Sept. 5

Back to the Future

By David Galef

At U of All People, high-tech teaching is up for discussion, partly because a recent report from our regional accreditor report labeled us as “hopelessly mired in the past.” The evaluators suggested that we adopt smart classrooms, including PowerPoint and clickers in our lecture halls, interactive digital whiteboards and video hook-ups in the labs, and WiFi and virtual reality in our student recreation facilities. They strongly recommended that we provide laptops for all our incoming freshmen (after which, the computers could be passed on to needy faculty members).

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But not so fast. We remember the days of the overhead projector and educational filmstrips, and we cherish the past because, frankly, it’s cheaper. This is just one reason that our motto for as long as we can recall has been “We remember.”

Accordingly, we’ve consulted with our public relations committee, and we think we might be able to drive an end-run around this current craze for technology by performing an about-face and kicking sand in the face of the technophiles. We call our movement “Back to the Basics,” and here are just a few salvos:

Those anatomically curved desk-wings with full electronic hook-ups are just an excuse to plug in rather than pay attention. There’s no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and taking notes the old-fashioned way. That’s why we at U of All People are bringing back desks with inkwells and real ink in them. We’ve also found a place that will supply quills at $10 per gross and foolscap and blotters at amazing values. When one of our literature professors intones, “Much critical ink has been spilt on this question,” our students will know exactly what he’s talking about.

Tired of faculty and students using copiers to effortlessly reproduce everything they see, as the evil progeny of the Xerox Corporation grows ever faster? Bring back the ditto machines!

Remember those unlovely hand-crank apparatuses that went ka-chunk, ka-chunk and spat out a page for every turn of the rotating drum? Remember that vaguely nauseating smell of ditto spirits, and the oddly purple text it produced? So do we, and we’ve found a whole slew of ditto machines in the basement supply room under Main Hall, along with cartons of stencils from the Kennedy era. Now those who want to create a handout will have to think twice before embarking on the effort: cutting shapes on wax-backed paper with a typewriter, not to mention fixing typos with a penknife and Liquid Paper. Now that’s pedagogical commitment.

Speaking of typing: Enough with those inkjet printers and their water-soluble text, as well as laser printers and their toner issues! We want to return to the days of tappety-tap-tap, still dear to the hearts of many old-time news reporters. For our Yellow Journalism School, we’ve located a stock of Olympia manual typewriters, guaranteed not to crash in the event of a power outage. We’ll restore the romance of the press, you’ll see! Just make sure to keep a carbon copy of whatever you write.

And finally, about those annoying whiteboards where the writing gets lost in the glare from the fluorescent light bulbs, and the multicolored markers dry out after five classes: We believe that a blackboard and chalk are more ecologically green than those newfangled nuisances, and we’ve recently re-slated all our classroom boards. Each faculty member has been issued a brand-new box of chalk for the upcoming semester, with instructions on choosing eraser monitors based on class performance. Clapping erasers used to be a privilege!

At U of All People, we remember.

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