Halfway through the semester in his market research course at Roanoke College last fall, only moments after announcing a policy of zero tolerance for cell phone use in the classroom, Professor Nazemi heard a telltale (泄密的) ring. Then he spotted a young man named Neil Noland trying to turn it off before being caught.
“Neil, can I see that phone？” Professor Nazemi said, more in a command than a question. The student had to obey the rule to give it to Professor Nazemi, who opened his briefcase, produced a hammer and quickly crashed the offending device. Throughout the classroom students were greatly shocked.
Let's be clear about one thing. Professor Nazemi is a hero. He deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Let's be clear about another thing. The episode (插曲) in his classroom had been arranged and conducted ahead of time. That is to say, Neil Noland pretended to offend the rule and got punished. The phone was his mother's old cell phone and its service had been cancelled for a long time.
Just as fiction can describe truths beyond the grasp of factuality, Professor Nazemi's act of street theater, which he explained last week in a telephone interview, clearly showed the anger of countless teachers and professors in the computer times. Their permanent war with rebelling and absent?minded students in the originally calm classroom has been quite different from the old, funny pursuits of pigtail?pulling, spitball?throwing and notebook?doodling. They are faced with a high?tech equipment such as laptops, cell phones, BlackBerries and the like.
The poor master, required by most parents to provide a certain amount of value for their children's entertainment dollar, now must compete with texting, instant?messaging, Facebook, eBay, YouTube.
“There are certain lines you shouldn't cross，” the professor said. “If you start tolerating this annoying stuff, it becomes the norm (标准). The more you give, the more they take. These devices become a necessary sort of things for the students, who will rely on it whenever and wherever. As we all know, nothing should be necessary when it comes to study in my classroom. You know I want them to do more tasking in my classroom.”
To which one can only say: Amen. And add: Too bad the good guy is going to lose.
At age 55, Professor Nazemi stands on the far shore of a new sort of generational gap between teacher and student. This one separates those who want to use technology to grow smarter from those who want to use it to get more stupid. There is a nicer way to put it. “The young seem to see the technology as information and communication，” said the professor.
| Title | New Class War: Teacher vs Technology |
| A (71)____▲____ announced by Professor Nazemi and his (72)____▲____ to the accident in the classroom |
|
| Faced with the pressure from parents' requirements, he had to announce that the cell phone was not allowed in the classroom, but a young man broke it afterwards. |
|
| Professor Nazemi asked the student to (73)____▲____ it in seriously and then he took a hammer and crashed it to pieces. |
|
| The (74)____▲____ of the whole incident | All of this was not (75)____▲____ because the two played a street theatre. |
| The problems of the present education concerning the students and teachers | Professor Nazemi admitted in a telephone interview that the street theatre in his classroom proved the (76)____▲____ of countless teachers and professors in the computer era. The first one is that teachers had to face the new trend that students' tricks in the classroom became quite (77)____▲____. The second was that if the teacher tolerates this stuff, it (78)____▲____ a norm. |
| The (79)____▲____ of New Class War | This good teacher will fail to reach his goal because there is a great (80)____▲____ between those who want to use technology to grow smarter and those who want to use it to get more stupid. |