OH MY GOODNESS, YES!
Having my brain (or anyone’s brain) compared to a machine has always been deeply unsettling to me. I know that they have similarities and I understand why that came about, but it has gone much too far in our current discourse, to the point where we as humans have essentually handed over some of our most important cognitive tasks to computers that do not think like us. As a self-confessed Luddite, Nicholas Carr’s article really resonated with me and while it may sound like the grumblings of a person who doesn’t want “those rambunctious kids” on their lawn, I think he has a point.

Here’s the article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

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I’d like to emphasize the point that sshawver made that these students are adults. Too often, I’ve noticed that the stricter technology policies I have seen written out in syllabi are merely a continuation of the ones encountered in middle and high school, where the teacher was part information deliverer, part technology police. It’s not effective in that environment either, because teenagers will *always* find a way to access the things they want, regardless of whether or not they’re allowed in class. The least we can do as university faculty-to-be is avoid insulting their intelligence and give them the choice to engage or glue themselves to their screens. Granted, that incurs a risk: having a class in which a few people are physically-but-not-mentally present, but it also means that 1) those people have some agency (whether they choose to take advantage of it or not) and 2) the others who choose to engage are more enthusiastic because they actually *want* to be there.

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Agreed. I’m gonna step on the ol’ soapbox now…
One of the unspoken issues–and the most insidious–is that the contemporary University runs just like a business, and in business, the bottom line is everything, so whatever cuts costs and raises profits (which is essentually what that wonderful endowment that always seems to keep rising really is), up to and including the absurd prices of textbooks, is acceptable because it benefits the University and its donors (or shareholders, execute board, whatever other business analogues I’m missing.)

I’ll let someone else get on the box now. 🙂

Whoops! I updated it with the correct discipline! Thanks for telling me!

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Wow. That is so not okay. I am sorry you and your colleagues had to deal with that.
Those are precisely the sorts of situations that concern me. How do we have conversations with the perpetrators of those blatantly inappropriate acts without them stonewalling or escalating their behavior? I think that’s the next step.

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Excellent. Go forth and make more equitable classrooms!

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I am honored by your comment. It’s definitely true that those of us who are the lone minority end up being the spokespeople for our marginalized group(s), and while it’s definitely extra work on our part and not really fair that we have yet another weight on our shoulders, I have found that in cases like last Wednesday’s class, bearing that additional burden can be the only thing that initiates a productive conversation (it was a heavy emotional toll and I felt VERY vulnerable, but it got people to stop, listen, and at least attempt to understand my viewpoint which is the goal). It was heartening to see people in places of privilege finally speak up about their fear of broaching this topic, and the hope is that those who felt empowered to speak in class will continue to do so in elsewhere, thus making more spaces welcoming and less fraught for those who are marginalized.

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That is an excellent point. I definitely have concerns about what might happen in a situation like that, but as you said, I am the adult in the room (even if they’re all over 18), so I will bear much of the responsibility for how things turn out, which means that however “hot” things get, I’ll have to keep a cool head (or at least, be very good at pretending like I can).

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That article you linked had a great quote by Frederick Douglass that reads as follows, “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” I. can’t help but wonder at how the Overton Window has expanded an contracted over our lifetimes. It fascinates me on an academic level, but also frightens me on a personal one because each time it changes, those changes affect me and those I care about directly, and the more diverse me family and friend groups become, the more attention I have to give to even the slightest variations. I feel as you do, that I have to keep my eye on this target/window at all times, in order to do what I can to keep my friends and loved ones out of harm’s way.

I, too was struck by the train of questions at the end of your post. It reminded me of some other questions from our reading, like “if two people raise their hand to answer a question, and one is female while the other is male, which one would you select?” I was flummoxed. On then hand, my knee-jerk reaction to the question is to select the female, because I believe it might be one small step toward supporting the other females in the classroom, who are statistically less likely to get a word in edgewise (I forget where I read the study, but males reported that females “dominated the conversation” when they spoke for less than half of the time while men had to speak for most if not all of it to elicit the same response from females), so there’s that, but I also know that my good intentions can go too far and alienate the males in the classroom, so then I began overthinking the question and second, third, and fourth-guessing myself, which is something I cannot afford to do in a classroom. There’s a lot to unpack before I stand up in front of my students, and that’s one of the *less* fraught questions. I can only imagine how much unpacking there is to do for things that are closer to home or hit any personal pressure points.

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