What My Computer Taught Me While it was Turned Off

There it was - my new computer. It had more memory than my old one had, so I should have been happy; but before this new machine would be able to do what the old one had done I would have to start all over with the installing and the downloading and the storing. By the time I got it set up it was late. I'd have to be satisfied with just getting my e.mail and being able to go to www-dot-anything until I had some time to spend on downloading. I shut off the attractive, new machine and sat at my dining room table to have a late-night tea.

I didn't really mind the idea of all the downloading and installing, but it would take time. I'm not a computer person. I'm the verbal/creative type. Computers, to me, were nice but amounted to a blended tv/typewriter/ calculator/phone-book/radio type of thing - neat but not people. People were what I liked spending time on. When my children were young I spent any free time I could reading about child development. When they grew I switched to history and education and "general-life" subjects. How to teach children to think was the subject of one article I read when my children were small. The issue was that schools often emphasize memorization and overlook the general ability to reason, make judgments, see the big picture and generally function on an intellectual level that is much broader than just using memorization.

The idea that someone was attempting to figure out exactly how to teach children to think was fascinating. I had always just assumed that Nature gives mothers what they need to be able to teach their children how to be people and think. After all, the world and history are full of thinking people raised by mothers who just did whatever it was they did. It had been kind of simple for me, and while I would never find a cure for cancer or be a computer-whiz I had just kind of known how to help children learn how to think. Actually, not only have I never been a computer-whiz, but I was entirely happy with my little Olivetti typewriter as long as it was working (how un-cutting-edge of me).

As the children got older my thinking could again expand to subjects other than child development. The little Olivetti burned out (literally - complete with smelly smoke), and somehow the natural progression of things meant I would "get with the times" and start using a computer When I wore out the A-drive on it I got the new one. So there I was that night with my silent, blank-screened, powered-off, new computer and thinking about how now I had to make it do what the old one did.

When your oldest child was born in 1976 and youngest one began college in 2004, and you've spent all those years of brain-time on child- development, it colors how you see things. The new computer was kind of like a newborn baby - full of promise but in need of a lot of attention. I recalled how when the children were babies it seemed natural to want to share words and life with them. Looking back, I realized it was as if I had seen ideas as computer files. I would keep the more advanced ones to myself for a while, but I would "upload" to my babies/toddlers the basic ones. While previously I had had a "mute" on my thoughts, I now "unmuted" my day-to-day thinking in order to let my children witness the process. As I put an infant's arms into sleeves I'd say, "One arm. Other arm." When I stopped at a Stop sign with a toddler in the car I'd say, "We have to stop and look to see if there are any other cars coming." When I was shopping for a gift with a pre-schooler I'd say, "We're going to look at the blue dresses because Nana likes blue." The children weren't just experiencing day-to-day life. They were witnessing the process of day-to-day reasoning. When they got older I began to share more advanced thinking of values and issues and why I thought what I did. Without being aware of it, I was attempting to "upload" to my children all the thinking skills I had because I believed if I shared those with them as early as possible they would be better equipped for life earlier.

As I sat in the dark, thinking about what there was to do in order to make the new computer come alive and do all the amazing things the other one had, I supposed I could just install things on an "as needed" basis; but if I made the effort to just get all the downloading and installing done right away the computer would be capable of being amazing that much sooner. Our precious children are certainly not computers, but when it comes to information and processing and being amazing it all comes down to whether or not we are willing to make the effort to help someone or something be amazing.

As I thought about the comparison between children's thinking and new computers I realized that my own ability to reason well was not an accident of genes but was instead a matter of my parents' efforts to "upload" to me the stuff that would give me what I needed to build a mind of my own. They did this in a time when the only screen in the house was that of a black-and-white Philco television, and on that screen was nothing much more than Howdy Doody and a bunch of static. If children don't learn how to think when they're so young they'll never remember learning it I'm not sure that schools can teach it at all.