Stevie Rocco: April 2009 Archives
I've been off for the past two days, having to burn some vacation or lose it. Great days, especially the ability to simultaneously A) sleep in, somewhat, and B) get a run in early. This post is about what I've noticed in the last two days during my runs.
Where I live, there are a lot of places to run, including a lot of Penn State land used for Agricultural Progress days in the summer. I love running there, not only because there is no traffic on the roads at Ag Progress during much of the year, but also because the up and down is challenging but fairly even.
Even better, lately they've been working on route 45, so all the traffic in one section of the road is gone--that's it--gone. A two lane, normally 45 - 55 mile-per-hour road (actually, most people go even faster than that), with fields on either side and the ridge off to the left. Great views, as long as you're not looking to get hit by a car, or by some idiot who decides to pass in a no-passing zone, causing you to leap into the ditches beside the fields. The construction period is pretty much running Nirvana to me, since I can avoid the slant at the side of the road and still have a good surface to run on.
So the last two days I've run down route 45 to the construction zone and back--that gives me a good 1-1.5 miles of the no-traffic-we're-constructing-here, another .5 miles of farm road through Ag Progress, and only a mile or so of actual-traffic-watch-out-road on the way back to my house.
But here's the thing. On both days--BOTH, mind you--at least one driver passed me going really fast toward the construction. At first, I thought perhaps those drivers didn't see the clearly marked "Road Closed" signs they'd passed, but now I think it's something deeper.
You see, it goes kind of like this:
Interestingly, I really see this as an analogy regarding how lots of people (even me, sometimes) look at life. There are rules, but surely they don't apply to me. I'm different. I'm special. I'll just ask them to make an exception. Only, see? You can't. 'Cause Dude, the road is closed. There is no exception, no excuse, and no way to avoid using the detour. It's a little reminder that none of us is too special to be the exception all the time, that the rules are often there for a reason, and that, essentially, we're all equal in some things. The road will no more open for Steve Jobs or Barack Obama than it will for me. And that's nice.
I've spent most of my running time now trying to think up a sign I can hold up to drivers who learn they are not the exception. Something like, "Welcome to your Humanity!" or "Come back soon, and learn who you really are!" Or something. Could be fun.
Where I live, there are a lot of places to run, including a lot of Penn State land used for Agricultural Progress days in the summer. I love running there, not only because there is no traffic on the roads at Ag Progress during much of the year, but also because the up and down is challenging but fairly even.
Even better, lately they've been working on route 45, so all the traffic in one section of the road is gone--that's it--gone. A two lane, normally 45 - 55 mile-per-hour road (actually, most people go even faster than that), with fields on either side and the ridge off to the left. Great views, as long as you're not looking to get hit by a car, or by some idiot who decides to pass in a no-passing zone, causing you to leap into the ditches beside the fields. The construction period is pretty much running Nirvana to me, since I can avoid the slant at the side of the road and still have a good surface to run on.
So the last two days I've run down route 45 to the construction zone and back--that gives me a good 1-1.5 miles of the no-traffic-we're-constructing-here, another .5 miles of farm road through Ag Progress, and only a mile or so of actual-traffic-watch-out-road on the way back to my house.
But here's the thing. On both days--BOTH, mind you--at least one driver passed me going really fast toward the construction. At first, I thought perhaps those drivers didn't see the clearly marked "Road Closed" signs they'd passed, but now I think it's something deeper.
You see, it goes kind of like this:
Runner is running in left-hand lane of road. Car zooms by, Driver looking at Runner like she's an idiot to be running in the middle of the left-hand lane. Driver turns back to driving, only to see that road really is closed. Driver slams on brakes, managing to stop short of the actual barrier.
Driver pauses. Driver continues to pause. Driver pauses some more. Then, slooowwwwly, Driver backs into a driveway, slooowwwwly turns around, and slooowwwwly passes Runner going the other way. Driver now avoids looking at Runner at all costs, in order to preserve his/her dignity.
Interestingly, I really see this as an analogy regarding how lots of people (even me, sometimes) look at life. There are rules, but surely they don't apply to me. I'm different. I'm special. I'll just ask them to make an exception. Only, see? You can't. 'Cause Dude, the road is closed. There is no exception, no excuse, and no way to avoid using the detour. It's a little reminder that none of us is too special to be the exception all the time, that the rules are often there for a reason, and that, essentially, we're all equal in some things. The road will no more open for Steve Jobs or Barack Obama than it will for me. And that's nice.
I've spent most of my running time now trying to think up a sign I can hold up to drivers who learn they are not the exception. Something like, "Welcome to your Humanity!" or "Come back soon, and learn who you really are!" Or something. Could be fun.
I've been thinking a lot lately about revolution, and change, and how institutions are prepared to meet the challenge. Reading a couple of blog posts by Cole Camplese have triggered further thoughts on these items. This post started as a comment on his blog, but I couldn't really express my full thoughts there, so here I am.
