Blog #5

I especially liked the selections we read this week from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden", because I think that can be easily applied to most peoples' lives. 

In class we discussed what he meant by saying that he wanted 'to live deliberatey'.  Although I agreed with the gist of the class discussion, I interpreted it differently when I read it.  I think this can also say that he wanted to be free of distractions from society and be able to focus on his own free will; what he would do if he was truly alone, without any influence.  He wanted to deliberately chose wether he would  buy the bag of Doritos, not be manipulated into buying it by advertisers. What could he learn and achieve from being so free?  I think that is a truly cool idea.  I don't think that in 2011 it is realistic to seclude yourself in an unsafe and unsanitary shack to figure out how you would live.  I do think that everyone should try to 'take pause' and really think for themselves.  When Thoreau lived for a year in seclusion, he had no time restraints, no expectations, and no limitations.  In 2011, our lives have become so fast paced that it's hard to really think through why we do what we do - that would seem like a total waste of our time! But I think it is really important to remember to sit and think critically about our decisions without any outside influence.

I also think that schools should take Thoreau's ideas to heart.  Our course outlines are online, our assignments are online, our readings are online, our activities are online, etc.  Our schools are desperately looking for funding from anywhere, going so far as to sell themselves to sponsors who will feed us unlimited amounts of advertising.  They want Smartboards, iPads, online libraries, and more.  These all cost money, and, although their purpose is to simplify, what they really do is complicate.  When the computers are down nobody can get their assignments done; when the smartboards malfunction the lesson is lost.  How can we be so blind?  Simplify, simplify, simplify.  These items can be useful, yes.  But I think that some teachers and students have started to use them as crutches.  Could this have anything to do with people saying that we are the 'dumbest generation'? Do you think that students learned more when they had to read a book and pull information that they saw as relevant, and then write it down on paper for their notes?  Some online libraries allow you to type in a 'key word', and they will search through thousands of sources for you, find the most relevant ones, and then highlight your chosen key word throughout the entire source.  In that sequence, we have learned nothing.  We don't retain information that is simply 'given' to us as well as we retain information that we dig up ourselves.  I think there is also a laptop now that can listen to the teacher's voice and convert it into text in a word document.  Now we don't even need to listen if we don't want to!  No wonder we are accused as being the dumbest generation.