www.computerssuck.com - When Falls the Coliseum

Published 2001
When Falls the Coliseum

www.computerssuck.com
by Alison Ross

My recent experience with modern technology has left me recoiling in terror whenever someone so much as utters the first syllable of the word "computer." Okay, granted, I'm writing this rant on a computer, but that's besides the point. The point is, computers disturb me.

Okay, yes, computers can be efficient tools, especially for writers like me who word-process like hell, day and night. And I like to exchange e-mail and surf the web, so in that way, too, I find computers useful. Oh, and my personal calendar is computerized, so that's kinda neat.

But despite the fact that I spend upwards of oh, 97% of my spare time on computers, I'm still traumatized by their existence.
You see, I just spent nine months of captivity in a room full of computers. No, I wasn't serving as a SysAdmins geek at some crass corporation crawling with zombies who pose as people; I was a teaching assistant in an eighth grade classroom which was outfitted with 11 Apple I-Mac computers.

Now, I've been a Mac fan since Macs emerged back in the early 80s, and to this day I prefer them over puny PCs. So don't think I'm gonna start dissin' Macs here. (Of course, my blatant bias toward Macs does not mean I view them as infallible machines. Though great many ways, Apple computers are not the angelic appliances that some Mac fanatics make them out to be.)
So anyway. When I got hired for the teaching assistant job, my main aim was to get experience teaching teens since I was pursuing the path of becoming a high school English instructor. I was also excited, however, about the possibility of working in a "modern" classroom that utilized technology in a novel experiential learning context. Even though at the time I harbored a certain disdain for our society's hyper-reliance on high tech gadgetry, I allowed myself to be misguided into the moronic mainstream mindset that embraces modern technology with the fervency of a snake-handling fundamentalist.

Never again will I deviate so doltishly from my instincts. Not only did I, in my daily deeds as assistant teacher in the hallowed Eighth Grade Transition Class, have to deal with heinously hormonal 14 year olds more concerned with just how low their mammoth-sized jeans could hang without treating us all to a petrifying peek at their precious privates than they were with actually learning anything useful about the world, but I was forced to contend with equally bratty computers whose viciously volatile behaviors made the idea of spending an infinity at a John Tesh concert seem like a titillating prospect.

The thrust of the problem was this: The teacher with whom I worked was hell-bent on transforming nearly every project that the students did into a computer-based endeavor. In other words, the students didn't just compose their essays and creative writing exercises on the computer; they also worked within various software programs to illustrate book reports, animate presentations, create mind maps, and so on.

Now, on the surface, this is an intriguing idea, grounding adolescent learning activities in a wholly technological culture; it would seem as though it's ideally suited to harness kids' need for creative subversion and channel it into something positive and palatable. And I do not doubt that some of these computer-centered projects fulfilled the objective of providing a tangible and meaningful way for kids to embed information that might otherwise slip through their minds like sand through a sieve.
However, call me prude, but I feel that such profits can be gained in other unique ways, and I am now convinced that we are doing kids a grave disservice if we teach them to depend so heavily on computers. I mean, I'd rather they tattoo the lyrics to an Eminem song on their foreheads than grow up eating micro-chips for breakfast.

Every day in that classroom those maniacal machines brought new miseries to bear. At first, of course, such tragedies were tolerable, because I was so new to the game. But as time trudged along in a tortuously turtle-like tempo, I got to where I was seeking relief in bottles of Liquid Paper just to feel wedded to the primitive pleasures of a pencil and paper existence.
First, there were the inevitable crashes for which Macs are notorious. Every single day one or more computers would crash while a student was writing a paper or using some of the installed software, hence trashing any recent modifications made, and upon which colorful curses fountained forth from the victim's mouth. And while the teacher I worked with discouraged such vulgarity from these tender teens, I always empathized with them, echoing under my breath their spiteful spewings.

And when the computers were not conspiring to crash on us, some of them simply refused to stop working without deigning to give us warning or explanation. Computer #5, I believe, was the first to go, and it ended up being hospitalized for a couple of weeks, undergoing massive reconstruction. So, not only did this mean that all the work that any students had saved directly onto this computer (rather than on the network) was completely unrecoverable, but it meant that a couple of students would have to pair up on a computer to do their work since there were not enough to go around.

Now, this might not have been so horrific had it just happened once. But it happened to at least half of the computers in the class over the course of the school year, impacting every student in some way. And while I spent a lot of my time being either exasperated with or terrorized by these taunting teens, I also felt an ineffable affection for them, and felt really badly when they had to re-do assignments, all because some moody computer decided to blow its brains out.

It would have helped, of course, if the teacher with whom I worked had any sympathetic perspective whatsoever on the matter, but instead of apologetically acknowledging the disasters, she simply dismissed these setbacks as routine problems in computer culture.

So in addition to constant crashes and total shutdowns - routine problems, mind you, nothing that a few thousand from the tuition coffers and an sickeningly sunny attitude can't fix - the kids and I wrestled with inexplicable "end of file" messages (which signaled a total loss of work), network failures (gee, imagine that in a class of fourteen kids working on umpteen million projects there would be ANY network overload), power outages, internet hassles (did I mention that the internet never worked on some computers and only occasionally worked on others?), and software liscencing woes (stupidly, not all programs were licensed for each computer, again resulting in a doubling up of students on some projects, which usually meant that instead of actually doing their work the kids would cut up with each other and toy around with the software, producing cartoonish drawings and silly sounds, all the while tempting the teachers toward suicide).

Naturally, all of these problems caused frequent tardiness in assignment completion, and sometimes the ensuing result would be that the student wouldn't complete the work at all. Efficient learning, indeed.

Did I also mention that there were certain students who owned laptops and were required to bring them in so as to allow everyone to have their own computer? Oh, but often, these designated laptoppers would, in typical hormonal haze, either forget to bring their power cords (and low battery power is a phenomenon among teenaged laptop proprietors) or forget to bring the computer itself. How convenient! But even when the kids did bring in their computers, them machines wouldn't always comply with their printers, or they would decide to go the route of the classroom computers and hang themselves rather than be submitted to any more abuse by clueless humans.

Let me put it this way: if one of my former students becomes the next Unabomber, not only would I not flinch at the prospect, but I would be one of this kid's most vocal supporters. Computers, like teenagers, have hormones that rage, and the sooner we learn this, the sooner we can go back to a euphoric existence grunting in monosyllables and scribbling on cave walls.