on a field trip to a farm.)
All these years later, I find comfort in knowing that the children at my local Elementary School still travel on Field trips.
And yet sometimes I am saddened at the aftermath of this โ new dawnโ we created.
I enjoy โthis placeโ - sharing with people that are hundreds of miles away from me! ๐๐ฉต. Yet, I am going to follow that very conclusion that committee came to all those years ago, and head back out to my townโs Fall Festival because the bands will be starting soon! ๐ฉต๐๐โ๏ธ
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