My living room window overlooks a park with a pedestrian walkway through it. It is beautifully maintained by the city. Right now the rhododendrons and azaleas are in full bloom. The cherry tree has lost most of its blossoms but many of the trees are coming out in full leaf. There are several benches along the route; I can see three of them from my perch on the couch.

This morning a group of middle school or high school students came by. They stopped at the bench area and I wondered what was up. They all had phones in their hands, many had earphones attached to them. They put their packs down and used their phones to take pictures. They got up close to the trees and took pictures of the bark. Some knelt down and took close-up photos of the baby grass. Others walked gingerly into gardens to take pictures of the deep red and  purple blossoms. They made sure they didn’t block the pathway so that other people could still pass by. When their teacher signalled that it was time to move along, they did so, quickly and efficiently. There is another beautiful garden area a few blocks down, by city hall. Perhaps they were headed there.

I was a teacher. It was hard when I took students out of the school. I was always worried about how they would behave and about losing one, or more, along the way. When I was teaching, students in our community (it was a relatively low socio-economic area) were just starting to get cellphones. As a staff we struggled with the idea of phones in our classrooms. Students were more distracted than ever, texting each other from class. I had an incident where a student came to me in tears because she had received threatening texts, that a bully was going to beat her up at lunchtime. Parents called or texted during the class time, not at recess or lunch. Students took and posted photos, usually without permission. We had many discussions at staff meetings. Should we embrace the technology? Should we put restrictions on certain applications? Some teachers let kids use their phones in class, others didn’t. It was a a confusing time for them and us.

But today, the students’ phones were front and centre. They were using them as music players when they were walking and as cameras when they stopped. I’m sure they were texting and checking Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, whatever it is that kids use today. The debate must be over. Teachers must have embraced phones in the classrooms. Perhaps it was too hard to fight them. I read an article where students reported that they are physically and emotionally unable to be without their phones, that it causes them severe anxiety not to be able to check them. They sleep with their phones close by and wake up when a text comes in or an alert sounds. 

So, I’m going to assume today’s students were from an art class. They could have been collecting imaging from nature to take back to class to manipulate on a computer into collages or whatever; I wasn’t an art teacher and I’m hopeless with technology. I guess this is the high-tech version of rubbing the edge of a pencil over a piece of bark to get its texture or collecting leaves to iron between two sheets of waxed paper or drawing a vase of flowers sitting in front of you. 

Whatever their purpose was, it was interesting to see students of their age out and about, behaving well. And it was interesting to see how things have changed, cellphone-wise. I guess it’s always better to embrace change than to push back against it. And I guess I can relate in a way, my iPad is never far from me and when I get a message or a text I have to respond right away. Technology has really changed our lives, mostly for the better. Ooo! I just got a text, gotta go!