Lost Worlds of ChildhoodYesterday I was having such fun on the tram and then once more on the bus while on my way to work. I had dug out my copy of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Two Worlds of Childhood:USA and USSR the day before and had started to read it again. On the bus I was sticking in more Post-it arrows in bright pink, yellow and green, and deciding which of the brilliant poster illustrations to use as a heading for a blog posting to describe the book. Then I starting taking down notes for a posting.
It was such a lovely start to what turned out to be a very lovely day. See my earlier posting:
http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/03/transformers.html
I do not have to go to work in the morning so I thought that this evening I would get out my book and my notebook, set them out on the breakfast table beside the computer and prepare for a quick posting in the morning.
Gone!
What a terible shock to find that there is no lovely book in my bag, and no notebook either.
I have absolutely no recollection of where they are. I do not really remember where I sat on the bus this morning but I do remember very clearly turning round to see whether I had forgotten anything, as I have always done since I left a lovely summer hat on a bus several years ago.
I have absolutely no idea where to start my search, other than to retrace my steps tomorrow lunch time.
First stop will be the Post Office where I left my newspaper last week!
Second stop will be the baker’s where I picked up a cup of coffee.
Then, if those produce no results and I do not find it lying on the desk at work, I shall have to phone the bus company’s lost-and-found department. The problem is that I have absolutely no idea what time I got on the bus! I do know that it was the number 28 though and I have a receipt somewhere from the Post Office and I expect that it has the time printed on it. I went there immediately I got out of the bus.
Oh, how I wish I had Sherlock Holmes to help me
What did I want to say about Urie Bronfenbrenner? What had I scribbled down in my note book? The quotations will have to wait, there is no way I can remember them. I had just found something that I thought would be lovely to introduce over on my Upbringing blog, Brofenbrenner was describing upbringing of the character. Was that really what he had said? I am not quite sure now, that too will have to wait. On the bus I had been enthralled with what I had been reading about Sukhomlinsky and Makarenko.
I am hopeful that I will find my battered book that has been in my bag for months. It has been to England twice since I bought it on Abebooks and has made the journey with me to Hong Kong and back.
It really is high time it got finished. I had been stuck at page thirty-nine, where the lovely posters start, for too long! Now I may never get to finish it in the nice Penguin copy with the illustrations that had been so hard to track down.
On the same day on the same bus had had read the following in the “Reply” section of my 11.03.2011 Guardian Weekly newspaper:
“Tucked away on the distance learning page (25 February) was a truly sensational and very disturbing statement made by Catherine Anderson, director of residential and leisure services at Liverpool University: ‘ Students don’t read anything. If you put something in writing it’s absolutely pointless.’ ”
Having read this short article I was even more determined to get to the end of my precious Brofenbrenner book. I am not a student, I am really interested in the contents of this book and as it is under two hundred pages long I am gave myself until the weekend to get it finished. Then not many minutes later I lost it.
Hope
4 comments:
Susie
You should start using the ipad. See for yourself:
http://www.apple.com/ipad/built-in-apps/find-my-ipad.html
Wow, Rony, that's brilliant.
I cannot myself possible afford an IPad but prices come down.
It is not the iPad as such that interests me here but the possibility that very soon we shall be able to fix a little tag on everything that we take out of the house, and find it.
I desperately need such a gubbins and an aging population means that there is a huge market of people like me out there. I suspect that some of us might also benefit from having one fixed to ourselves...
andrew.
Thanks Rony, I too am amazed at this technology that you have shown us.
I am not sure if having an iPad, would help me very much as I would probably still have a real book to read in my bag and a real notebook to write and draw in in my pocket so still have a good chance of loosing them both. Unless of course I use the iPad as a drawing board, then I would possibly loose them together.
I have tried writing notes and also had a go at drawing electronically. It is an interesting and different process but I still like to have my sketches on pieces of paper. I also quite like the Post-it arrows sticking out of my books, I think that they look really arty!
I am afraid that I am still a lover of having a real, paper book or newspaper in my hand to read on the tram when I am really happy to have left the flickery screen of the computer on my desk. I like to smell the pages of my old tomes too although I expect that the iPad will be providing us with this very soon. Or does it already?
I wait in anticipation for a tag that I can attach to my books that will do the same for me as the device in an iPad.
Thanks for all this food for thought!
On almost every web-site that I visit these days, on those that provide information for people with disability, I read about the use of the iPad. Only this week, on a parent's blog, the mother wrote about what a difference the iPad has already made in their life with a five-year old with physical disabilities.
Another parent wrote to ask my opinion of using an iPad with a three-year old with poor verbal communication skills.
Perhaps I should not only have an iPad so I can find it again, but also so I can keep up to date with what could be useful for clients and their families.
At least I will go to the shop at the weekend, and ring our computer man who provides a service for the school children, to inform myself on what is on offer. You never know I may just get converted, especially if I find Urie Bronfenbrenner and Makarenko as eBooks!
Thank you again Rony for bringing this subject to light. If you are up to date with the use of iPad in our field of work please write and tell us, I will post it on my blog. That applies to any of you conductive geeks out there too.
All information greatly received.
Susie
unListen to this one: several days ago, on TV news was an item about a businessman, who's car was broken and his iPad was stolen. He called his daughter at home and gave her his password so she could use the technology of locating where the iPad was. She told him the address, he called the police , they located the building and climbed up the stairs. The man 'called' his iPad and it was ringing from one of the apartments. While the police was knocking on the door of this apartment, his daughter called again and said that she just saw that the iPad moved to the back of the building. The thief' hearing the knocking threw the iPad out of the window. and there it was, lying on the grass at the back of the building, safe and alive.
By the way Andrew, this "little tag" technology is already being used with Alzheimer population, and when they are out of their geographic safe zone, it ring and shoes on maps where the person is. By the way, all who uses cellular phones can be located. You should all know that the big brother (Google) is watching us
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