Learning to Waste Time

So this morning I helped to lead a faculty workshop here at Dordt on the topic of technology and teaching. All I can say is "wow". Interesting discussion... unexpected reactions... but it was a good honest interaction. There is one comment that has really stuck with me... One of the professors lamented the fact that we have lost the ability to "waste time". What he meant was... we are losing the process. The time to sit in confusion... to "scratch our heads" as he put it. The time to start a paper... only to crumple it up (or push delete) and start over. The time to wrestle with formulas or read something 4 times just to get it... What I think he is lamenting is the space for reflection... for process. To not be in such a hurry to get the point - or the answer - or the solution.

Sorry to say but this is what we are making the educational process... an answering producing machine. Tell me what I have to know and get on with it... utilitarianism seems to be winning the day.

I had lunch with another prof who took the idea further. Not only are we losing the ability to "waste time" in reflection or process... but we are losing the ability to "waste time" just messing around. A little mischief... or time spent doing nothing in particular with the people we love... Perceptive...

But how do we rewire our thinking? Especially when the very structures we create tend to emphasize productivity, efficiency, as my wife said the "Northwest Iowa (and other areas...) Work Ethic". How does the academy become less about job training and more about becoming counter cultural in the formation of young people? That, as they say, is the "million dollar question".

Techno Demonic

This Wednesday I've been roped into leading the faculty workshop at Dordt College.  I say roped because if there is any group I get anxious to speak in front of... it's my colleagues.  I've been at Dordt now 2 1/2 years... and I'm going to stand up and there and tell them how it is?  Thankfully I'm tag teaming with Mr. Dordt himself - Prof. Schaap.  I'll let him do most of the "heavy lifting".

Our topic is the use of technology in the classroom.  Please know I'm no Luddite.  After all... I'm typing on a computer to post on a blog... I believe there is an important place for technology.  In some ways it has made our lives better.  But I also believe it has created more problems - often having unintended consequences.

Prof. Schaap and I are going to ask questions about the use of technology in the classroom...  Does PowerPoint really make lectures more exciting?  Do students really take better notes... learn better... with a laptop in the class?  Well... no and no - that's what I say.  Edward Tufte, who has written extensively on PowerPoint, argues that PowerPoint is badly abused to the point it becomes tyrannical.  Instead of promoting the asking of probing questions... or the freedom for lectures and discussions to move freely in and out of topics - the bullet points take us captive - mindlessly moving us from one slide to the next.  As I read somewhere... making boring and meaningless information dance doesn't make it any less boring or meaningless.

With regard to laptops in the classroom... give me a break.  Most students are checking email or doing Facebook.  Professors are the worst... just come and sit in on a faculty assembly sometime.  Do you really think that many Prof's are furiously taking notes on the breakdown of the budget or whether we should use red or brown rocks in the parking lot?

Living in my ideal world - I believe the classroom (as well as the church sanctuary for that matter) should be a space where people unplug.  Where we gather together to encounter each other... to ask questions of each other.  To grapple with ideas and arguments.  A place where Prof's aren't just the button pushers of magical slides... but a place where Prof's ask questions, allow themselves to be challenged, get off topic, engage arguments.  We are not just dispensers of information... we stick wrenches in the gears... we poke and prod... sometimes getting poked in the eye.

This is what our discussion will be on Wednesday morning.  How do we teach in a way that affirms the positive contributions of technology - but also in a way that challenges the myth of technicism and the idols we create?  

We'll see what happens... check out this youtube link to see a video we're going to watch and discuss together...