Power Point: An Oafish Bulleted World

At my daughter's school, technology now takes a firm foothold in the daily curriculum. By grade eight, all students are proficient in Word, Power Point and Excel. Unfortunately, under the sway of technology marketers, the school board has minimized former mainstays of the primary and middle school experience. Orchestra, chorus, art, photography and band are a glimmer of what they used to be when children and teens had time to explore. It's been reduced to this, which while worthy, is yet a pale imitation of what we once had.

A bus full of computers and video equipment that makes the rounds to the schools.
No doubt, a valuable communication tool, but everything we bring to the bench must be met with a critical eye to ensure its being used properly.

Parents are to blame, too. They are convinced if their child doesn't have his or her own lap top by the eighth grade, he or she will be consigned to a life of penury. Glibly allured of success and riches, the parents (at some schools) whip out their high-percent credit card to lease a lap top in a 1:1 program supported by the board. And so it is, children should be able to put the history of California missions on an eight page Power Point presentation. That's right, all sixty four years of it.

To be fair there isn't an institution that hasn't fallen sway under the false promise of higher efficiency and clearer understanding that Power Point promises. Power Point presentations are de rigeur in businesses, governmental and non governmental agencies. Armed with laptops, people stride into rooms with a presentation guaranteed to bullet main points. No where is this more true than in the military. Want to understand the intricate military strategy Afghanistan? How about this:
In a great article titled, We Have Met The Enemy, and He Is Power Point in The New York Times, General McChrystal was said to have dryly remarked,

"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

He's not the only one tired of the endless slides. General Mattis, upon deciding not to use it when speaking at a conference in North Carolina said, "Power Point makes us stupid." And General McMaster said,

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

As he points out, adhering to a rigid bullet point style presentation with frequently changing slides, often doesn't account for the intricacies and nuances of social, political, economic and ethnic forces. It doesn't take into account history, either. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” says General McMaster. And yet, officers and NCO's spend inordinate amounts of time on this technology.

So onward we let our children trudge a path that Generals are claiming is shaded by falsehood. Sometimes the less information you present, the less information you actually comprehend. If only some points are presented, this means the big picture might be an abstraction. Power Point presentations are akin to slimmed down Cliff Notes: you know the main characters of a book, you have a general idea of what they do, but you have no idea of why they carry out their actions. And I'm not saying, hey, don't do it. But I am saying we have to keep it in check. Perhaps parents should spend far more time hauling the kids to the library, letting them check out whatever books they want (no matter how looney), than spending it on the computer. In-depth knowledge is everything. Observing, listening, communicating and trying by doing is everything. Making a Power Point presentation about The Thirty Years War reduced to 10 slides may be interesting and time consuming, but it doesn't necessarily increase the depth of one's own understanding.

Orchestra, band, chorus, and art are important because through those we learn intricacies, nuance, and relationships. We see and hear how notes strung together can create a harmony. We experiment mixing colors, fiddle around with how to shade, figure out what perspective does to the appearance of an object. These are all nuances, finer points, and taking those out of the big picture leaves us with one thing: a bulleted Power Point presentation of life. This gives rise to half formed opinions and clumsily made decisions for an oafish world where no one wins.