Left Behind

What will you do when technology changes and you can not keep up?

This is not a "new" question. It is a very old one. Whole cultures have collapsed, empires have fallen, corporations have vanished, and yes, languages have died, because of failures to embrace new technologies.

In 1890 there were at least 25,000 wagon manufacturers in the United States. Only one, Studebaker, survived 50 years later. They were the only one that realized that they did not "make wagons" - they made transportation devices.

The Chinese never adapted their gunpowder invention for warfare and it cost them dearly when Europeans showed up on their shores.

Languages which were separated from the printing press, Cornish for example, were wiped out.

Western Union rejected the opportunity to acquire telephone technology - after all, they ran the finest communications system in the Western Hemisphere.

I thought about this as I read about the slow death of VoiceMail. As I read that story I remembered the blog commenter - a university professor - who, just this year, insisted that his learning abilities would not be judged by "nonsense" such as his ability to "program a VCR." And I remembered a 'community leader' in my area who declared that he, "just [didn't] understand email or cellphones."

I barely use VoiceMail anymore. My phone converts it to text which I can read or listen to in my own way. I'm stuck with it at my office, but I beg people to email me instead. VoiceMail is a huge time waster, and it cannot be forwarded easily, cannot form the structure of my reply, cannot be copied and pasted into a calendar or other document. It was the vital technology of the Seinfeld era, but Seinfeld has been in reruns for a very long time.

And that professor may find that VCRs are dying even faster than VoiceMail. I think he can simply say, at this point, that he missed that entire two decades of information technology (and his ability to preserve and re-access important data).

As for the community leader, well, he is retired, which is good. His chances of economic survival in the actual world of work would be close to nil.

Different Winners

One of the things I often suggest is that new technologies will make new winners - not just in the world economy, not just in the marketplace, but eventually in the classroom. For the past 150 years a certain kind of straight-line thinking, a certain set of literacy skills, and a certain kind of slack-jawed staring attention has characterized those who "win" in education. Victory has gone to the compliant, the quiet, and those most comfortable when knowledge is divided into discrete boxes.

But those skills were the perfect fit to what is now an antiquated technology set - printed books, one-directional or perhaps "duplex" voice technology, the rectangular classroom within the school building used during the school day. Those skills are really a terrible fit with hyper-text, with information unconstrained by walls and borders and time periods, and with a workspace defined by multiple sources and multiple representations occurring concurrently.

This is why - I think unconsciously - so many academics and educators resist contemporary ICT so fiercely. Accepting these new technologies means that the advantages they were taught to prize in themselves - their study habits, their ability to focus, their willingness to depend on authoritative sources and to observe classroom rules - might prove to be their undoing. And the disadvantages they despised in others, ADHD for example, processing information via pictures instead of the abstraction of text as another, the disadvantages that have been labelled as pathological "disabilities," might prove to be advantageous in this new world.

That ADHD kid might be far better in front of multiple monitors with a dozen windows open and 15 tabs going in Firefox than the professor and former high school valedictorian who is really uncomfortable if a TV is on while she is reading. That Asperger's kid who processes images efficiently might be far better at analysing changing maps than the text-dependent historian.

And I have many colleagues who think of me as distracted and disorganised, but who turn to me all the time for the information I collect via Twitter and blogs, Skype calls and text-messages, and million moments each year when I right-click on a link and choose "Open Link in New Tab" or "Save to LaterLoop" or "Note This (Google Notebook)."

Dinosaurs

Much of education, of the educational establishment, is in real danger from this changing moment. When I watched a friend scramble through the binding process for her dissertation recently I felt like I was watching a horse-drawn carriage manufacturer around 1920, or a Greek bronze armaments maker in 800 BC, or maybe more accurately, a scriptorium around 1700. Beautiful work, lots of detail, lots of tradition, but it is all for nothing - the world has moved on.

I feel the same watching most classrooms, seeing most reading assignments, observing how assessments are conducted in educational institutions. Yes, that carriage is wonderful, but the cars will rush past it. Yes, that calligraphy is beautiful but you just spent six months creating a single book. Certainly, that bronze sword is beautiful but the steel weapon will cut it in half. Yes, you did wonderfully on the multiple-choice exam but I need people who can find information and develop new ideas, not repeat what I already know. Yes, you read that whole book, but I need to know the range of observations from these twelve sources around the globe.

