I attended two Open Houses/Parents Night over the last week, one middle school and the other high school and I can tell you the academic experience is not what it used to be. After an evening of traveling classroom to classroom, following our children’s abbreviated schedules, my husband and I left with our heads spinning. Initially, walking into either school didn’t seem so different: front offices, lockers, school rooms to accommodate twenty to thirty students. But as we looked and we listened, we began to notice that things have changed, changed profoundly. 

 Today, there is no chalk or eraser.  The teachers tap “Smart Boards” the former white boards adapted to run like a touchpad, connected to the teacher’s PC.  One after the other, teachers showed awestruck parents how to access on-line textbooks, extra-help sites, the teacher’s own websites which give the class outline, test and quiz dates, due dates for homework, and many times the actual assignments, ready for download.  In middle school science, my son can do and submit homework on-line.  In high school, my other son is expected to post solutions to chemistry problems on a site not unlike a chatroom. He also has created, often with a group, power-point presentations to be shown in the classroom, which have also run on the local cable access network. One night my husband was taking his evening nap as the local cable programs were playing, and he awoke to a familiar voice: our son narrating the script to his video presentation on Nigeria.  From home, parents can track their students’ homework scores and test grades on a program called Aspen, as well as attendance and emergency contact information.  Is Big Brother coming into the classroom? Perhaps, but it’s darn useful to know how things are going, rather than get surprised at the end of the term.

 Part of these radical changes is Future Shock, and part is sort of a fluke, due to the nature of our town. Both schools are newly renovated, spiffy clean and up-to-date. Our town has a reputation for good schools and the parents are active participants. We’re not far from the Route 128 technology belt, and many parents work in computer and science fields.  But it's also a town that has been conservative financially, and the schools had lapsed into rather shocking physical disrepair after many years of not being upgraded. So, within a period of six to seven years of construction and renovation, we had leaped into the twenty-first century, terrific new labs and wired all the way.

 Are we ready?  Our children IM to their friends, constantly, often through the night.  They do their homework collaboratively, you might say.  It’s hard to limit their screen time, because they truly do need computers to do their homework, and almost any type of research.  The funny thing is that, I may not see the teachers again, ever. Or, hear their voices during a phone call.  But, if I have any questions, and sometimes I do, they have welcomed us to email them anytime.