This is College?

I am teaching an on line class this summer, as well as an on-site class. I have taught the on-site class before - expository writing - and the on line class, as well, but this time I have to use new software. I got ready to load my assignments onto the "classroom," but I couldn't get on the "classroom" site for some reason. I think I must be doing something wrong.

The first thing I am doing right, however, is being open to teaching on line. While I am a true believer in the traditional classroom and its interactions, I realize that the education world is changing at a high rate of speed. Many people, especially those who are going back to school, or re-training themselves for a different job or career, find on-line classes the better option. A student can do homework in pajamas, and can post those assignments as his or her schedule allows. "School" can take place after a student gets home from work.

The cost of on-line learning, however, is pretty steep - not in dollars, but in personal instructional interaction that used to take place face-to-face in a classroom. Although I use lecture in a classroom, a lecture that I can transcribe to Word and place on Blackboard, or Angel, or MyCMU, my lectures can become hijacked because of a student's questions or a classroom discussion that ensues after or during the lecture. The on-line student cannot benefit from those impromptu "learning moments." Additionally, on-line students have to be incredibly motivated. Unlike being in a classroom where an assignment may be explained or an example demonstrated, on-line students must read a text and understand the material; an instructor may post an example on a power point presentation or something similar, but the students must be able to learn visually, with no additional explanation.

These instructional/learning method deficits raise important questions: does on-line learning reduce what a student is able to get from a class? Is on-line learning, while convenient, actually "dumbing down" material that should be learned by a student during a semester's time? Can a teacher be as effective in a faceless disembodied cyber-classroom as he/she is in a traditional classroom? By making a college education more accessible, do we make it less meaningful or less comprehensive?

I don't know. I know only that this change has already occurred, and I guess it's up to us to make sure the students get the most out of it.

Still a Thayer Girl

Last week I went to pick up Emily because she needed to come home before her adventure in Washington, D.C., begins. I met her and Joe, her squeeze, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, a hop, skip, and a jump from my home town, Thayer, Missouri. In fact, Thayer is one of those towns that is perilously close to being in two states, and could be called "Thayer, Missouri-Arkansas," somewhat like "Something, Tennessee-Virginia." Jonesboro is about 90 minutes from Thayer through improved Arkansas roads, but regardless of how much the roads have improved, it is still only 76 miles.

I spent only 17 years in that part of the country, but driving there still feels like home. I know the next little town on the road - Ravenden, where a huge, black, metal (?) bird stands on the east side of the highway, or Bono, where my great-uncle used to go to the pool hall without my great-grandmother's knowledge, or Black Rock, where there is a really cool, long bridge that I remember going over after seeing Elvis Presley in "Jail House Rock." My grandmother and great-grandmother took me to see that movie when I was very small, but I remember Mama, who didn't like the pool hall, saying that Elvis was wonderful because he "loves his Mama and he loves the Lord." Little did she know.

So I picked up Emily and we ate at a Ruby Tuesday's - no national chain in its right mind would have been in Jonesboro in 1971 - and then we headed north toward Sedalia on those Arkansas roads. We made our first stop in Williford, where the Elvis-lovers and pool-player are now buried, along with my great-grandfather. The little church needs painting, and the cemetery has now stretched from behind the churchyard to in front of it. How many more graves can there be? The town's population is now fewer than 70. This past year, Emily went to the little church to take photos for her photography class. My heart felt a tug when she told me, "Joe and I drove up to our church today." I have always felt it was "our" church because I had a history with it, beginning when my great-grandfather "Papa" walked with me to the church, played "church," including passing the offering plate, and listened to me pound on the piano. The fact that Emily sees it as "our" church makes me feel that the history will not end with me.

Eight miles up the road, we drove around Hardy. When I lived in Thayer, Hardy was a sleepy, dying little town a little bit east of the beautiful Spring River. Since then, however, Hardy has become the antique capital of the world, it seems. Driving through the town, about two blocks long, could take up to 20 minutes, because everyone and his brother was crossing the road to gawk in the window of yet another flea market or antique store. Someone must have complained, because the State of Arkansas built a road around Hardy, and a nice road it is. When I come out on the other end, the McDonald's is about 100 yards to my left, so Emily and I pulled in for a pit stop for the next 16 miles.

When I wa about 20, I realized that Hardy was just 16 miles from Thayer, and I was shocked. It always took 30 minutes to get there. The distance between the two towns is layered with Ozark mountains and curvy, winding highways. When Bill Clinton was governor, the State of Arkansas laid down some extra lanes in the highway, so that instead of creeping up one of the mountains behind an 18-wheeler at 25 miles per hour, a driver will creep for a while, and then will be able to shoot past the driving impediment by using the extra passing lane. This alone would make anyone who travels Highway 63 want to vote for Mr. Clinton. Regardless, it still takes about 30 minutes to get to Hardy from Thayer.

When we got to Thayer, we stopped at the Country Cottage, also known as Goldena's, to have a Coke with crushed ice. Country Cottage was closed, but cars were parked outside, so we went in. They were closed, but when I said, "I'm Debbie Gillespie," I heard a voice from around the corner saying, "She can have anything she wants." Goldena, who sold the restaurant a few years ago, was hanging out there on a Sunday afternoon, and bought us a Coke. She owned the restaurant when my dad went back to Thayer, and that restaurant was his home away from home. He ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Goldena's, and she sat and talked to him most of the day - that part of the day, that is, when he was not at Lloyd Best's shoe store talking to Lloyd and anyone else who came in while he was there.

It was good to talk to Goldena, who told us that she hadn't really ever gotten over my dad's death. He was bigger than life to her, I think, someone who came in to talk, to listen to her, and to hold forth on whatever was on his or anyone's mind. I wish only that he had wanted to talk to me in that way, and listen to what I had to say.

We left the Country Cottage with Coke, no crushed ice (the machine had broken for the last time), and a feeling that we had spent a good hour continuing our connection with a little town that seems to be a large part, though only a few years, of my history. Two hours up the way, we stopped in Springfield at the Metropolitan Grill for a light supper, and then we headed the next two hours to our presents, leaving my past behind one more time.