It Is Quite Different When You Know It Is The Last Time

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First times are easy to recognize. “Wow. I’ve never done that before.”  “Who is that? I’ve never seen them before.” “Interesting taste. What did you say it’s called?” First times are brand new and usual carry the possibility of a second, third, or fourth opportunity.

Last times - not so much. You often don’t even realize that it is a last time.  What’s the line from that James Taylor song?  Fire and Rain “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain, I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end, I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I’d see you again.” Sometimes the last time just sneaks up on you.  Like the fact that next Fall will be the first time in 45 years that I will not watch the leaves change through the windows of a college classroom.

Currently, I am teaching a course called Communication Technology for the "last time." I didn’t teach it the “first time.” We saddled a young assistant professor with the rather challenging task of designing the course.  It was to be a required course with the daunting charge of covering both the history and impact of technology on human communication.  He did a great job, but as you might be able to tell from the content demands, the course really should have been at least 2 or 3 courses.  He taught it the first couple of times, but we soon realized he’d never get tenure if we kept beating him up with that course load. So I took over the course and have taught it ever since - 30 or 40 times.  He will teach it again next Fall. Everybody hum “The Circle of Life.”

But for me, now, it is the last time.  

Obviously, the world in which the course lives has radically changed. Today you can Google “advances in communication technology” and encounter a world of incredible gadgets, networks, processes and policies. But when our course began there was no Google, there was barely an Internet. 

The students who inhabit the world have also changed. Before the Internet, the World-Wide-Web and Google, students would read - books. There were no K-12 rubrics, no fantasy 5.3 GPAs on a 4.0 scale. There were no internet savvy helicopter parents - should we call them “drone parents” now? - plotting their child’s academic life and keeping unruly professors on task. There seemed to be a greater degree of curiosity, fewer feelings of entitlement. It was, to sound like an old fart, a simpler world. 

And now it is the last time. 

There is no “Hm, maybe I’ll do it differently the next time.” There will be no next time. A little scary, but a definite sizzle as well. In my attempt to always bring at least one new fact or concept to every class meeting I have amassed a dragon’s hoard of fun facts, strange ideas and important concepts.  And so my last semester in this course has something in common with the first time the course was offered - way too much content, way too little time. The challenge, obviously, is to put the most important content into the smallest amount of time, to get it right this one last time. But how?

My father, also a university professor, once told me “Teach to the top 10%, the others will stretch, And if they can’t, they shouldn’t be there.”  Ah, yes. He lived and taught in an even “simpler simpler” time. Back before “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” designed to guard students against actually learning “uncomfortable” concepts. Back when universities believed that exposing students to “everything,” the good, the bad, and the ugly, was part and parcel of their mandate.

But now it is the last time.

What to say?

I always quote a “rule of three” to my students: Three years after graduation you will remember three courses you took here. And if you think, very hard, you may remember three things you took away from those three classes.

I acknowledge that our course - a required undergraduate core course - will probably not be among those three. But if it were, here are the three points I would choose for them to remember:

1. Technology is designed by, made for, and should serve, people.
2. Every technological innovation follows the same process which is ultimately driven by our demands as expressed in the marketplace.
3. Despite the “herd” implications of the Internet world, you are absolutely unique. No one can be a better “you” than “you.” Becoming that best “you” is the only job you will keep all your life.

And now it is the last time. 

How do I teach them that?  

They will want to know if it will be on the test.  

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