Thanks to my colleague, Dr. Gwen Jones, students in our EDUC 140: Introduction to Teaching class spend two weeks in self-analysis, in learning how to make a meaningful multi-modal product, in sharing with their peers, and in learning how to avoid “The Danger of a Single Story.” Most, but not all, students in this class are in their first year of college. Beginning with George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From,” we write our own poem using a template (as little or as much as we like for support). In tandem with our writing, we gather video, music, and photographs to support the poem. Our campus “Digital Gurus” show the basics of Adobe Spark, and we craft a digital photo story using text from our poem. On the day the project is due, we watch Chimamanda Adiche’s TedTalk, “The Danger of a Single Story” and then move to share digital photo stories in small groups. Following the sharing, students answer these reflection questions:

Digital Photostory Project Reflection:

1. The introduction to the TED talk video you viewed states, “Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories.”  Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.”  From “The Danger of a Single Story” TED talk, identify two or three “critical misunderstandings”  the  author Chimamanda Adichie uses as examples in this presentation.  
2.  Identify two specific new understandings you now have about a classmate or two that you did not have prior to sharing your “stories.”
3. What part of the Digital Photo Story project was most meaningful  to you and why?

I share my digital photo story on the first day of class, to show the importance of teachers modeling expectations for students and that when teachers ask students to write and create, the classroom is a more dynamic learning environment if the teacher is also writing and crafting pieces.

I look forward to assessing the students’ poems, digital photo stories, and reflections. Each semester as I sit down to enjoy this grading, they unanimously write that they appreciate the unique things they learn about the people sitting in the room with them, and they appreciate the final product they have to share with their friends and family. Coupling “The Danger of a Single Story” with the sharing of their peers’ digital photo stories and followed by reflection helps to form our learning community.

Two true stories here. These two stories relate to my job as a teacher educator. You see, writing a promotion and tenure package “aka dossier” is expected when you reach your fifth or sixth year at a higher education insitution. It’s basically a reflection on your time spent at the college, and this mulitmodal composition is focused on persuading your division chair, the committee on promotion and tenure, the provost, and the president of your value to the college in three areas: teaching, scholarship, and service. After all of these people review the dossier, letters are written to the president regarding their review of your tenure and promotion package.

In public education, my tenure came after my third year teaching. Basically, if you were breathing, you received tenure…that was my experience. In higher education, that is not the case. If you are not promoted, you find out in December and then you begin looking for another job. You can stay until spring, but you will not return to the college in the fall. During this time of working on the dossier, I found the other “true story,” a personal narrative that I wrote during SVWA@BC, a writing academy for teachers that we used to host at Bridgewater College.

First, the dossier, which is due tomorrow. I have watched others go through this tenure and promotion process over the years, and many have ranted on social media about how much of their life they lost with hours and hours, days upon days, encumbered in promotion and tenure justifications. Others I have observed to be downright stressed. I will say that it has consumed me. Here are three instances to prove it:

1. I was at a conference last month and when I walked by a closet that said “wiring closet,” I thought it said “writing closet.” I actually walked back into the building because it seemed odd that a college would have a writing closet. That’s when I saw my misread.
2. One night, there was a man, a very tall man, in a black trenchcoat with a hat at the foot of my bed. I could not see his eyes; I even think his back was towards me. He would NOT leave. I threw my lamp at him and missed. My husband said something like, “Look, just leave.” He woul NOT leave. It was the most vivid dream.
3. On my last bike ride, a car passed me with the license plate CPT BOSS. I read that as Committee of Promotion and Tenure Boss and thought of my provost.

That said, I forged ahead, and like anything that seems big and scary, good is in the midst. I think this process is healthy for these reasons:

1. Reflection is good. We encourage reflection in teaching and learning, and I know that I will be a better teacher having gone through this process. I’ve read all my course evaluations, analyzed my teaching methods, and I know steps to take to become a better teacher. We can always do better.
2. I found an article that I was published in 2017 that I never put on my curriculum vitae.
3. It motivated me to update my websites (Academia, Linkin, ResearchGate, this one).
4. Finally, I found a personal narrative I had polished for publication that was written during a writing academy with teachers that I have not found a home for yet, so I am going to put it here for now. True story.

