Linking up with my Lizards at The Lounge, this week over at The Very Inappropriate Blog.
I look back at my own teenage years at school and I smile as I remember where I fit in. Sports group, definitely not. Nerds, no. The Intellectuals, uh-uh.
I was just an all-round nice kid; friends with most people, enemies with no-one.
I wish kids were as simple as I was.
Now as a teacher, I yearn for the plainness of the good old days.
Back in the days when school work was Hard.
Classroom. Best handwriting. Local library. Cardboard from the newsagent.
Perkins Paste. The neighbour’s set of World Books. Scissors. Illustrations.
And the covert operation of tearing relevant pictures out of the mags down at the doctor’s surgery.
That’s a fair bit of running around.
But simple.
One or two biros, a set of Faber Castell’s from Jewel and an annual unbranded pencil case and bag from Venture.
The days when a thick black texta, Liquid Paper and glitter were serious currency.
Those days.
When imagination worked harder and when finding inspiration was elusive but so worth the wait. The days when we used what we could, valued the little we had and considered the information we discovered for more than just a fleeting moment.
Those pre-internet days.
Now that I am a teacher and parent, I yearn for my kids to slow down and think for themselves. To find out answers by asking a question, turning a page. To respond to a stimulus by physically moving, researching and developing a considered reply.
Who got better quality teaching and learning?
Us back then, or the kids of today?
Gen X or Gen Y?
Are you a teenage dirtbag? Show your age at The Lounge this week!
Love,
Robo
RoboMum 
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
I remember those golden pre – internet days too and how simple life was! I laughed when you mentioned liquid paper. I remember painting my nails with blue texta and liquid paper spots 🙂 Mum loved it … Not 😉
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
I did that too! What else was liquid paper for?!
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Internet was only just starting to be a thing when I was in highschool. It was slow and finding the things you wanted was tiresome. I loved poring over books, looking at the pictures, smelling the mustiness of seldom use. I spent all of my lunch times at the library, either reading or looking through the shelves to find a new treasure. I liked having a notebooks with scribble through them as I took notes to write my assignment. It just feels better.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Love your comment and I feel the same way. You were a child of the dial-up era. Hardly worth it ;o)
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
It makes me nervous for my kids – I want them to have fun in the same way I did as a teenager. I just try to comfort myself with the thought that their fun might be different, but hopefully it will feel the same.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Hope so.Everything is so sterile these days though. It’s a different world.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
When I explained to my 6 year-old that I learned to type on a manual typewriter in a classroom full of manual typewriters, he looked at me as if I were the oldest man in the world. Well maybe not as old as my Mum, who talks of the days at the TAB where you had to put your bet on half an hour before the race so that the TAB could work out what the prices of the horses would be!
Of course, the good old days are very fluid. Look forward to reading in ten years’ time about the simpler days when only young people had tattoos and New South Wales charitably let Queensland win 8 State of Origin series in a row.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Nyah! Lol!
I’m also looking forward to seeing the aging tatts.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
And I didn’t know that about the TAB. How interesting?!
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
I hear you. My boys get so bored so easily, it worries me. Why can’t they read books like I did as a child? I’m actually glad the internet wasn’t around when I was at school.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Me too, Ness.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Yes yes yes, I remember hand writing all my assignments, looking through Encyclopedias and painstakingly recreating diagrams. We had to do it all the hard way, write biographies, not link sites. It’s pretty scary to think that our kids won’t have to actually have to ‘do’ much in regards to research and VERY sad xx
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
That’s true. I think we put more effort into the finer details.
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
I remember when we’d get a “project” to do in primary school I would be SO serious. Because you only had one shot. Once your Mum had bought the cardboard and you’d started sticking on the pictures and writing on the information you had to really concentrate and TRY because if you screwed it up you had to live with it. There was no deleting, or copy/pasting and definitely no “undo” button. I think it made me a better student and has been critical to my ability to synthesise and present information as an adult. I wonder how our kids will gain these skills – or even IF they will.
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
That’s so true: You only had one shot.
Remember how many drafts you’d do on scrap paper? 🙂
August 29th, 2013 at 20:51
Remember how addictive the smell of Liquid Paper was??? Or was that just me?
I loved Perkins Paste. Especially a brand new tub of it. Felt like it was the beginning of something fantastic 🙂
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
The beginning of the school year was the best. All that fresh stationery!
August 30th, 2013 at 20:51
I’d like my pre internet time back too – I can’t believe how much time I waste at the laptop….
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
Same here.
August 30th, 2013 at 20:51
I dont know about the effect on my kids but I know they interwebs has turned my brain to mush.
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
No way Mumabs. 😉
August 30th, 2013 at 20:51
You have to take the good with the bad really, don’t you. The internet is amazing and so handy and it’s so easy to find information about anything – but yes, I agree that maybe it’s just a little too easy for kids today to find the immediate answer. I think as parents we need to make sure our kids know there are other ways – my sons love going to the library to browse the books and the 8 year old especially loves the ‘information’ books so I try to encourage this as much as possible. still, there’s no going back – the internet is here to stay so we have to learn to manage it, I guess. Great post. x
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
Thank you. Yep, it’s a balancing process I agree with you. Libraries are changing in school, they’re becoming learning spaces. Those book shelves are diminishing.
August 30th, 2013 at 20:51
I get worried about the instant factor about finding things. We are so impatient these days and expect everyone to keep up. It must be very frustrating as a teacher to deal with this technology issue.
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
We are impatient about everything, aren’t we?!
August 30th, 2013 at 20:51
Oh flashbacks, how school has changed so much. I remember hand writing essays or copying notes from the board and my hands aching from so much writing and computer class had commodore 64’s! And now some schools have Ipads in yr 1.
My biggest worry is always all the cyber bullying you hear about, prob more so with teenagers. When I was a kid when the weekend came you could forget all about school and any dramas and just enjoyed yourself with your friends, I worry they wont have that freedom with everything being so always connected.
Really great post XX.
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
Thanks. It’s true what you say about the weekend down time. Today’s teens are always connected without much time to themselves. Bullying is just one of the huge possibilities they face.
August 30th, 2013 at 20:51
I hear ya! My eldest is a lot like you were. Friends with everyone, and no-one, but no-one dislikes her. An all-round good and sociable kid. Kx
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
That’s good to hear 🙂
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
When I was working in the bookstore a woman came in with her two early primary school kids and wanted a book on something for her kids school project (due the next day of course!). We didn’t have what she needed and so she wailed “So what am I supposed to do, they aren’t allowed to use the Internet so how the heck are we supposed to find the information?!?!”. The look of surprise on her face when I suggested the library was gold! It was like she’d never heard of a library before!
I miss all those things you mentioned too, especially the project packs you could get from the newsagents, they were priceless for pictures!
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
Hehe! She might be young enough to be the first of the net-only mums!
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
Haha to Kylie’s comment about the library! LOL. Although if the interwebs didn’t exist I probably would write “Laugh Out Loud” or “You so funny!” instead. I get the sort of yearning for pre internet days, but it’s a bit hopeless really, I mean, there’s no turning back!!! Post-internet brains are different – that’s humanity for you!
August 31st, 2013 at 20:51
Hehehe! We’re evolving right…?
September 9th, 2013 at 20:51
You are so right Robomum, Internet may have given us so many things, but it definitely has made our life and the life of our children more complicated….