The issue of being left behind is an individual one - and a potentially catastrophic one for anyone not rapidly approaching retirement age, but the much bigger issue is a systemic one. Will schools - as we know them - have any validity at all if they refuse to embrace the technologies of the contemporary world? Will the world have real room for an organization which trains straight-line thinkers when we need multi-taskers? Will the world continue to accept credentials from knowledge institutions which fail to teach the basic skills of current knowledge acquisition? Will anyone value a system which can not figure out a way to include - and thus learn from - the most inventive minds of our time? (from Bill Gates - college dropout, to Steve Jobs - college dropout, to Sergei Brinn - working on his PhD since 1993 - supposedly)

Two years ago I heard Dr. James Gee ask, "Why is the shortest proof [in mathematics] the better proof? Why is the student who finishes a test faster rewarded?" He argued that this focus on speed, on the short path, on what I might call "focus," not only left many students out, but was a fundamentally flawed educational model. "The shortest route to an answer got us into Iraq," he pointed out.

The shortest route to an answer also explains current US oil dependence, and why GM, Ford, and Chrysler are in such desperate trouble in North America today. Those car companies were "focused on shareholder value" when they were selling everything they could build. Perhaps if their CEOs were a touch more ADHD they might have looked around and seen other things along those horizon lines. Perhaps someone in the White House might have clicked on a hyperlink in a Wikipedia article and discovered something of the potential rifts in Iraqi society. Perhaps intelligence community operatives less trained in following procedures and with higher networking skills would have discovered Al Qaeda's threat to the US in August 2001.

Change

Change is uncomfortable. Change is dangerous. Change is hard.

But change is essential. And change creates new possibilities. If you are the "traditionally successful" educator you may find yourself on the losing end of some of this - but you can give your students a better shot at being winners. And, maybe now is the time to jump on the Universal Design bandwagon. Allow those future winners to choose the learning tactics appropriate for themselves, and they might return the favor when they end up in control.

- Ira Socol

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com

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Words

"The people up there said it was fascinating meeting you," she said. "Yeah?" I asked. "They said you suggested all kinds of things that they'd never thought of." "They're not good at looking." "No," she said, "they just don't know." "No, I guess they don't."

"Anyway," she continued, "one of them asked..." Her voice trailed off. Then she changed the subject. "What did one of them ask?" I asked.

It took three days to get the answer. "OK," she gave in. "One of them asked if you were Aspergers." "Maybe," I said. "Maybe I am." "Don't let it it get to you," she told me. "It isn't getting to me," I said, though it was. You work so hard on your "normal mask" at times, it's mighty frustrating when it doesn't work. "It isn't getting to me," I said again, "I have no idea where that line is and I don't give a f***."

Retard.

"You have many cutting edge provocative ideas. However, I am saddened that you could not find a way to express yourself without using offensive vocabulary. I believe you need to know how to effectively speak without hurting others and reinforcing myths and stereotypes. Please read Kathie Snow's article on People First Language, which can be found on her Disability is Natural website at www.disabilityisnatural.com. Thank you." - Anne Eason commenting on my May Day: Retard Theory post.

I told Anne that I didn't want to use "people first" language, which has always sounded 'diagnostic' to me. I'm not a "person with dyslexia" or whatever other 'diseases' certain powers that be decide that I have. When I get sick in winter I might be a "person with the flu." I have been, for example, "the patient with the severe allergic reaction." But my dyslexia, my attention 'issues,' whatever - those are not maladies that I "have." Those are identities which society has given me by declaring that I am not like them. So, just as I would not be "a person with Irishness," or perhaps, "a person with blackness (Africanness?)," I am not "a person with a disability." These terms are identity descriptors, existing because white, Protestant, male, heterosexual, normal people do not want to share their identity with me. So, if that label is so important to them, I will put that label first, thank you. Their slur becomes my badge of honor.

