Leona Pulls Out A Knife And Goes To Town

I will preface this rant by saying this: it’s long. It’s snarky. It’s even mean in spots. Those of you who only know my “nice” side may be shocked. If you’re a humungeouseous fan of technology and can’t wait to see everything turn digital, this is probably going to upset you. Read at your own risk. I accept no liability for your screen being covered in either spit or coffee spray. Deal with it.

All right, let’s get started.

I admit it: I’m a bookworm. Always have been. I’ve chewed through tons of books, left them behind when I moved, accumulated more, donated, and accumulated again. About the only low I haven’t hit is building bookshelves out of boards and cinderblock. Wait, wait . . . yeah, I think I did that too at some point. Damn.

I’m also a computer geek. I didn’t haunt the gym looking for cute guys; I hung out in the computer lab and tried desperately to keep up with the smart guys who knew how to write code. They were my heroes. If one of them had asked me out I might have swooned.

So you’d think I’d be delighted at the trend towards digitizing books and media. Well, sorry; I’m not. I’m desperately worried. Technology and books are, in my opinion, not like Reese’s cups; they are not two great things meant to irrevocably merge. But that seems to be where many people believe we’re headed, and I don’t like the steep drop at the end of that trail.

Let me back up a moment and explain what set me off on this particular rant. Cushing Academy, a secondary school in Massachusetts, has started packing up its library books in favor of installing laptops and Kindle readers for all students. The headmaster, James Tracy, claims that

“of a library of 20,000 printed books, only 48 were circulating at any given time, on average, and more than thirty of those were children’s books taken out by the families that live on campus. When we spoke to students, they told us that they were not using the books on-site for research, either.”

The above came from an online interview posted through Coveritlive.com, which lasted about an hour and in which the headmaster answered roughly thirty questions. Well, “answer” is a bit strong, in some cases. For example:

“We are deaccessioning our library’s printed books”

(Deaccessioning??)

“we have . . . enhanced the budget for printers in the library.”

(How do you “enhance” a budget, exactly? Expand, increase, or raise the budget are all terms which make perfect sense to me, but “enhance”??)

But before I descend into pure snarkniness — because this issue really deserves a more thoughtful approach than mean-spirited sniping over imaginary words and puffed up terminology — let me back up once more and take the online interview with James Tracy from the top.

And I will really, truly, try to be fair. (But folks, I’ll admit it ain’t easy for me this time. So let’s see how I do.)

Tracy starts out with three statements, “Every new technology entails gains and loss (sic)”, followed by an oddly directionless one involving illuminated manuscripts being replaced by Gutenberg’s movable type, and “Electronic books will make it possible for everyone on this planet to soon have access to all of human culture in the palm of their hand”

(*snark* sorry, that one kills me).

These statements are repeated, in varying forms, throughout the rest of the interview, so I think it’s safe to say those are his main talking points.

I’ll look at those points one by one, and then focus on the nitty little details of how he’s planning to create this transition to a digital library.

>>Every new technology entails gains and loss.

Tracy claims that Cushing’s print library was not being used to its full potential; indeed, it was scarcely being used at all. Instead of rising up in outrage over this, I’m assuming from context that the teachers, and presumably parents, agreed that tossing hard copies and going to online sources was the smart move. So the books, magazines, and periodicals; the odd thesis some professor wrote and stuck in the stacks ten years ago; the sly notes scribbled in margins, the feel of pages ruffling against fingers, the smell of paper and the weight of a massive tome about some collection of great artists long since dead . . . all those will be counted as a “loss.” Meanwhile, laptops, Kindles, electrical outlets, carpal tunnel syndrome for teenagers, increased eye problems and decreased comprehension of read material (see this article from the New York Times, and another on the web site of the College of Education and Human Development, a branch of the University of Minnesota web site), computer viruses, proprietary software licensing issues, and copyright battles, will be a “gain”.

The cost of conversion to this new library is high, but Cushing isn’t some ghetto school, so that’s no problem. The continuing cost — of updating software, of replacing the entire system should the Apocalypse occur and Kindle go out of business; of keeping software techs around and maintaining extensive backups in case of viruses, of defending their records against government demands for information on a suspected terrorist in their classrooms — may or may not be in their budget (and if they run into budget cutbacks, then what? Truck back in all those damn books?).

But hey, if they can afford it, no worries, eh? It’s a private school, after all. Why should we care what they do up in Massachusetts anyway? It won’t happen at our public school, not a chance.

Ah, but there’s yet another problem: you’re right. It probably won’t happen at your public school. Does anyone see the cliff ahead? No? All right, let me paint it for you. In fact, I’ll turn to Tracy’s third statement at this point. I can’t stand to look at that initial version again, so here’s where he revisits the notion later in the interview:

>>. . . in the coming years . . . the models which Cushing and others are now fine-tuning will make it easier for public school students to have cheap — even free — access to all of the great literature and cultural achievements of human civilization . . . .

Tracy seems to believe that by turning the library of a rich private school into a digital research center, he is helping bring about the day when inner-city students will get their own laptops, internet access, and various neccessary computer peripherals, and not only be interested in but be guided by their tech-savvy teachers to discover the wonderful worlds of Van Gogh and daVinci, Hemingway and Asimov.

And of course, by inference, these teachers will know how to sort out the huge flood of utter crap lurking online to trip up the unschooled, unwary, and credulous; they will understand how to prevent plagairism and how to avoid having their entire classroom of laptops — and thus, the entire day’s lesson, if not the entire school — wiped out by a virus brought in by one of their own students just for the fun of it.

I have to ask: when, exactly, is this “cheap — even free — access to all of the great literature” going to happen? In five years? Ten? Fifty?

