The New World

Today is our son's birthday. He is, and has been, an adult for nearly as long as he was our child. That is an amazing thing to realize. He also lives in the New World, as I call it. I mean that the career field in which he works did not even exist when he was married ten years ago. I know that other people are in this situation. But I've been thinking about this for several weeks since he got a new job and, when I asked him about it, he told me what he does, but I cannot visualize it. I actually couldn't really comprehend his last job, either.

I don't really feel like an old fogey. Here I am---blogging after all.  And today, I spent hours and hours completing an assignment for my master's degree class that required me to do a lot of researching on the computer while I wrote a paper. When I finally completed everything and sent my e-mail with the assignment attached, I closed about nine windows that I had open simultaneously: two documents, an Excel data base, a website to help with APA writing style, two different PDF files of research articles, my i-Tunes site and three e-mail addresses: school/work, college, and home. Whew---I feel pretty techie.

But, I'm still not sure what my son does for a living. I mean, my dad, and his dad and the dad before that all did about the same thing: they worked on the land. They had similar skills. The grandfather also knew how to run a trap-line, but I'll bet my dad could have done that if he'd wanted to--my nephew does it today. I'm the bridge between these worlds. I'm an expert at milking cows, I can still saddle a horse, and (even though I don't like to) I could help you brand your cattle. Don't even ask how many hay bales I've stacked. But I can also navigate my way around the Internet, and add links to my blog, and research a peer-reviewed article about reading remediation research.  I'll give this to my son: I know he's saddled a horse plenty of times, and he could milk a cow. Although, he probably only handled hay bales with a tractor fork lift. My dad probably wouldn't have backed away from learning the Internet, but he was more comfortable with Mother Nature. So, I guess my son is still in the family business---he works on a farm--a server farm.

I guess what I'm thinking about this week is that life is changing much more rapidly than it used to. Technology advancements are on hyper-speed. We talked about this in one of my classes Thursday. By the time anyone compiles research data, and gets it published, about some current technology and if it helps student achievement or not, that technology could be obsolete---remember laser discs? Lots of schools still have them in the back of a closet.

So, today, for my son's birthday, I wish to remember the sweet little boy he was, and salute the astute, intelligent, capable tech-wizard he has become. May the Force be with you! (Thanks for being there when I get stuck with my computer and your dad is out of town...)