The New York Times has a huge article today on the damage technology is doing to our brains. Yes, there are many good things about technology (I’m blogging, aren’t I?), but the research is conclusive now that multitasking makes us dumber, not smarter, and that the addictive affect of being plugged in is quite real – and damaging to relationships.

Unfortunately, the piece is really long, so many people may not even read it – they’ll be too busy clicking over to another window or checking their Smart Phones (new motto: We make you dumber than you used to be). But here’s the cheat sheet if you can’t spare 15 minutes to read the whole story: Read the first page for the damage issue up close. Scroll halfway down this page to read a graf about multitasking and find a link to a quick game showing you’re not near as good at multitasking as you think you are. Read page three to drill down into the research, and pay close attention (if you can!) to this nugget:

Mr. Ophir is loath to call the cognitive changes bad or good, though the impact on analysis and creativity worries him.

He is not just worried about other people. Shortly after he came to Stanford, a professor thanked him for being the one student in class paying full attention and not using a computer or phone. But he recently began using an iPhone and noticed a change; he felt its pull, even when playing with his daughter.

“The media is changing me,” he said. “I hear this internal ping that says: check e-mail and voice mail.”

“I have to work to suppress it.”

And if you are a parent, give serious thought to if your children really need a cell phone. Parents are supposed to provide materials than enhance education and brain structure, not take from it. The developing brain needs to be trained to think deeply and creatively, not run like Pavlov’s dogs to the nearest stimulus – which is exactly what cell phones and text messaging train brains to do. From the Times piece:

Researchers worry that constant digital stimulation like this creates attention problems for children with brains that are still developing, who already struggle to set priorities and resist impulses.

No child under driving age needs a cell phone. There is argument that cell phones are necessary for new drivers in case they get in a wreck and they are far from a pay phone. (There’s also the argument that cell phones in cars with teens increase accidents). But prior to 16, there’s no good argument – safety or otherwise – for giving a kid a cell phone. It is little more than convenience for parents, giving them the ability to track their children/check on them 24/7. How did parents do that before the advent of cell phones and other technology? Oh, yeah, they sat down at dinner and had actual conversations with their kids. We can do it again, people. Our brains may depend on it.

Heather Ravenstein is now unemployed, all because she thought she was doing her job. Ravenstein stopped a man who was trying to steal a $600 computer from the Kansas Walmart where she works Friday night and Saturday she was fired for breaking the store’s black and white rule about which employees can stop shoplifters. Yes, fired. Not rewarded, not promoted, not even given a $25 Walmart coupon. Fired.

Walmart officials told McClatchy Newspapers that they had to fire Ravenstein because her actions put her safety “and perhaps the safety of our customers” in jeopardy and, thus, violated company policy. The policy, according to the story, is that only Walmart management or someone in “asset protection” can stop thieves.

OK, so I understand the need for rules, even rules employees claim they weren’t told about. But zero-tolerance policies lead to stupid decisions. They are really popular, mostly in schools, but apparently gaining in popularity in the work place as well. But they don’t teach anyone anything. Learning occurs when someone makes a mistake, works through it with problem-solving techniques and develops a plan to avoid said mistake in the future.

But do we do that? Nah. Instead, we suspend kindergartners for having goofy haircuts or showing off their Cub Scout knife, and apparently we fire employees who save our company money. Do companies really want their employees to look the other way when shoplifters head out their door instead of following their instincts and stopping them?

Walmart would say it wants its employees to follow the rules and call for management or the asset protection crew when a shoplifter is in flight (even if the potential criminal gets away while the “proper” employee runs to the front of the store). I’ll concede that employees should follow rules. But if one makes a mistake – and saves you money in so doing – don’t you think you could just sit that employee down, remind her of the rules and the reasoning behind them, and say, “Thanks, but don’t do that again” instead of tossing her to the curb?

I can hear the reasoning now: “Well, if we let HER get away with stopping a criminal, pretty soon everyone will be doing it and God knows what that could lead to!” It is the same reasoning used in schools by administrators who insist that their teachers use critical thinking and then refuse to do so themselves. No, Mr. Jones, you may not move Little Susie into a higher-level math because we have already passed the deadline for course changes and, you know, if we let her enroll in Calculus in December, pretty soon EVERYONE will want to take Calculus. No, Ms. Smith, you may not develop a behavior plan with Little Johnny because he kissed Jenny on the playground because page 6 of the handbook says all cases of sexual harassment warrant suspension, not problem-solving.

Of course, Walmart is most likely viewing this as a CMA incident. If Ravenstein or the robber had been hurt, perhaps one of them would have sued. But Walmart could have explained that to the now-laid-off single mother and kept her on. Or better yet, maybe they could have put her on the asset protection crew, since she told reporters she’s also stopped people for forging payroll checks more than once. In other words, use the woman’s strengths, don’t terminate her. Luckily, other employers see Ravenstein’s gumption as something to be admired, and have called offering to interview her for possible jobs. Not everyone, it seems, thinks in black and white.

