Our Technological Age

Computers. You either love them, or hate them.

Me, I’m a big lover of them…most of the time. When they work, it’s fantastic. The best thing since sliced bread. When they don’t, I fight the overwhelming need to throw them out the window. It’s not been a great day in that respect today.

This morning, my S4 class were sitting writing essays on artists they’d chosen. I walked round the class and talked about passion – how they needed to be writing about the work of an artist who really inspired them or whose work stirred such emotion in them that they felt they could write pages just explaining their thoughts. Their blank looks and wry grins didn’t deter me. I talked about Peter Howson (his work does it for me every time), Joan Eardley and Lucian Freud amongst others. Truly amazing artists whose work has such an emotive quality for me that is almost indescribable. I explained that my passion for studying artists work has been there since my early teens and it’s never dwindled, and that whatever they do in life, they should have a passion that makes them excited about whatever they are doing or aiming for. Surely to make half-hearted attempts at things can’t be good for the soul?

Did what I say to my class have any impact? I smiled when I received a rewritten Introduction in at the end of the lesson. At the top of the page was written ‘be enthusiastic’. Underneath, several lines explaining her ‘passion’ for the artist she had chosen.

That made my day better.

So, back to IT and computers. As I watched them research, I thought back to my own days when I had been completing similar tasks to them. My research was purely done via books, but for my students, the Internet has opened up endless avenues of research. I still make my students start off by using book research – if nothing else to show them a mass of different artists all at once, to visually stimulate them quickly rather than look at small images on the Google search engine. But, how much more informed they can be now – if they know what they are looking for. Certainly changed days from my endless (but loved I have to say) time spent in the library. As a parent it makes me wonder how things will change for my boys in the next 10 years. It’s exciting to think that opportunities will be even greater and the knowledge they gain, even wider. I have to say though, as I listen to my four year old lying in bed, ‘reading’ his dinosaur books with all the sound effects – I hope he still retains his love of flicking pages alongside the technological knowlege he will gain.

~ by zoewalker on June 11, 2008.