Smart Boards vs. Blackboards

My colleague was out in the community today evaluating use of technology in the local schools. She told me the grade schools have better equipment than we do at the university. They have magic whiteboards that the students point to and draw on in color. The high school students produce a school news TV show every morning. All the talk these days is about democratic teaching, engaging the students etc. It's intriguing, but I have to sound like an old codger. I like the way we did it back in the day. (1) Show up on time, (2) shut up, (3) behave, (4) listen to the teacher, (5) do your work, (6) repeat. It didn't really matter what your "learning modality" was, or your attention span, or your home circumstances. Just do what you're told, and sink or swim according to your competence. That's not very popular in schools these days, but oddly enough it still seems to be relevant to the workplace. Hmmm - can anybody find the disconnect here?

I accidentally appointed myself to be on the space allocation committee for our church. (I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to tell the "senior saints" that they have to meet at a different time and in different rooms with different people. That's gonna go over REALLY well. I don't think I'll be getting any homemade baked goodies for a long while.) As part of this awesome responsibility, I was let in on a cool secret. The pastor has a secret hideaway. I can't tell you where it is (unless you let me come to see you on visitation night), but I saw it as empty space on the building plan, and later I watched him duck into the unmarked door after prayer meeting. Hah! One wag on the committee suggested we ought to assign a sunday school class to meet in there and see what he says.