Owned the Road

The horse barreled out of the gravel driveway ahead, kicking up the dust that lay underneath. He turned toward our minivan as we headed to church on Dry River Road, sleek coat glistening with dew in the morning sun. The stallion’s bulging leg muscles galloped as the gap between us narrowed, buggy rolling roughly behind his hind quarters. Nostrils flared as he pressed ahead, reminding me of Disney’s Spirit running free on the Plains. Seemingly without the confines of reins, he was capturing the freedom he longed for. Opaque, black blinders forced his eyes to focus on the road ahead, diverting him from honeysuckle lined fences, telephone poles, mailboxes, and front yards of country houses. He owned the road that we visited this Sunday morning, and as we met for the face to face passing I thought the owners must be late for church. The quick acceleration and intensity of this horse was not the norm. Looking inside the buggy to make the usual eye contact and greet the driver and passengers, I lifted my hand from the steering wheel and waved at no one. The horse and buggy clambered past us, hoofs clipping along on their own accord.

Disbelief danced in Grant’s eyes that briefly met mine. In our house, we did not teach our children that a horse goes “Neeeiiigghhhhhh.” Instead, in cadence to the beat of horses’ hooves, we made clip clop sounds between our tongue and the roof of our mouth, clip clop sounds that we hear daily on West Dry River Road, “Clip, Clop, Clip Clop, Clip Clop.” The clip clops were behind us now, making a sound as they passed that was faster than we ever mimicked, and I wondered if Grant was predicting the unforseen possibilities that could come of the runaway horse and buggy. What if it reaches the S turn? What if it makes it to 257? What if it collides with a car? When and why will it stop?

            After anxious chatter, we agreed we had to do something.  Our children, Katrina and Patrick sat buckled behind us in the built-in child seats of our 1997 Plymouth Voyager named “Plumpy,” an eponym for the Candy Land character.

“Where are we going?” Katrina asked as I turned our old van around in the same driveway from which the horse had barreled.

            Grant looked back at her, “We’re going to stop that horse!”  The magnitude of his answer filled the car with silence as I floored the gas pedal.  I thought if we could just get around it, then I could stay in front of it and slow the van gradually to stop the horse. This all played out nicely in my mind, but after several attempts to pass, I began to wonder. The horse consistently veered into our lane as I tried to pass, forcing me to drop back. Finally, there was an opening on the road, and I put my aggressive hat on. I passed it, and started the plan, keeping my eye on the rear view mirror and making the horse stay behind me. Within seconds the horse seized an opportunity of a window he found, and he became the aggressor, dashing around the side of the van as I tried to slow.

             Reaching the end of Family Farm Lane, our driveway, made this adventure feel even more bizarre. We were heading away from church, and Katrina and Patrick’s silence was not the norm. It is likely they were watching, as I was, another unusual sight. At the foot of our lane sits the Rhodes’ two-story brick house. In their yard, a neighbor dressed in his Sunday best was flagging us down.  This man was a horse trainer in the community, but I did not know this as his eyes met Grant’s as he signaled us to stop. His black fedora and crisp white shirt told me he was from the old-order Mennonite community, and I had a hunch that he had somehow caught word of the horse’s flight. I slowed and he pulled open the dented sliding door and hopped into a squatting position, grasping firmly to the inside handle near the roof. He left the door open. His swift mount into the car revealed his fitness, and I guessed he was in his late 30’s, not too much older than Grant and me.  “Catch that horse,” he said.