After reading Cole's most recent post, I went back and read the one prior to it for context. Taken together, I think they both make some really important points. The first post discussed his attendance at the Chronicle of Higher Education's Tech Forum, and the second was a further reflection on that experience. I remember being rather angry at (and dismissive of, I'll admit) a lot of the comments that followed the Chronicle article that was written about Cole's presentation, which was entitled "Web 2.0 Classrooms Versus Learning."
I frankly didn't like how superior reading the comments to that article made me feel. What I was doing was no different than the audience member who said to Cole, "If that is scholarship, we are all doomed." Life is never that simple, and I don't like it when folks make anything an "us" vs. "them" kind of debate. To me, that's the worst kind of sloppy thinking. So what was it that made some people so seeminly dismissive of what Cole was trying to say?
After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that I was again comparing it to the Clay Shirky blog post I've been cogitating over for the past few weeks. In there, he says,
I honestly think that a lot of folks in the academy are just plain scared of what's coming. It IS a revolution, and when people say that Web 2.0 is not scholarship, or that it's fluffy, or even that it's irresponsible, I see that as a form of fear. The old stuff is starting to look broken, and we haven't yet figured out what systems and institutions will replace it. Or even if they will be replaced.
Professor X may not have really thought of Web 2.0 as scholarship, because it just may require him to examine just what he's been doing all this time. If we use as analogy the revolution Shirky discusses, that of the invention of the printing press, Professor X is a scribe. I'll bet you that there were plenty of scribes sitting around talking about how printed books weren't "really" books, but it didn't save them. That kind of conversation isn't helpful, and it certainly didn''t give the scribes a place in the new world order. I think we should aim to do better.
Cole says, "I am committing myself to the notion of the conversation and the notion of breaking through the bullshit walls so many of us (and I am in that crowd) lean on -- walls that make us safe and don't push us to work towards shared meaning and understanding"--and I know he means it. I also think that Penn State is having these conversations in ways that are useful, even if change doesn't happen at a pace that might satisfy the radicals amongst us (and I'd like to be included in the group, please). But it also reminds me that I need to keep my energy focused too--on having real conversations instead of de-politicizing everything I say so as not to offend.
What I'd like to do is to strike a balance in order to get past the fear on both sides: the fear of revolution and the fear of offending, the fear of losing status and the fear of losing place. What's coming is going to be a great leveler of hierarchies, and in some ways, I think we're all going to need to hold hands and run into the flatness together.
After reading Cole's most recent post, I went back and read the one prior to it for context. Taken together, I think they both make some really important points. The first post discussed his attendance at the Chronicle of Higher Education's Tech Forum, and the second was a further reflection on that experience. I remember being rather angry at (and dismissive of, I'll admit) a lot of the comments that followed the Chronicle article that was written about Cole's presentation, which was entitled "Web 2.0 Classrooms Versus Learning."
"Versus?" I thought. You've got to be freaking kidding me.
I frankly didn't like how superior reading the comments to that article made me feel. What I was doing was no different than the audience member who said to Cole, "If that is scholarship, we are all doomed." Life is never that simple, and I don't like it when folks make anything an "us" vs. "them" kind of debate. To me, that's the worst kind of sloppy thinking. So what was it that made some people so seeminly dismissive of what Cole was trying to say?
After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that I was again comparing it to the Clay Shirky blog post I've been cogitating over for the past few weeks. In there, he says,
"That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. . . .
When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution."
I honestly think that a lot of folks in the academy are just plain scared of what's coming. It IS a revolution, and when people say that Web 2.0 is not scholarship, or that it's fluffy, or even that it's irresponsible, I see that as a form of fear. The old stuff is starting to look broken, and we haven't yet figured out what systems and institutions will replace it. Or even if they will be replaced.
Professor X may not have really thought of Web 2.0 as scholarship, because it just may require him to examine just what he's been doing all this time. If we use as analogy the revolution Shirky discusses, that of the invention of the printing press, Professor X is a scribe. I'll bet you that there were plenty of scribes sitting around talking about how printed books weren't "really" books, but it didn't save them. That kind of conversation isn't helpful, and it certainly didn''t give the scribes a place in the new world order. I think we should aim to do better.
Cole says, "I am committing myself to the notion of the conversation and the notion of breaking through the bullshit walls so many of us (and I am in that crowd) lean on -- walls that make us safe and don't push us to work towards shared meaning and understanding"--and I know he means it. I also think that Penn State is having these conversations in ways that are useful, even if change doesn't happen at a pace that might satisfy the radicals amongst us (and I'd like to be included in the group, please). But it also reminds me that I need to keep my energy focused too--on having real conversations instead of de-politicizing everything I say so as not to offend.
What I'd like to do is to strike a balance in order to get past the fear on both sides: the fear of revolution and the fear of offending, the fear of losing status and the fear of losing place. What's coming is going to be a great leveler of hierarchies, and in some ways, I think we're all going to need to hold hands and run into the flatness together.
