I Remember…

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By Tom Hurst

* I remember learning to use a multi-party, rotary dial telephone that sat on a corner desk, my parents’ first phone.

* I remember learning to use a single-party, rotary dial telephone hung on the wall.

* I learned to use a manual typewriter in junior high school and continued to use the “portable” machine through all of my undergraduate courses.  Mistakes had to be fixed, one by one, with a circular eraser attached to a small brush and, after that, with messy, white correcting fluid.

* I learned to drive in a three-speed 1958 Ford with the stick shift located on the steering column.  I eventually drove a five-speed stick-shift Toyota.

* I learned to use an electric typewriter that had a white inner tape to help correct mistakes.

* I learned to use an electronic typewriter with a round steel ball with letters on it.

* With difficulty, I learned to use Apple computers, one model after another struggling to learn every concept, every software, every whatever I needed.

* I came to McPherson, Kansas, in 2006 and learned to adapt to an IBM style computer with its software.

* In 2010, I bought my first hand-held flip phone and, with a SmartPhone, sent my first text in 2019.  I’ve learned to use its GPS, camera and calculator apps.

* Both my vehicles are 20+ years old.  I will likely have to take a month-long training course to learn how to drive the next vehicle I buy.

* And now….. now I am learning, slowly, with great difficulty, how to teach my students online.  More than a month has now passed, and I’m proud of what skills I have learned. 

I’ve had to learn a lot in my life.  The learning never, ever stops!  And, now, I lay awake at night envisioning my entire summer spent with a tutor teaching me how to be a better on-line teacher!  What a life!