I floored it and noticed that when I turned my head to see him, Katrina and Patrick were sitting wide eyed, soaking it all in. We tried our best to chase the horse down fearing the large S turn that was soon ahead. Our mission was to stop that horse before we got there. If the horse reached the S turn first, it was surely not going to stay in his lane, and that could mean tragedy.  As the gap narrowed between us and the horse and buggy, I heeded the horse trainer’s terse words, “Drive up beside it.”

“Okay,” I said. Pressing down on the gas, I positioned us beside the horse. Its blinders kept us out of his vision, but I knew he had to hear and feel our presence. His brown hair, black mane, and undeterred rhythmic hindquarters paralleled our van.

“Closer… closer,” he said. First, I fixated my eyes on the road ahead and then, with a fleeting glance that showed asphalt, hooves, spindled wheels, and a runner, I inched closer and closer. My hands clutched the wheel, and I focused every bit of energy I had on control. The hooves on the pavement matched my heartbeat. Double yellow lines contrasting the black pavement whizzed by, and the horse’s stark, black mane bounced on and off of his strong neck.   I sensed my position was right, and like a skillfully skipped rock on a still pond, the horse trainer deftly leapt over and into the buggy. With my hands on the wheel, I drove speechless, as I saw him take the reins and take control of the horse.

What came next was as surreal as the takeover. I turned the van around, and within seconds I began shaking.

“You want me to drive?” Grant said with a grin.

“I’m good,” I answered, as I turned into a nearby driveway. That was that. We drove to church, business as usual.

That Sunday morning strangers worked together with adrenaline rushing. There were no stunt doubles, just neighbors compelled to solve a problem together. As I entered our Sunday school class, still shaky from the release of nerves, we shared our morning adventure. “What ifs…” were bounced around. What if the horse trainer would have fallen? “What ifs” can mean little or everything, I thought. No “what ifs” kept us from acting in the moment of need. That Sunday morning, I experienced what it was to just Be, to just Do.

I worked as an adjunct instructor at Eastern Mennonite University for 13 years, and as an adjunct faculty member at Bridgewater College for five years. Prior to this employment, I attended graduate school at a small, liberal arts institution, while teaching high school English and Photojournalism. Now, in my third year as an assistant professor of education at Bridgewater College, in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, I am going on my 21st year of being steeped in the culture of two different independent liberal arts colleges.

Over this time, I grew to privilege nurturing a sense of community on the campus where I serve, by focusing on the individuals in my midst at any given time. I strive to lift up the teachers in communities connected with Bridgewater College, by collaborating in an effort to advance teacher education. I care for individuals and the community and shoulder the responsibilities that come with participating in a democratic society that fiercely protects the “equity of access to knowledge,” because I have been mentored at these liberal arts institutions by some of the finest people I know.

In the last two paragraphs, I used the pronoun “I” 9 times, but to be candid, it’s not all about me. Dr. Mark Hogan mentored me through my graduate program at Eastern Mennonite University, and his mentoring went far beyond being my advisor. Following graduation from the masters in education program, he mentored me by writing with me to submit an article for publication, and he nominated me to serve as an alumni on the Committee for Teacher Education at EMU. Later, when he moved to Bridgewater College, he invited me to employment opportunities there, he suggested I pursue my Ph.D, he served on my dissertation committee, and both encouraged me and challenged me from the start to the finish of my defense. I’ll always remember how he drove from Nashville, TN to Blacksburg, VA for the sole purpose of  hooding me at graduation. Dr. Hogan hired me as co-director of the Shenandoah Valley Writing Academy at Bridgewater College, and he poised me to be in the position that I am in now. As I sit in his former office, typing at his former computer, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the time he spent mentoring me.

