This is an article I wrote that appeared in Conspire (Spring 2012).
As the sole
technology worker at a seminary, I am responsible for researching,
recommending, implementing, and supporting technological answers to
institutional questions. Since a primary task of the seminary is to educate
students, part of my job is to pay attention to developments in the field of
educational technology.
One way I do
this is by attending conferences. At every educational technology conference
I’ve attended, someone will say “But it [education] is not about the
technology.”
This mantra is
a good and healthy reminder. It also reveals something of the easy way that we
(technology-workers specifically, but also people in general) can deceive
ourselves. The statement is usually made as a corrective, long after it has
become abundantly clear to the interlocutors that “it” is, in fact, precisely about the technology. In
“Educational Technology,” technology is the noun, yet we persist in claiming
otherwise. Why?
I think part
of the denial is because most people think of technology as something neutral
that can be used for good or ill. If this is true, then we are free to use it
as we see fit. We are free to talk about technology and propose technological
solutions to, say, pedagogical problems, secure in the knowledge that we’re
only using the tools available to us to accomplish some greater end.
Part of our denial is because we have come to
accept that most questions and dilemmas can be answered with a tool. This belief not only changes the nature of the
solution, but it actually alters the problem as well. We stop asking: “How can
we do this?” or even “Should we do this?”and start asking: “How can we use said
tool to do this?” By answering that last, easier, question, we assume that we
have answered the first two as well.
This shift has
troubling implications for any community, including the seminary community of
which I am a part. Consider a few examples.
When I want to
contact someone at work, my first inclination is to send an email message, not
to walk down the hall. Pre-email, I would probably have called. I know,
rationally, that the instantaneity offered by technology is not the same as the
intimacy of the office visit, but, practically, I’ve come to equate the two--or
at least to settle for the instantaneous. Instantaneity can be realized with a
tool (email); intimacy cannot.
When I hear
about neighbors who are in need, my first inclination (after I wring my hands
feeling generally powerless) is to provide some sort of financial support. I
know, rationally, that alleviating a financial burden is not the same as true
support, but, practically, I’ve come to equate the two--or at least to settle
for the financial unburdening. Unburdening can be realized with a tool (money);
supporting one another in love cannot.
When my
congregation discusses how to be more hospitable and welcoming, one recurring suggestion
is for everyone to wear name tags. We equate knowing each others names to
knowing one another better. Rationally, I know that collegiality is not the
full extent of fellowship, but, practically, I’ve come to equate the two--or at
least to settle for the collegial. Collegiality
can be approximated with a tool (name tag); fellowship cannot.
The problem in
these examples is not instantaneity, financial aid, or collegiality, which may
not be bad things within themselves. The problem is when we come to see them as
tantamount to something greater: fellowship, support, or intimacy. Technology,
often seen as a neutral tool, leads us to make this false equivalence.
So as the
director of information technology at a seminary (which I take to mean a
community marked by traits like fellowship, support, and intimacy, among
others), my job is to recommend, implement, and support those very things that
over time work against becoming that sort of community. So I take it as my
responsibility, though it isn’t written into my job description, to ask
questions like: Do we need technology to accomplish this particular task? Do we
need this particular piece of technology? What does it cost to use (not just a
financial consideration)? What will it cost to stop using it?
Except that most
days, I don’t actively ask myself those questions. I stuff them in the background,
or hang them on the wall of my peripheral vision. Then I create processes and
procedures that let me purchase, upgrade, and install without needing to ask
questions about any particular technology. Because the “technology” of
processes and policies answers these questions—the questions that seek a
technological answer--I never need to ask the bigger, more demanding,
questions.
I justify this
by telling myself that there are some things that institutions require; and
that the nature of my job is such that I do not have the luxury of actively
wrestling with the bigger questions. After all, my job is about helping the
seminary fulfill its mission. It’s the seminary’s mission which is about the
reign of God, so I am therefore freed to deal exclusively with
technology-as-tool.
And so we come
full circle, and I fall into the same behaviors that so frustrate me at
educational technology conferences or nametag discussions or office
communications across the hall. I, too, find myself using technological tools
to address the questions that technology poses, and, in so doing, rest in my
own little deception.
Yet grace
abounds.
Grace abounds when I get interrupted in some way
that wrenches me out of my technological patterns. When a co-worker stops by my office, that more
intimate visit makes demands of me that the instantaneity of email does not.
When my neighbor suggests that I can help her by babysitting her children so
she can have some time alone; that demands of me things that donating to the
local food bank does not. When a visitor to my church starts to spill his life
story in my lap, that fellowship requires what simply “knowing” his name does
not.
Sometimes this
grace makes me bold. In such moments, I seek technology that is good enough to
do what needs to be done most of the time, but not so capable that it leaves no
room for our human messiness—failure, interruption, and intimacy. And on
especially rare days, I suggest to others at the seminary that problems with
our email provider give us a chance to reflect on how reliant we’ve become on
email, what that might say about us, and whether it’s good.
Those
moments are relatively few and far between, though, so if you visit me at work
you will be hard-pressed to find how the nice story I’ve written above plays
out concretely. This is because, more honestly, most of the time I wish grace
wouldn’t abound quite so much.
