I’m actually agnostic on the “Is it reading?” question. I love a good book as much as anyone, and yes, Virginia, there is a canon — or at least a body of literature that you need a grasp of to be fully literate. But I’m not ready to dismiss digital tools as something less that reading. My concern is more centered on the all-at-onceness of it all, and whether the assault of digital technology may be damaging our ability to think clearly and critically.

I don’t think it is fair to call the NYTs article a thumbsucker. The Gray Lady makes excellent points, and they just remind me why we need old-fashioned literary conventions.

We’re old enough to have mastered the fundamentals, and maximize the best while minimizing the worse of the digital breakthroughs. But haven’t we also gotten into some bad habits with our use of the Internet. (I haven’t read a novel this summer.)

This issue reminds me of Diana comment on another subject, about schools’ inability to fully replace parents. Of course we can’t. And of course we can’t prevent the harm that comes from the digital culture. We must fight for the values we revere. If we demonstrate enough parental-like love, and enough love for the Word, then we will have left a legacy that the kids can build on.

I love Umberto Eco’s take on this. As the printing press and the scientific method ushered in the modern world which allowed for privacy, and eventually democracy and human rights, we also lost the pre-literary communal culture. Eco predicted in the 1980s that with gated communities and the icons of that era, we were recreating much of feudalism with its castles, stained glass, and the pre-national world. His solution was not to complain about he kids but to teach them to watch MTV videos and to read cultural images, in other words to teach more cultural literacy.

Cell phones, especially, drive me crazy. But when I’m in NYC I can see why people need them and I pods, etc. to block out the excesses. Then when I go on and on about NYC in the 70s, the kids are usually polite about the way they use technology to drown me out.

Seriously, all that text messaging is also testimony to the gaps in people’s pysche due to the breakdown of the family. People are craving human contact as they use and misuse technology. It will be the younger generation that turns this stuff into art, and then we’ll see other changes. Maybe into new forms of family.

None of this means that we would necessarily disagree about the role of schools. We adults need to create buffers. When teaching, I want to slow things down as much as possible for as long as possible. If I have a unit that retains the kids’ interest while encouraging deliberation, I ride that theme as long as possible. Even with the best units after four or five weeks, though, I walk in one morning and body language tells me its time to move on. If I need to continue a unit, but the kids are getting boored, I believe, they have to have the veto in the shortrun. I will double back to it later when the motivation is right.

But isn’t that the “same as it ever was.”