Other fine folks have mentored me through the years, and I aspire to mimic their work ethic. Dr. Don Steiner at EMU invited me to serve as an adjunct, invited me to be inducted into Phi Delta Kappa, a local board on which I now serve, and challenged me with rigorous projects like taking a random sample of EMU’s Action Research Projects and reviewing them for writing quality based on the university’s rubric for writing standards. Dr. Cathy Smeltzer Erb trained me to serve as a university supervisor for student teaching by observing side by side with me in high school classrooms. She took the time to talk with me as my adjunct responsibilities increased to over half time, and I learned through her how to guide graduate students through action research, by attending to details, and providing feedback collaboratively with Cathy as I served as a teaching assistant in her Action Research class. Finally, Dr. Jean Hawk, who now serves as my department chair was once my graduate professor for multicultural literature. She shows me through her leadership how to work hard, think critically, and be aware of and sensitive to power differentials.

Parker Palmer (2007) echoed my feelings when he wrote in The Courage to Teach,

Looking back, I realize that I was blessed with mentors at every crucial stage of my young life, at every point where my identity needed to grow: in adolescence, in college, in graduate school, and early in my professional career. But a funny thing happened on the way to full adulthood: the mentors stopped coming. For several years I waited for the next one in vain, and for several years my own growth was on hold. Then I realized what was happening. I was no longer an apprentice, so I no longer needed mentors. It was my turn to become a mentor to someone else. I needed to turn around and look for the new life emerging behind me, to offer to younger people the gift that had been given to me when I was young. (pp. 25 – 26)

While these words resonate with me, what he says next is where I aspire to be each day,

Mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance, and one of teaching’s great rewards is the daily chance it gives us to get back on the dance floor. It is the dance of the spiraling generations, in which the old empower the young with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweaving the fabric of the human community as they touch and turn. (p. 26)

It is in this spirit that I strive to nurture future educators.

I love to see people find a book that they don’t want to put down.

In my first year of teaching, early 90’s, students seemed drawn to Paulsen’s, The River. The ninth graders enjoyed the survival aspect and small size of the book. I think it’s a timeless pick.

More recently, my son hooked my daughter and me on the Divergent series. My daughter is reading Allegiant, while I’m a step behind (which she loves) reading Divergent.

My son is now finishing up Dashner’s Maze Runner series. He asked his girlfriend to the middle school dance by putting post it notes throughout the book…WILL….YOU…GO…TO....THE ….DANCE….WITH….ME….? And loaned her the book. He got a YES.

I’m now in my third year at Virginia Tech, but about a year into the program our family of five had reason to drive from Dayton, Virginia to Virginia Tech so that my oldest could attend a weekend softball camp. Instead of traveling the most direct route, my husband said, “I’m going to show you the way I used to go when I went to Tech.” Exiting off Interstate 81 at the Salem, New Castle exit, I was happy to watch him reminisce. The drive is an experience that I continue to enjoy each Monday, if the weather allows.

Today, with blinding snow icing the fields, but the macadam spotless enough to take the chance, I made the choice to exit I 81 Southbound, and enjoy Catawba mountain and Blacksburg Road. This trip, I missed spotting the two statues of angels that people have placed in different spots among nature’s towering rock walls. They’re easy enough to miss; so if you ever have the opportunity to cross Catawba, be on the lookout for them. One tall male angel stands high on the hill on your right at the peak of a rock, just before you turn at the stoplight that leads to Catawba mountain. The second little cherub sits, yes sits, on your left on the second wall of rocks, half-way up the rock wall on a ledge.

Here’s what I didn’t miss:

I didn’t miss three deer, looking surprised at me as I rounded a bend in the road. I stared with mutual wonder into one’s brown eyes as the white tail triggered two more to set sail. The strong, slim muscles bulged under the sleek brown as they bounded up the hill, then over the fence.

I didn’t miss the horses, carefully blanketed by their owners in the fields. And I didn’t miss how the evergreens and rocks demanded attention in the backdrop of a winter wonderland. Spotty patches of snow-covered ice helped me to be more cautious and see more than usual.

