"Erm..."
"Oh come on Pika, you need to know this."
"Not with a calculator..."
"You should really know this, its not like you will carry a calculator everywhere with you during life."
I have a calculator in my backpack, but normally I just use the one integrated into my cell phone. I carry this phone everywhere, and I have not seen a phone in the last 5 years which doesn't have such a calculator on it.
***
They call us the search engine generation. We are storing less and less knowledge in our minds and have come more and more to rely on our ability to rapidly locate data than our actual knowledge of it.
***
I'm thumbing through yet another applicant's exam, first for the easy short answer questions before I even begin working out if the code they wrote is correct.
"What pins," the exam asks, "do you need to drive in order to put a number on the four 7 segment displays on the Nexys II by Digilent?"
"I have no experience with this display," the response reads.
Its a shame we don't have paper applications anymore. Crumpling up the application and trying for a two point swoosh into the trash can might be strangely gratifying. That particular board was chosen to be obscure, the question was meant to be one of character. If the applicant so much as pulled up an image of that board on Google he would find the numbers he requires have physically been printed on the front of the board. I find the concept that you would expect anybody to have memorized everything he needs laughable.
"What pins," the exam asks, "do you need to drive in order to put a number on the four 7 segment displays on the Nexys II by Digilent?"
"I have no experience with this display," the response reads.
Its a shame we don't have paper applications anymore. Crumpling up the application and trying for a two point swoosh into the trash can might be strangely gratifying. That particular board was chosen to be obscure, the question was meant to be one of character. If the applicant so much as pulled up an image of that board on Google he would find the numbers he requires have physically been printed on the front of the board. I find the concept that you would expect anybody to have memorized everything he needs laughable.
***
"Did you know," the priest asked, "that when paper first became widely available in ancient Greece that the older philosophers had a fit about it?"
The art of being in high school seemed to lie in pretending very hard that nothing a teacher could ever say would be interesting. After pause sufficient enough to indicate that he didn't plan to continue until we responded I shook my head.
"Yes," he said, "they thought that students would never learn anything because they could always just write it down instead."
"Your language skills are terrible, you'll never pass in any social context" my mother said, "you can not even recite poetry."
"Most people don't even read poetry anymore let alone memorize it..."
"This," she pointed to her bookshelf, "is what educated adults know. Some day you will grow out of this childish phase and want to pass as an educated adult you know."
Somehow I remember feeling distinctly like I wouldn't.
My mother was irritated and persistent, "Recite! Poe!"
"Whose woods these are I think I know / His house is in the village though,"
"Its that's Frost. I said Poe."
The art of being in high school seemed to lie in pretending very hard that nothing a teacher could ever say would be interesting. After pause sufficient enough to indicate that he didn't plan to continue until we responded I shook my head.
"Yes," he said, "they thought that students would never learn anything because they could always just write it down instead."
***
"Your language skills are terrible, you'll never pass in any social context" my mother said, "you can not even recite poetry."
"Most people don't even read poetry anymore let alone memorize it..."
"This," she pointed to her bookshelf, "is what educated adults know. Some day you will grow out of this childish phase and want to pass as an educated adult you know."
Somehow I remember feeling distinctly like I wouldn't.
My mother was irritated and persistent, "Recite! Poe!"
"Whose woods these are I think I know / His house is in the village though,"
"Its that's Frost. I said Poe."
***
Meet Drummer. Drummer scored the best of the applicants on his technical exam, attends an ivy league school, and currently has an internship with a fairly respectable federal agency. He, in a similar previous episode of distraction, once named all 151 original Pokemon on a sheet of paper. He's a phenomenal coder and I have no issue with his performance or raw intellect.
"Could you name all 50 states?" he asked me.
I laughed, thinking he was being funny.
"No, seriously, if we printed blank maps of the United States do you think you could put the right titles in all the states?"
"Yeah, and I am sure you could too."
"I'm not..."
"Lets try."
