Kia ora, friends
Last week, an excellent new short-form documentary series began releasing episodes, via the NZ Herald umbrella. It manages to shine a light on stories of individual people, while adding context and research from those who can provide a broader context. Full disclosure: my work and I will be in espisode five. YIKES! Excited and nervous.
That would be a reason for one of the knots in my tum. There are other projects doing some knotting, and a fast-approaching deadline which squeezes the knots fairly tight. But I greet them as friends, because they are reminders of how deeply I care.
I had a weird knot-notice and partial-unravel just the other evening, cuddled on the couch with my teen and watching the Gilmore Girls. It’s my first time through it – when it was released and all the rage, I was parenting a small child and watching practically nothing on the telly (All Blacks rugby, the Go Show. and Shaun the Sheep the exceptions).
My family are catching up, becoming fast friends with the gals and their pals, and as we watched the Lorelais indulge their love of the Donna Reed show, it occured to me that we are nostalgically watching the fictionalised lives of folk in a simpler time, even as we watch them nostalgically watching the fictionalised lives of folk in simpler times.
Will families one day watch people watching the Gilmore Girls watching Donna Reed? It’s too much. And that’s not even the knotty bit.
It’s this: when 16 year old Rory is housesitting and invites her boyfriend Dean over, I think “oh you should tell your mum about that…” (she didn’t.) Then Rory dresses up in 1950’s Donna Reed-esque garb, I found myself holding my breath. Because in the Now times, if a 16 year old girl is dressed up, alone in a house with a boy … I’m worried that AT BEST the pinny-and-pearls pictures will be shared all over the school. I’m worried that they are filming intimate videos and do we really know Dean well enough to trust he won’t post them online if they break up? I’m jealous of Lorelai parenting a teenager THEN, and not NOW, because while some of the scary stakes are the same (vehicular accidents and unplanned pregnancies just a couple of examples), we have SO MANY more hurdles to jump, threats to manage, and unwanted influences to parry.
We must keep fighting the good fights, for Humanity! We can keep calling on the sources we trust, we can choose a lane for advocacy and push! (Suggestion: if you’re in the US and concerned about Data Centers, check out the work of this group)
More links, now, to knot and release your own anatomy! This is by the Guardian and it’s about young children and screen use and happily it includes mention about the importance of parents putting down their own phones. Lordy, we must never forget the value of early investment in children. As it is, we’ve a massive, global, educational experiment going on, as we invite the likes of Google Classroom into schools, to extract our kids’ data and distract them. GOOD TIMES!
While we are on the topic, this is a useful li’l checklist for assessing tech research , specifically as relates to “ed tech”.
May I end with something delightful? The NZ Garden Bird Survey is LIVE! Get to it before Sunday, all you citizen scientists 🙂