As I drove, I thought about teaching writing and how students need to have time to play with words in the digital arena that absorbs the majority of their free time. Beyond texts and snap chats, they need to develop digital fluency. Last weekend my husband composed handwritten responses for four hours, (his choice over typing) for a national truck exam. He said he chose to write because he was afraid he would lose his ideas between their emergence in his mind and the keyboard. The keyboard somehow is a distraction in the flow. He was more fluent with a pen, could get all those ideas down on paper.

This experience aligns with Gallagher’s Literacy Stampede; to advance in the workplace, one needs to be able to write and write well. As I rounded the bends and looked for more of Blacksburg Road’s surprises, I thought about the need for educators to create that sense of urgency for digital literacy within the classroom. Troy Hicks’ and Kristy Hawley Turner wrote about that need in English Journal in July: No Longer a Luxury:  Digital Literacy Can’t Wait. What we need is a metaphor like Gallagher used with his students and the “Literacy Stampede,” except we need to create urgency within ourselves in regards to exploring digital writing opportunities. As I thought about this need for a metaphor, a rock fell in front of a sign on the next bend in the road.

The option to compose with a pen, in writing on demand situations, is becoming obsolete.

After spending the last week reading and being inspired by Murray, Kittle, and Gallagher, I think one of the aims of teaching writing and encouraging growth is to create an orderly MESS in the relationship between the writer and the responder:

Mine for the gold in writing, and talk about what makes it gold. Writing teachers often look for golden sentences, and the recognition of what is working in the writer’s craft comes with truly listening during writing conferences, and then taking the time to see if that desired communication is coming through in the piece of writing. Once the message is clearly conveyed, then the writer can further craft that communication to be effective and engaging.

Encourage growth in areas of strength. This growth can be nurtured by matching writing style with reputable authors. I will never forget when I shared my personal writing in front of a group of teachers during a Saturday seminar at the SVWA@bridgewater. The director of the writing academy said, “Jenny’s writing style reminds me of Willa Cather, in the way that she wraps the beginning back to the end.” This did a few things for me. First, I saw that what I had worked to achieve (coming full circle) did have an impact on the reader. Second, it made me want to read Willa Cather. Third, this type of focused feedback gave me confidence as a writer.

Serve others in the classroom via students’ writing strengths. Putting students in a leadership position that capitalizes on a writing strength is belief and trust in action. For example, if a student excels at using metaphors to connect with readers, then put that student in a position to give tips to others. Maybe this means sharing a couple pieces in front of the class and explaining the process. Maybe this means working one-on-one with another student to help them use metaphor in writing. Or maybe this means writing an article on using metaphors in writing and finding a place to publish this for an audience of peers.

Share your writing, not only with the class, but publicly. Most importantly, show the students each step of the work that it took to get you to that place of publication. This effort to show the many steps toward publication puts the emphasis on process over product.

How can we create this orderly mess? In 1993, I started with Rief’s guidance in Seeking Diversity, but Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them provides concrete examples of how to create order without stifling creativity. Likewise, Gallagher’s guidance in Write Like This can serve as a springboard to help toward creating a community of writers that both nourish and encourage.

I have always wanted to write an I Am poem. In the past few years, I have seen successful lessons where teachers use this as a writing activity. Often, the I Am poem is coupled with Georgia Ella Lyon’s poem, Where I’m From. Students feel safe writing about what they know; they know who they are, and they want to write to learn to know more about who they are. Last Monday, in my first time co-teaching the evening class entitled Teaching Composition, I tried my hand at writing one of these formulaic, yet open poems, and then further experimented with sharing a Google document with the world. I AM learning with my students, and as Penny Kittle advises in Write Beside Them- You can’t just give teacher assignments “while you grade or take attendance. You’re either in the midst of composing with kids, or you’re trying to orchestrate from the outside.” She also adds that the first has been successful for her, but the latter, not so much.

At the NCTE conference in Boston, Tom Romano said that he switched up his writing routine this past summer. He took Penny Kittle’s advice and wrote first thing. He rose, wrote, headed downstairs for coffee, returned to his writing spot and wrote some more. THEN he had breakfast and hit the gym with his wife. He testified that writing first thing worked well.

