This modern life

This Andy Singer cartoon sums up what a lot of work in the modern world amounts to: Sitting in front of a computer for the majority of a work day. I am amazed that so many professions have been centralized into basically "technological" work. I see this in education all the time: We foist technological "solutions" onto teachers and parents often urging them to make sure their children spend even more time in front of a screen each day. Then we all wonder why so many of our children (not to mention adults) are obese.


It is not easy to find solutions if so much of our work is attached to technology that requires we be passive physically to use it-- but I think active transportation is one solid solution that solves more than one problem; actually attacking multiple issues in a low-tech and effective way (rising cost of fuel, pollution, road safety, expense of road upkeep and maintenance, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc).

I would love to work out a way to collect my research data at schools here in Columbia so that I could ride my bike there and feel I was addressing more than one important lesson in life. I don't know if this will pan out, but I think it is worth trying because I feel more and more conflicted with only offering high tech, consumer oriented solutions to teachers, students, and parents that are creating as many problems as they are solving. (I realize some people think this is a simplistic answer, but they have not seen the amount of dialogue that is created when you arrive somewhere by bike when everyone else is stumbling out of cars with fast food wrappers spilling everywhere :-)