"[W]hat you are actually doing is perpetuating use of the word and presenting it as being OK for others to call you that since you are calling yourself "retard". It is not OK. It has been and continues to be a long hard battle to stop the use of this word. The people that want it stopped are the people who have been labeled and teased, the people who love them and the people who know it is wrong to talk to people like that. I understand where you are coming from, but what you are actually doing is perpetuating the use of the word toward the very people you want to stop labeling. I think that experience, which will come with time, will change your thinking." - anonymous commenting on my May Day: Retard Theory post.

I told anonymous that experience had brought me right to where I am now. I told her that I thought "Retard Theory" was as important an idea as "Queer Theory" and "Crip Theory." That the use of "that kind" of term was just as important. Of course, commenting on the same post Dave Hingsburger said, "Maybe this argument would work if the word applied to 'you' then it would have more power. Crip theory is often used by those with physical disabilities. 'Retard' refers to a specific population, I am guessing it's a population to which you do not belong. You cannot claim use of this word - it ain't yours." But damn, even if Dave doesn't want me to have the word, even if I wouldn't generally be described as having an "intellectual disability," or a "cognitive impairment" or whatever of those diseases people want to embrace, well... Dave, people don't say, "you can't read," to make fun of people like me and they don't say, "you can't sit still in class," and they don't say, "you have trouble with the rules of human interaction." They say, "retard." And they mean it.

Words have power, we either choose to own them or we choose not to.

"It has been and continues to be a long hard battle to stop the use of this word. The people that want it stopped are the people who have been labeled and teased, the people who love them and the people who know it is wrong to talk to people like that." anonymous said. But the word, well, there are lots of words...

And lots of words get used lots of ways.

'"All the other children at my school are stupid. Ex­cept I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what, they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or un­derstanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid, or Siobhan, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs.

'"But Siobhan said we have to use those words because peo­ple used to call children like the children at school spaz and crip and mong, which were nasty words. But that is stupid too because sometimes the children from the school down the road see us in the street when we're getting off the bus and they shout, "Spe­cial Needs! Special Needs!" But I don't take any notice because I don't listen to what other people say and only sticks and stones can break my bones and I have my Swiss Army knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self-defense and I won't go to prison."' - Mark Haddon. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003. pp 43-44)

Here's the thing, for Anne, and Dave, and Anon, and anyone else who came through that post, objected, but didn't comment. If what you are fighting is "the word" all you will accomplish - if you win - is that the kids will "shout, "Spe­cial Needs! Special Needs!"' instead. And then, just as with "colored" and "negro" in US race relations, you'll have to unteach your new words.

That doesn't mean I want you to stop trying to get people to stop using "retard" that way, just as clearly identified gay activist groups would sure rather people stopped using, "that's so gay" as a general insult. But I do mean that if you accept the way "disability" is defined, if you accept the "medical model of disability," if you accept that diagnosis leads to accommodation rather than the idea that individual human rights leads to choices - If you participate in those systems without fighting them every day - your efforts regarding the word are worthless, because while you might change the word, you won't change the idea.

As for me, I want to take the word and "queer" it, as I want to take the idea of "normal" and queer that. As I want to use language, use argument, use action to make people doubt what they know - everything they know - about the ideas of disability and difference and human norms. It's this idea, taking the short bus and making it into a monster truck and using it to break down the walls.

Yes, words matter, and words can insult and hurt. And words can also have remarkable power when we own them, when we use them in ways our enemies don't expect, or in ways which teach new ways of seeing.

So, Dave, maybe I don't "qualify" by your diagnostic standards, or maybe I do, as some who've met me think. But I not only don't care what side of which of your arbitrary lines I lie on, I don't think the lines are real at all. I think the lines are your problem, and shouldn't be mine or anyone else's. And if upsetting a few people with a few words will help get people to listen to that argument, I'll use those words.

"I'm not following a plan written by a retard undergrad," the reported statement of a university administrator at one of my undergraduate institutions, responding to a "non-diagnostic" campus accessibility plan I had written.

Late addition: two other opinions on language and disability
From Diary of a Goldfish: The Language of Disability
From Wheelchair Dancer: On Making Argument: Disability and Language

- Ira Socol

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com

US $16.00 on Amazon

New! Digital version available through lulu.com

Look Inside This Book