As the snow is falling and my home is quiet (all three children needed their sleep after a day of snow tubing yesterday!), I was reviewing the syllabus for Teaching Composition and thinking about what Romano said. To let my last blog post hold me accountable, I’ve done well on my first goal for increasing my digital literacy capacity, but I’ve failed at my second. I look forward to “turning that failure inside out” this semester with Teaching Comp. and dissertating, and I plan to heed Romano’s sound advice. Routine is key. As Anne Lamott shared in Help, Thanks, Wow, she built in writing time just like she did flossing time. It’s time for me to develop a writing routine.

The first day of school for my children is in 21 days. Our youngest will be a second grader, our middle son a middle school, seventh grader, and our oldest begins her first year in high school. One in each school. I will again travel to Virginia Tech for three days a week to work towards completing my Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction: English Education.

As I move into gearing up for the new school year, I am challenged by Troy Hicks and Kristen Hawley Turner’s July 2013 English Journal article entitled “No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait.” The authors share what teachers are doing to kill digital literacy and then move to suggestions for increasing both our capacity and our students’ capacity in regards to digital literacy. One place to begin to increase our digital literacy skills is to read and respond to blogs, and a list of handy blogs for English educators is provided. I saved these to my “favorites” so that I could work on this area, and I will move the ones that speak to me the most to my Diigo account. This morning I read Will Richardson’s latest post and tweeted it out to my followers. His concern lies with assessment and electronic feedback, and based on Hicks’ and Turner’s challenge and Richardson’s concern, I aim to achieve two goals for this year regarding feedback and my own digital literacy.

1. I will strive to create meaningful, collaborative work environments where students can stretch themselves in the area of digital literacy. These environments will be structured in such a way that authentic, incremental, and formative feedback will be given among the group as well as from the instructor.

2. I will continue to blog monthly and will read others’ blog and share their posts or respond.

In March I wrote about the possibility that shared Google folders may have for public schools, and this month I had the opportunity to share Dr. Warnick’s  organizational system that he used in our Digital Self class. I put the folder system in place while leading 10 teachers enrolled in  SVWA@bridgewater, a writing academy for teachers that is directed by Dr. Mark Hogan, co-directed by yours truly and Dr. Alice Trupe, and brought to life by Dee Grimm, a National Board Certified high school English Language Arts teacher. Using one shared folder, that could be accessed by everyone in the academy, we disseminated information that we wanted to share. Then, each teacher-participant had a folder that was shared only between that teacher and the academy instructors. Participants uploaded writing to their personal folder and we commented on their writing for the first time through the Google document. I want to talk a bit about how this changed participant submission and feedback.

What I liked:

1. It was nice NOT to have to pass the papers around from instructor to instructor. In years past we each took several papers and then passed them amongst us until we had read and responded to all of the papers, which required a checklist to ensure that each instructor read each submission.
2. Participants received feedback as soon as instructors gave the feedback. This immediate feedback meant that they received comments at three different times, and in some cases they revised in between instructors comments, making for a piece that was attended to closely.
3. Comments were more specific and authentic than attached comments. I looked back at my responses in years past that were typed and attached to the participant’s paper (we did not want to write directly on the students’ paper), and while they were constructive and supportive, the comments on the Google document proved more direct and meaningful. I was able to highlight the exact location and select “comment.” This created a different response than reading a paper and then going back to think about what to say in response on a separate piece of paper.
4.  Participants could respond back to comments and select “resolve” to remove the comment from their paper. No need to feel the need not to write on someone’s paper with this option.
5.  Participants could turn in their writing at any time. Some people prefer to work ahead and get things turned in early because their schedule demands it. The shared folder allowed for participants to turn something in early, and we, in turn, could read it earlier.
6.  We practiced the remediation of print. Enough said. Remediation of print is a pervasive need.

