What would the world look like with no technology?

That was the question for the art students in elementary school today. I was anxious to see the responses since my son and I had just had that conversation a few days ago. We talked about rotary phones and black and white TVs and being a slave to network programming.  All the world stopped on the one day a year when "Sound of Music," "Wizard of Oz," or "Cinderella" with Lesley Ann Warren came on TV. We went to the city library to look up things in the encyclopedia and Grandma taught me how to crochet, not YouTube.

The students were to draw a picture of the world without technology.  There was a picture of someone running up 11 stories to say "Hi" to their friend. One student drew a picture of himself shooting a deer for dinner and cooking it up on the fire.  Another picture featured a person writing a letter to a family member and the mailman picking it up on horseback. However, the majority of the pictures portrayed weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. "This is me crying because I have no technology." "This is me angry because I can't play video games." "This is a world, miserable, because there are no computers." I guess it was a "win" because the students realized how thankful they are for what they have, but it kind of made me want to take everyone's cell phone and computer time away.


I do want to give a shout out to the "Leader in Me" program.  It's the one with the 7 habits: 1 Be Proactive. 2. Begin with the end in mind. 3. Put first things first. 4. Think Win-Win. 5. Seek first to understand then to be understood. 6. Synergize. 7. Sharpen the saw. In class, one little boy raised his hand and informed me that the cute little girl next to him called him an "idiot." A girl sitting by him on the other side verified, "Yes. She says a lot of mean things.  She just moved here this year. She doesn't know the 'habits." Well apparently one of those habits teaches the kids not to call names and I'm all for it.

There were actually a lot of good choices in elementary art today. Okay, one boy made an airplane instead of a sketchbook, and there was a student that filled his supply box with markers, pencils and 15 erasers, (what?) and another girl drew on her face with purple, and when the first-grade teacher came to pick up her class there were about 7 children running around the room, definitely not in a quiet line, but you should see the awesome pictures stacked up and waiting for the real teacher to return and only 2 markers without lids.