DO YOU READ ME, HAL? HAL, DO YOU READ ME?

By James P. Cooney

When Littleton broke, I was busy wrapping up another regular semester of college teaching (my 66th). I could not avoid thinking about the various reactions, nor could I avoid shedding some tears (as I'm sure most teachers did). Tears are not the answer, though, nor is the prevalent tendency to sweep blame over every possible factor influencing young people today.

Existentialist philosophers remind us that, in the words of Jean Paul Sartre, we are all "condemned to be free." No person is to blame for what another person does.

The only people responsible for what happened in Littleton are the young men who pulled the triggers that day and any others who might be found to have helped them or known what they were going to do and remained silent.

I feel especially sorry for the parents of the young perpetrators. Between the time I was 16 and 19 (1960-1963), I learned of the deaths of two young men: one older by a year or two than me and the brother of two of my friends; the other younger by a year or two and a grammar school playmate. Both were killed in automobile accidents apparently caused by their own recklessness, and probably drunkenness. In one case, others were also seriously injured; in the other, a friend of the driver was also killed.

In both cases, the parents were wonderful people, devoted to their children. In one, the father was my father's lawyer; in the other, the mother was my Cub Scout Den Mother. I know that the parents were wholly blameless in the foolish actions taken by their sons. None of those four parents had happy lives after those "accidents."

Should the grandmother of Little Red Riding Hood have had cause for a lawsuit against her daughter (or daughter-in-law) because the child led the wolf to the grandmother's house? We know from the tale that the mother warned her daughter of the dangers in the woods. Should we we empower courts to second guess the strategies a parent uses with an unruly child when strategies go wrong?

No.

Nor should we blame gun manufacturers, movie or news media, the Internet, or the materialistic culture. The world is always going to be what the world is. Once man creates a force, it is as much a part of the nature that surrounds us as hurricanes, lightening, earthquakes, and tornadoes.

Having said this, I also believe that we teachers have a special responsibility. We are too quick to introduce new, untested technologies into the classroom, and too accepting of the welcome change of pace or easing of the load that they offer. In the past, I have been skeptical of colleagues in history, or English, or even philosophy classes who over-rely on movies in class. They claim the movies are well made and informative. But still I am skeptical. The job of a teacher is to teach, not to entertain or pass the responsibility to technology.

In recent years, teachers on every level have given over the classroom entirely too much to computers.

Computer manufacturers, software providers, and Internet services have persuaded district administrators and teachers that they can serve students' interests and make jobs easier with computers in the classroom. I firmly believe administrators and teachers who accept this pitch make a serious mistake and ill serve students.

In the old days of farming communities, Mary's little lamb was not permitted inside the school house door. Today, we should keep computers out as well.

The job of an elementary school teacher is to lecture and drill. The job of a high school teacher is to lecture, discuss, and drill. The job of a college professor is to lecture and, very occasionally, discuss...on an "as needed" basis.

Elementary and high school students might profit from having computers at home, primarily for word processing and educational games carefully selected by watchful parents. College students should surely have access to computers in their libraries, laboratories, and dorm rooms--for experimental and research purposes. But, except for occasional demonstrations, the nation's classrooms, on every level, would be better places without computers at all.

(James P. Cooney is a Professor of Humanities at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. He has been lecturing about, and occasionally discussing, principles of English Composition, and the ideas of writers of American Literature and the great philosophers at various colleges and universities for 33 years.)

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