Dr. Warnick’s work flow system was effective in the Digital Self course he taught last semester, and I liked submitting work and receiving feedback through our shared folder. I’m passing it on to teachers who have not used the shared folder option and Drive, because Google documents are already in use in many schools, they work to remediate print, and teachers who use Drive model organizational skills that adolescents need to practice.

We put the finishing touches on a group research effort today using Skype to touch base from time to time and collaborative writing in a Google document. It was nice to call and communicate via Skype if we had a question and write together to produce something that took months of preparation in our Qualitative research class. As we finished up, I was thankful for the affordances of the technology that allows me to be home with family yet still close to my classmates. When I refer to affordance what I mean is that the tool allows me to write or do something that I would not be able to do without the tool. These affordances of the emerging technologies also open my eyes to the potential for students to experience more than ever before in school.

There is another side to this experience of writing the paper while at another work site. I had the tendency to multitask and because the affordance of being able to be where I had other demands, it meant that I was not completely focused on the task of writing the paper. People needed me in the “other space” and before I even realized it I was checking an important Google chat that came in, setting up a student for a test, and then returning to my paper. In different forms this pattern continued. The paper received less of my attention than it should have, but then again, everything did. Multi-tasking is a myth. No one does it well. People only dilute the things that they do; something or someone suffers.

So what do we do about this dilemma? I think my answer would be to begin to draw boundaries better and talk about those lines.

It’s that time of the semester again. http://instagram.com/p/Y-2SlSIKm5/

As I was in the Happy Valley watching my niece graduate yesterday, I did, in fact, feel happy for her. I thought about how she must be satisfied with the effort she’s put forth and excited for her future. As she sets off for a contracted five year assistantship at U.C.S.D. to work toward her doctorate and conduct cancer research, it’s good to know that her cousins will be able to keep in touch with her through social media. And while social media will connect her personal world, I believe her professional learning community will grow exponentially. Shirley Malcom, the commencement speaker, said she runs into PSU alumnae throughout the world as she travels with work and service. It is likely that my niece will likewise become more Networked on and offline over the next few years.

As a mother, sitting with my three children during the graduation ceremony, I was grateful for the portable technology and wifi. I had given my two youngest children my iPad and they moved quietly between taking pictures and video of the ceremony, to playing Flow, to sharing ear buds and watching Duck Dynasty (oi vay!). With little encouragement, they took pictures when their cousin’s name was called and captured her as she walked across the stage. The technology allowed them to document, share, and be entertained in ways that brought peace not only to them but also to the adults around them. I thought of Turkle’s Alone Together. There were times we were alone together and that was perfectly okay.

This morning, I was seized by a whim to make myself a cup of coffee. It was only me in the apartment, so I just wanted a cup or two… not enough to fire up the entire coffee brewer. But as I pulled the french press off the shelf I realized suddenly that I had never made french press coffee on my own. Ever. And to that end, I’d never learned how to. What was I to do?

Modern-man as I am, I typed “How to make french press coffee” into Google, and the very first result (from www.howtobrewcoffee.com/french no less) gave me exactly the info I needed:

Medium-to-coarse grind
Water between 195 and 200 degrees F
Two tablespoons of grounds per eight ounces of water
3-5 minutes to brew

Along with a procedural list of steps, I had everything I needed. That was, until I realized that I didn’t have a way to measure ounces. Undaunted, I quickly Googled “8 oz in cups” and a handy-dandy volume conversion tool popped up with my answer already displayed. (after which I face-palmed the fact that I did not know that 8 oz is in fact one cup… an equivalency any baker worth his weight in cake should probably know).

I’m not going to lie: I made a pretty awesome cup of coffee. As I sat and enjoyed the fruit of my brief labor, I reflected on how empowered the internet via Google had allowed me to be. In mere milliseconds I had every bit of info I needed to get something done. It was all spelled out for me, black as coffee. Before this morning, I had no clue. Now, I can make it whenever I need to in the future.

