September 16, 2009 3:20 p.m.
One of the qualities I want to teach my children is that of diligence. One tenet we associate with diligence goes something like this:
Work before play.
So I have had to reinforce this by not allowing toys and other playful distractions to inhabit the work space during lesson times. I recognize that close proximity of play items to school books is not a good thing. It presents irresistible temptations to my immature students. The Matchbox cars, the glow sticks, the flashlights, the rubber balls, the stopwatches, the beads, all this must be banished from the school table on demand. Diligence, and the ability to focus on work tasks exclusively for longer and longer periods of time, are (or should be) desired and indispensable skills in the workforce and in all other areas of responsible living.
So what happens, then, when I go to my computer in the middle of the school day to print out a worksheet, and just before walking away, I quickly check my email, Face book, blog roll, Drudge, etc. to see what's been up in the past few hours? Am I not mixing together my work with my play? I have been convicted about this of late, and so far my son has not called me on the carpet about it. In fact, he hasn't yet recognized that blogs and Face book are Mommy's form of play, just like Matchbox cars at the table are his. So I need to practice better diligence myself if I hope to model it for my children. But enough about me..
One of the resentments I have toward the internet is that it represents a perpetual source of easily accessible "play time" for adults (and older students). At present, I feel a strong tug in my brain to check up on things online, often, very often, when I am home and have access to my desktop computer. We choose not to own any laptops, and we certainly won't have any iPhones or Blackberries or any other such device that would give me access to the internet twenty-four seven. I cannot imagine life if I was only a couple of button pushes away, at all waking moments and in all places, from my online connections. It would be disastrous for me and I feel it would destroy my life in a sense. I can just see myself harvesting my Farmville veggies at a funeral service, for instance. BAD. Very bad.
As I write, hundreds of thousands of work spaces across our world provide such ready access to play time during work time for employees and workers. I submit that the loss of workforce productivity this represents is incalculable. Self-Reliant Man and I were having a chat with friends, recently, about this situation. I remember commenting on the near seamless mixture of work and play that students and adults enjoy routinely in our time, and I remember our friend reacting to this with ~~ amusement, perhaps even a sense of awe that our young 20 and 30 somethings have this special 21st century, uh, ability, shall we say? ~~ Well, I am not amused. I find it disturbing. I don't consider it an ability. I consider it a handicap of our younger generations.
One of the things my parents always talked about (and remember, they grew up in the 1920s and 1930s) was that we kids needed to be able to sit quietly and survive periods of no entertainment when asked. That we would need this ability when we grew up into adults and had to be responsible in our careers or whatever. I remember my mother, in particular, trying to train this into me. Today, we think that if our kids can stay quiet in a waiting room with a Gameboy we are doing well. Or even with a book. But does this really prove anything? I realize that as humans, we are intelligent beings, and that we thrive on mental stimulation, but how many of us can tolerate even short periods of time (five minutes?) without the stimulation? How do we do when there is no TV or radio to listen to, no iPods, no video games, no DVD player, no CNN, no internet -- nothing but ourselves and the voices and faces of those around us? How do we do in a media-free environment for even a few minutes? How many of us can handle it?
I was at an event recently, among an audience of parents with their children. Before the event began, the room was aglow with the lights from their portable digital devices. There were mumbled phone conversations, the poking of screens and tapping of buttons, and then the show began and thankfully everything was turned off after the request from the stage. Then when the intermission began, all the devices were immediately aglow once more. Few folks engaged in small talk with their neighbor in the next row; most were checking in with a different set of friends. Pity the poor mom who was hoping to make new friends in this group.
And as I alluded to before, even the workplace environment, I'm afraid, has become this new hybrid of work-play, real-virtual existence and I think it has made us all mentally handicapped. Not to mention less productive. I remember when I was an engineer geek, there was a never-ending list of things I needed to do. There was a list of things that absolutely had to be done, and then there was a second list of tasks that would help improve things and make things work better (or more efficiently) but only to the extent that I had time to tackle these tasks. Everybody has them. I can only imagine how I would do today, with today's new connectedness. Sure, I might complete all my "have to be done" items, but I doubt whether I would be able to tackle much, or anything, on that second list. My boss would be shortchanged to the extent that I couldn't control my web-surfing impulses. Not to mention that I would be breaking that commandment of God: thou shalt not steal.
Now I wonder about my present career as stay-at-home-homeschooling mom. How much more could I accomplish for my family? How many more books could I read? How many enrichment activities could I fit in with the children?
One last point about all this. I think it is essential to equip our children with the skill of being able to focus their attention on a work task for an extended period of time. I am reminded of certain college entrance exams I had to take that required this. I am also reminded of my Professional Engineer licensing exam that was eight hours long! Also, jobs like surgeons, air traffic controllers, teachers /lecturers, and others that require fixed attention for spans of time. If we can equip our kids with the character trait of diligence, and the skill of being able to focus sharply on their work, they will certainly be in a small, highly sought minority some day. I am all in favor of disciplining our kids intellects, as well as their behavior. My kids were blessed by God with good, sharp brains. I refuse to blunt their minds by making them nearly as dependent on entertainment as they are on oxygen.
One of the qualities I want to teach my children is that of diligence. One tenet we associate with diligence goes something like this:
Work before play.