Driving home from my student teaching practicum today, I saw this:

Kira Friedman, 7 and her best friend, Rachel Omiecinski, also 7, trying to encourage drivers at the Tangerine Road-Rancho Vistoso Boulevard intersection to vote in favor of Prop. 100

and this:

Austin Witt, 10, and Hunter Volturo, 8, dressed appropriately in '60s regalia for the Vote Yes on Prop 100 protest. Austin's teacher was one of many who received pink slips last week in the Amphitheater School District.

And I think the sign that said it best and said it all, was this:

This is a no-brainer, folks. Vote for the 1-cent sales tax increase on May 18. For once, please, help me have a reason to defend Arizona besides the great weather. And full disclosure here: I’ve got a horse in this race (see below for even more ranch metaphors!) Regular readers will recall that after being axed by Gannett with the closure of the Tucson Citizen newspaper, I fell into a three-month fantasy land of trying to make real money as a freelance writer before taking advantage of some career counseling and discovering the only other career that could hold my attention – and to which I might have something to offer – would be teaching.

Ergo, I entered a teacher-preparation program, and am currently in the final two classes and scheduled to began a teacher internship in the fall. If Prop. 100 fails, there will be at least 30 percent fewer teachers to mentor the hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of student teachers scheduled to do their internships next fall. Without the internships, no teacher certification. And while I hold no fantasies about being employed in this state, the certification will help me get a job in another country until Arizona sees the light of day where education is concerned. (I actually wrote a story about this trend when I was the higher ed reporter at the Citizen: The college-educated leaving Arizona because there are no jobs. I’ve become my own statistic. Sigh.)

All that said, I’ve long wrote in favor of public education funding because I believe in the system (my entire family is a product of public education), and I’d be writing in favor of Prop. 100 even if I wasn’t in the teacher prep program. So, why should you vote for the temporary sales-tax increase? Well, as the dapperly-dressed Hunter said so eloquently, “If all the teachers are gone, who is going to teach us?” He then explained that not only had his teacher taught him all about the respiratory system this year, but also multiplication – which is normally not addressed until late third grade – “Because we are just doing so good in math!” He grin was so large when he said this it made my cheeks hurt. He had a can-you-believe-it look in his eye that was priceless.

So that’s reason #1- Kids don’t educate themselves and a classroom of 40 to 50 students is not one in which anyone is going to learn much of anything; we need the funding to keep the student-teacher ratio in legal limits. Otherwise, you have little more than paid babysitting.

Reason #2 is tied to that: We don’t need any more unemployed workers in this town than we already have. Trust me on this, all you commenters who HAVE jobs and want to hold on to your measly 1 extra penny-per-dollar instead of giving it to the increased sales tax: It is as hot as Hades out here in Laid-Off Land. Heck, you don’t even have to trust me on it; call up any of the 200+ workers Raytheon laid off yesterday.

Reason #3 is safety: If you think we’ve got problems with street-kids and gangs now, just wait until a whole new boatload of them are crammed into overcrowded classrooms. Ditto Reason #4: There’s a connection between a lack of education and criminal activity. You may think that you don’t want the government having any more of your money, but you want the criminal element having it instead? Pay for schools or pay for more prisons – either way, you’re going to pay. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that money will stay with you. Which leads us to …

Reason #5: The Greater Good. Public education is in the Greater Good; the higher a society’s educational attainment, the better off that society is. Sure there are those family-money rich folks who made it on ranches or by the sweat of their brow, but those days are over. Societies rise and fall with technology now and you don’t learn that on a horse surveying the Back Forty. You learn it in a classroom. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. It amazes me how the public always cries for schools to produce more graduates, better educated graduates, deeper thinkers, inventors, etc., and yet the public doesn’t want to provide those classrooms with teachers, or technology or any kind of reasonable support. You want less crime? You want the U.S. to be competing with the rest of the world and kicking their collective fannies? Pony up some money for the public schools.

In the U.S., we ALL share the burden of improving society. You don’t just get to think about yourself here – we’re not the wild, wild West anymore. You need to think about what is the Greater Good. (And I can’t help but adding this since this is technically a God Blog: Don’t even think about wearing the mantle of Christian if you aren’t working for the Greater Good. You can’t pull it off and still read all the words in red. That’s my theory on why Glenn Beck cries so much: it’s hard to justify the nasty things he says with his argument that he’s Christian.)

TUSD recently lost its superintendent, a young woman with great vision and foresight where education – especially in urban areas – is concerned. Why? At least partially because Arizona’s Legislature is tight fisted and there are bunches of voters who seem to think being miserly is the Bright Road to Freedom (protected by your no-permit-needed concealed weapons) for this state. She left because she doesn’t want her children to be raised in an environment with so little regard for education. I’ve told people wanting to move to Arizona the same thing: If you’ve got kids, don’t come here unless you can afford private school. The public schools have lived on shoestrings for years, and the only people who don’t believe that are folks who have never spent any real time – by which I mean a week or more – in a classroom, e.g. some of the blog commenters, many of the right-wing radio hosts, and the majority of the Maricopa County representatives.

Voters have a chance to do something good for once here, and to stick it to the legislators who think that the only answer to hard times is to make them harder. Vote yes on Prop. 100 May 18. It’s one cent on the dollar – and yes, I know, I know, it seems sales tax is too much already – but it is desperately needed. Just ask Hunter Volturo.