We used to have to go to classes
where there’d be lectures (to get
the info out) and sometimes
facilitated discussions where we
got credit for talking), quizzes
(to make sure we read the texts)
and also exams (to see how much
we retained if not understood) and
of course papers to write on type-
writers (wite-out to correct mistakes)
& mimeographed hand-outs, some
times overhead pro-jections with
overlay transparencies. And you
could make us study, because if we
didn’t—well, you know: grades!
We could take courses in all sorts
of discrete subjects but pretty much
the “course” was the same: lecture,
discussion, quiz, exam, papers,
mimeographs & overhead
projection whatever the
content subject matter
made no never
mind.
My first college course I sat in
sandwiched between Jack Heinz
and Josh Pillsbury and we took
notes on European History with
fountain pens to get it right: the
Treaty of
(“What’d he say?”
“Ver Say Ver SAY!”)
This was before the ubiquity of TV,
of course, black & white Howdy
Doody Glenn-Beck-wanna-be bomb
sheltered forests of surburban roof
aerials, prior to citizens-band radio &
Pong, before punch-card computation,
prior to terminal/main frame relations,
Wang, Commodore, Apple personal
desk top computers, before answering
machines & call-waiting, copiers,
conference calls & “speaker” options,
not-yet e-mail & instant messaging,
gaming, faxing,.texting, sexting, cell
& video phones galore and of course:
the internet, Wiki pedagogies, myspace,
yourspace, face book, youtube, photo
shop, instant transmission of image,
idea, history, how-to, reference &
cross-reference links, labyrinth, whelm,
matrix of info for the having: finger-tip
tappety tap laptop dancing & everyone
smart as the smartest kid in the class.
New School.
You’d never recognize it.
Never recognize
how we do it
now, compared
to then.
All that techno logic: trans-
formation from olden daze.
Time & Space re-configured.
Information reformatted shot
straight into the vein: head
phones ear buds, eyes in
the sky & class rooms: here’s
a shot of my
on T.S. Eliot: live
right
what’s going on in
classroom?
No more pencils.
No more books:
No more teacher’s
dirty looks.
And it’s not What I Know any more
(how could it be?) —but whether I
can put it in play or not that counts.
IT, I said. Do I always have to be spelling
IT out? Post Literacy: an Age of Neo Oralcy,
say. Or you characterize IT then. Improve my
terms. I'm always just asking for it. Play
& Be Played, I say. Or what's a college
for?
xxxooo, Presbyter
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