So I have had to reinforce this by not allowing toys and other playful distractions to inhabit the work space during lesson times. I recognize that close proximity of play items to school books is not a good thing. It presents irresistible temptations to my immature students. The Matchbox cars, the glow sticks, the flashlights, the rubber balls, the stopwatches, the beads, all this must be banished from the school table on demand. Diligence, and the ability to focus on work tasks exclusively for longer and longer periods of time, are (or should be) desired and indispensable skills in the workforce and in all other areas of responsible living.
So what happens, then, when I go to my computer in the middle of the school day to print out a worksheet, and just before walking away, I quickly check my email, Face book, blog roll, Drudge, etc. to see what's been up in the past few hours? Am I not mixing together my work with my play? I have been convicted about this of late, and so far my son has not called me on the carpet about it. In fact, he hasn't yet recognized that blogs and Face book are Mommy's form of play, just like Matchbox cars at the table are his. So I need to practice better diligence myself if I hope to model it for my children. But enough about me..
One of the resentments I have toward the internet is that it represents a perpetual source of easily accessible "play time" for adults (and older students). At present, I feel a strong tug in my brain to check up on things online, often, very often, when I am home and have access to my desktop computer. We choose not to own any laptops, and we certainly won't have any iPhones or Blackberries or any other such device that would give me access to the internet twenty-four seven. I cannot imagine life if I was only a couple of button pushes away, at all waking moments and in all places, from my online connections. It would be disastrous for me and I feel it would destroy my life in a sense. I can just see myself harvesting my Farmville veggies at a funeral service, for instance. BAD. Very bad.
As I write, hundreds of thousands of work spaces across our world provide such ready access to play time during work time for employees and workers. I submit that the loss of workforce productivity this represents is incalculable. Self-Reliant Man and I were having a chat with friends, recently, about this situation. I remember commenting on the near seamless mixture of work and play that students and adults enjoy routinely in our time, and I remember our friend reacting to this with ~~ amusement, perhaps even a sense of awe that our young 20 and 30 somethings have this special 21st century, uh, ability, shall we say? ~~ Well, I am not amused. I find it disturbing. I don't consider it an ability. I consider it a handicap of our younger generations.
One of the things my parents always talked about (and remember, they grew up in the 1920s and 1930s) was that we kids needed to be able to sit quietly and survive periods of no entertainment when asked. That we would need this ability when we grew up into adults and had to be responsible in our careers or whatever. I remember my mother, in particular, trying to train this into me. Today, we think that if our kids can stay quiet in a waiting room with a Gameboy we are doing well. Or even with a book. But does this really prove anything? I realize that as humans, we are intelligent beings, and that we thrive on mental stimulation, but how many of us can tolerate even short periods of time (five minutes?) without the stimulation? How do we do when there is no TV or radio to listen to, no iPods, no video games, no DVD player, no CNN, no internet -- nothing but ourselves and the voices and faces of those around us? How do we do in a media-free environment for even a few minutes? How many of us can handle it?
I was at an event recently, among an audience of parents with their children. Before the event began, the room was aglow with the lights from their portable digital devices. There were mumbled phone conversations, the poking of screens and tapping of buttons, and then the show began and thankfully everything was turned off after the request from the stage. Then when the intermission began, all the devices were immediately aglow once more. Few folks engaged in small talk with their neighbor in the next row; most were checking in with a different set of friends. Pity the poor mom who was hoping to make new friends in this group.
And as I alluded to before, even the workplace environment, I'm afraid, has become this new hybrid of work-play, real-virtual existence and I think it has made us all mentally handicapped. Not to mention less productive. I remember when I was an engineer geek, there was a never-ending list of things I needed to do. There was a list of things that absolutely had to be done, and then there was a second list of tasks that would help improve things and make things work better (or more efficiently) but only to the extent that I had time to tackle these tasks. Everybody has them. I can only imagine how I would do today, with today's new connectedness. Sure, I might complete all my "have to be done" items, but I doubt whether I would be able to tackle much, or anything, on that second list. My boss would be shortchanged to the extent that I couldn't control my web-surfing impulses. Not to mention that I would be breaking that commandment of God: thou shalt not steal.
Now I wonder about my present career as stay-at-home-homeschooling mom. How much more could I accomplish for my family? How many more books could I read? How many enrichment activities could I fit in with the children?
One last point about all this. I think it is essential to equip our children with the skill of being able to focus their attention on a work task for an extended period of time. I am reminded of certain college entrance exams I had to take that required this. I am also reminded of my Professional Engineer licensing exam that was eight hours long! Also, jobs like surgeons, air traffic controllers, teachers /lecturers, and others that require fixed attention for spans of time. If we can equip our kids with the character trait of diligence, and the skill of being able to focus sharply on their work, they will certainly be in a small, highly sought minority some day. I am all in favor of disciplining our kids intellects, as well as their behavior. My kids were blessed by God with good, sharp brains. I refuse to blunt their minds by making them nearly as dependent on entertainment as they are on oxygen.
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1 comments:
Great post! Loved every word...and I agree. The dumbing down of America (and really the rest of the world, slowly) can't be good for anyone but especially our children, but I liked your point that maybe those of us who do limit the entertainments will have effective, productive workers in the future...good point!
And, have a GREAT time camping!