Whenever it happens, these public schools Tracy refers to, (some of which are, today, actually at the point of rationing printer paper to one sheet per student per day), will, by implication, be able to afford the tech training for their teachers, hire in the tech support neccessary to run the complex systems, maintain the offsite backup in case of fire or other disaster . . . the list goes on.

Are y’all seeing the cliff here yet? It can’t happen. Public schools, even those in relatively affluent neighborhoods, will never, ever, ever be able to compete with rich private schools like Cushing, let alone the low-income and “alternative” schools. So claiming that your ultimate goal is to bring this largesse to the general public is, excuse me, complete bullshit.

I will qualify the above statement of impossibility by adding that it rests on seeing the world as it currently exists in America. It would require a cultural and societal shift of titanic proportions to even open the door to the world Tracy imagines. Would that be the greatest thing ever? Absodamnlutely. Could it happen? Sure. Is it happening right now? Will it happen in the next ten years? You tell me — once you stop laughing, that is.

Here are some chilling statistics that need to change before that shift can possibly happen; according to The Literacy Partnership:

“More than 20% of adults read at or below a 5th grade level — far below the level needed to earn a living wage.”

and this:

“46% of American adults cannot understand the label on prescription bottles due to low literacy levels”

and consider this:

“43% of people with the lowest literacy skills live in poverty; 17 percent receive food stamps, and 70 percent have no job or only a part time job.”

Do you really, truly, think these folks and their families will be running out to buy a Kindle anytime soon? How about their grandchildren? Great-grandchildren? How many illiterate children from the worst schools and slums are going to break out of the mold and become exceptional heroes, managing to avoid gangs, drugs, drive-by shootings, jail, racial profiling, and a lifetime of saying “Do you want fries with that?”

Where a good book might just help lift some at-risk kids above and beyond, a Kindle or a laptop may not be much help: in poor neighborhoods, it risks being stolen and pawned. Some spoiled or troubled middle-class kids may toss the gadget in a corner of their locker or drop it during a scuffle and break it. And the school will be paying for replacements; the parents of even middle-class kids can’t or won’t chip in for that sort of thing, most certainly. But the budgets of public schools are shrinking, not growing, and no way could they withstand even a dozen such replacements in a single school year.

And last but not least, the older, less tech-savvy but life-wise teachers are retiring, and a new wave of tech-smart younger folks are . . . choosing careers that pay a hell of a lot more than public school teaching. Which leaves public school students at all income levels facing teachers who may not be as tech-smart, experienced, or even (sorry to say) as qualified as the ones who got away.

(I’m sure someone will be angry at that statement. Hang on to the rotten tomatoes, please: I admire all teachers immensely, and I know there are some absolutely grand ones working at public schools. That’s why I carefully used “may”, not “will”.)

Will that dynamic change in five years, or even ten? Will Cushing be able to reach out and help fix America’s serious education crisis? There’s already a huge gap between the rich privileged and the middle class, between the middle class and the inner city. Our public school students are losing ground to the rest of the world. Is providing internet access to every school and a laptop to every student really going to fix that?

Cushing is a private school; they have the right to do whatever they please. If the parents are happy with what their kids are losing and gaining, hey, go for it. What frightens me isn’t Cushing’s decision to go digital; it’s the way Tracy wants to drag everyone else along with him.

Do you think that’s an extreme statement? Consider this: The Cushing School is an affiliate of The James Martin 21st Century School; the other currently listed affiliates are Pi Capital, a private equity investing group in England; the Oxford Internet Institute, a department of the University of Oxford; and The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, which works to help the Monterey Institute of International Studies (also in California) understand “the dangers of weapons of mass destruction” and “the potential consequences of emerging technologies that could shape the future of mankind.”

To me, that says Tracy’s working with a brain-tank of folks who think they can change the dynamic I described above, and who have lots of money to throw at the problem. Which is, without question, terrific. Absolutely, I applaud that desire, that effort, that intention, and that funding level. I honest to God hope they succeed. But changing the American world is a mighty big hurdle for a man who uses words like “deaccessioning” and can’t seem to answer a question without sounding inflated.

Wups . . . a little bit of snarkiness crept in there. Sorry. Moving right along. . . .

I promised to look at the nitty details of how he plans to change his school over to a digital library system, and this is a good spot to shift gears and do just that. I will deconstruct a couple of his statements, and then bow out of this already too-long rant, with sincere thanks for your wonderful patience.

>>Teachers can still assign printed books in their courses and students are encouraged to read printed books for pleasure.

Uh, sorry, what was that? I thought you were getting rid of all your printed books. So are the students going to have to go out and buy hard copies, since there aren’t any in the library any more? Oh, wait, here’s the answer to that:

>>By deciding to focus on electronic access to books in our school library, we are hardly eliminating our students’ encounter with books in the classrooms, elsewhere on campus (the departments had “‘first dibs” on all printed books before they were donated to other schools) and in many other venues of their lives.

So . . . oh, I see. Slick! You’re dumping the burden of storing all these books on the individual departments. And students, to get those books, now have to track down the relevant teacher in that department, rather than walking in to one central location during a wide range of hours. (Have you ever tried to chase down a teacher between classes? Not so easy, sometimes, is it?)

You don’t think that limits access to books? Removing them entirely, stuffing them in some teacher’s broom closet, and claiming that students can find books outside the school just fine? Yeah — at Barnes & Noble. Or — hey, here’s a thought — at the local public library. Unless the public library, like Cushing’s private one, decides to follow the will-o-the-wisp of “progress” and dump their books in favor of computers.

At which point . . . .

See, it’s not the fall that hurts; it’s the sudden stop at the end.