Leaving the old work for school in our Information Age

We shouldn't think about school in summertime, I suppose. July marks those warm, lazy days when book learning is set aside for a trip to the pool, ice cream in midafternoon and chasing fireflies with no worries of being tired during tomorrow's math class.

But these days, school doesn't go away just be-cause the calendar says Memorial Day has passed. Sure, there's a respite, but more and more teachers and child experts urge that each summer with the young ones we do some "educational" things - like going to a museum, thinking creatively or reading, though I have difficulty imagining why anyone wouldn't pick up a book every day. Maybe some are too excited about the pool and can't concentrate.

Many teachers spend their summers at the opposite end of the classroom: in the learners' seat. They're busy working on advanced degrees or taking courses to maintain licenses. Much of their work focuses on honing skills, particularly writing lesson plans. And most are not about to let their hours go wasted; tomorrow's classwork is being written today.

Some teachers, children and college students haven't even left the classroom. They're enjoying summer school, in the students' case probably because they didn't do the work last year. A lucky few, however, enjoy teaching and sitting in the one course they most like - creative writing, science discovery, a musical instrument. That says something about the power of education: Many are willing to give up vacation for schooling they enjoy.

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Iowa is thought of as an agricultural state, and there's no denying the im-port of corn swaying in the field as our heritage or yet today. But type "Iowa" into a Google search engine, and you'll make a remarkable discovery: Of the 10 Web sites that have received the most hits, education leads.

Topping the list is the state's official Web site, though the most hit page on it is for the Department of Education. The University of Iowa comes in second with Ames' and Cedar Falls' campuses close behind. The university's "Virtual Hospital" for learning about health issues is No. 6. The Web site for the General Assembly, whose members could use some school themselves, is No. 9.

But there are no sites specifically about farming.

It shouldn't come as a surprise then that the governor decided to put a pioneer schoolhouse rather than a cow and hog on our state quarter.

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These days, a lot of Iowa farmers are heading back to school. So are their former classmates who stayed in small rural towns and work-ed in manufacturing. Both industries are contracting, and to feed one's family in this world, you've got to learn new skills, usually involving computers.

Some remark that this parallels the Industrial Revolution, when farm laborers left the land for factory jobs, creating a massive upheaval in society. The primarily rural order suddenly became urban, and sociologists and historians have vividly described the downsides of this shift.

Yet now it's not just the remaining farmers but the factory worker as well who's forced to leave his or her occupation. What effect will this shift have on people when our hands no longer work the earth or metal but bits of electronic data as we transform into an information society?

It will run deep.

After all, the basis for our agrarian society's morals and visions form the basis of our metropolitan society's values and dreams. Perhaps the shift to manufacturing simply is one phase of urbanization, as the Triassic simply was one period in the Mesozoic.

It's something to ponder on the way to the pool.

(originally published July 4, 2004)