I asked the internet how to make french press coffee, and the internet taught me how to make french press coffee. Huzza for the modern world.

But as I sat and sipped, I felt like there was something missing from my experience. Sure, I had more information now. I had the formula in my head “two tablespoons per eight ounces” and the new conversion knowledge “eight ounces is a cup.” And I had the rewarding experience of putting that information to work. So what was missing? I thought for a bit, and stupid as it sounded, I kept coming back to one single thought:

I hadn’t made a crappy cup of coffee.

With good information, I had done it right the first try. And while at face value such an outcome seems ideal, I realized that it was this lack of failure which I was feeling, and feeling negatively.

What I didn’t get to experience was the act of screwing up a cup of french press coffee and all the knowledge that such an experience would have given me. In the act of such a failure, there would have been a wealth of subtle bits of information not grasped consciously but absorbed unconsciously. In the back and forth of trial and error lay the possibility of more intuitive knowledge, a deeper mastery, a more comprehensive understanding of this mythical magical beast of french press coffee.

My discovery of perfect knowledge via Google did not lead me closer to any kind of mastery the way a failure would have. Had I experimented with the variables in this equation – the water temperature, the grounds to water ratio, the grind, the brewing time – I would have grasped not one useful set of variables to solve the equation, but a working knowledge of the equation itself; not just the elements, but the way the elements interacted together; not just a good solution, but a working understanding of why that solution was good.

The act of learning is not just receiving and assimilating a fact. It is also a discovery, a “working through” of the fact to the underlying process of how the fact works, how the fact is contextualized, and how the fact is connected to not just good information, but also bad information. To divorce the good information from all the bad information that provides its foundation is – with respect to mastery and real comprehension – to depower and devalue the very definition of knowledge.

The oft-lauded achievement of the internet and digitized information is that knowledge is now ubiquitous, easily available, and easily found. Even as I type and you read, the work goes on to reproduce, code, and index the entire library of human understanding. At no point in the entire history of mankind have we ever been this capable of sharing and producing information. It is a glorious age.

But there is something lost in this informational user-friendly omnipresence. I contend that just because information, and especially good information, is more easily found does not mean that we are all better equipped and more able, in a word “smarter” than we once were. Once the effort to obtain information has been reduced to its lowest common denominator, we no longer have to “learn” anything. We merely have to “look it up.” I did not have to “learn” how to make a good cup of french press coffee. I had to just look it up.

The ubiquity of online information and ease of use has re-inscribed us as creatures that have access to but no longer possession of information. Previously, I wrote of how we no longer own things in the digital age, but rather “stream” our possessions, and in so doing no longer pay for the right to own, but the right to borrow – the rights for temporary, mediated access. This paradigm extends to knowledge itself. The ultimate logical destination of this progression is us no longer constructing our own knowledge by way of experience, by experimentation, by learning. We only “access” information. We stream it from the internet. We no longer own anything.

Now that the supply of information is nearly limitless – indeed perhaps could be considered infinite – the demand for working knowledge may be waning. The premium seems to be shifting from mastery of knowledge to a mastery of the means of access to knowledge. In other words, it’s no longer a question of who knows more trivia, but a question of whose phone has fastest access to the internet, who has the best app, and who can use that app most effeiciently and effectively. The value has shifted from the content itself to access to content.

I’m not trying to devalue the usefulness and power of the internet as a tool. After all, it certainly gave me a great cup of coffee this morning. But we must be careful that the ease of access to and the ubiquity of information does not take the place of the process of discovery and learning itself. I feel it would benefit us if we keep a vigilant eye to how the Google search begins to take both the role and the name of “learning” as an action.

When “looking it up” relegates “figuring it out” to obsolescence, whole worlds of deeper knowledge – worlds created in self-actualizing, existentially fulfilling acts of productive failure – may be lost.