Sys was up for the challenge too. The states were easy enough, and with enough discussion we got all of the capitols (although Sys contributed significantly more to that list than I did.) Drummer, partially from his mind and partially from random eavesdropping exclamations such as "oh yeah, Kentucky is a state!" managed to fill in most of his map.
Here's a photograph we took of it. It is worth noting that the two states Drummer has lived in are Georgia and New York.
After a merry round of below the belt comments about Drummer's education and general intellect he started looking slightly sad.
"How did you even pass 5th grade?" I asked.
"Well," he shrugged, "I knew it all then...I guess I just...forgot."
"Forgot?"
"Some of these states...aren't even important," he says.
"Of course they are all important!" I snap, "this is the country we live in. You should know at least all the parts of it..."
"Actually, I think its defensible," Gadget joined in, "I mean...he can always go look up the gory details if he wants them right?"
"No," I insist, "there is a basic minimum that you need to not look like an idiot in any historical or political discussion. This is fundamental knowledge for an educated adult."
Educated adult? I am slightly creeped out to hear my mother's words come out of my mouth. Is my insistance on what I consider basic geography as outrageous as I found her insistence on poetry? It might be possible. If the ancient greeks thought paper was a scandal, my parent's generation loathed handheld calculators in favor of Poe, might it be possible that in a few years memorization tasks like basic geography be rendered obsolete? Throughout the whole progression of human history we have slowly kept less and less in our heads and more and more in our tools. Where do we, as a generation, draw our lines of dependency?
"Could you name all 50 states?" he asked me.
I laughed, thinking he was being funny.
"No, seriously, if we printed blank maps of the United States do you think you could put the right titles in all the states?"
"Yeah, and I am sure you could too."
"I'm not..."
"Lets try."
Sys was up for the challenge too. The states were easy enough, and with enough discussion we got all of the capitols (although Sys contributed significantly more to that list than I did.) Drummer, partially from his mind and partially from random eavesdropping exclamations such as "oh yeah, Kentucky is a state!" managed to fill in most of his map.
Here's a photograph we took of it. It is worth noting that the two states Drummer has lived in are Georgia and New York.
After a merry round of below the belt comments about Drummer's education and general intellect he started looking slightly sad.
"How did you even pass 5th grade?" I asked.
"Well," he shrugged, "I knew it all then...I guess I just...forgot."
"Forgot?"
"Some of these states...aren't even important," he says.
"Of course they are all important!" I snap, "this is the country we live in. You should know at least all the parts of it..."
"Actually, I think its defensible," Gadget joined in, "I mean...he can always go look up the gory details if he wants them right?"
"No," I insist, "there is a basic minimum that you need to not look like an idiot in any historical or political discussion. This is fundamental knowledge for an educated adult."
Educated adult? I am slightly creeped out to hear my mother's words come out of my mouth. Is my insistance on what I consider basic geography as outrageous as I found her insistence on poetry? It might be possible. If the ancient greeks thought paper was a scandal, my parent's generation loathed handheld calculators in favor of Poe, might it be possible that in a few years memorization tasks like basic geography be rendered obsolete? Throughout the whole progression of human history we have slowly kept less and less in our heads and more and more in our tools. Where do we, as a generation, draw our lines of dependency?
***
I'm walking across the lab. Drummer's on break at his desk, sandwich in hand, staring at his screen.
"Penny for your thoughts," I say.
Drummer takes another bite of his sandwich and tilts the monitor so I can see it with his other hand. Across the whole screen I can see a map of the United States, completely labeled this time.
"Ahh, you're studying?" I asked.
Drummer nodded.
It warms my little heart.
"Penny for your thoughts," I say.
Drummer takes another bite of his sandwich and tilts the monitor so I can see it with his other hand. Across the whole screen I can see a map of the United States, completely labeled this time.
"Ahh, you're studying?" I asked.
Drummer nodded.
It warms my little heart.
Posts
