(growing Pains) Supervising An Ict Class On A Sunny Morning Poem by Janice Windle

As an occasional supply teacher, I sometimes find myself more distracted by nature and real life than the children I'm supervising are. When I wrote this poem, I began to interpret what I could see of the outside world in terms of the flat version that technology makes of reality. I didn't envy the students their early experience of life through the media of screens.
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Out of the window I can see
the foliage on the nearest tree,
paused.
The air so still, I count
each single oak leaf, picked out
in gold and ochre, Indian red,
against sap green and pale cerulean.
The image tinted, filtered,
filtering through clear autumn air,
hue, saturation, brightness, contrast
all perfect – surely Photoshop
or Corel Paint could do no more
to bring this beauty into focus.

Grey squirrel, inverted
on a mottled trunk, suddenly
darts down, dispels my sense
that this bright image is
presented, still, flat, in 2D,
a mighty Powerpoint projection
just for me.

In here, reality is in a different mode.
Thirty heads, tousled, sleek,
Gelled to peaks or nearly shaven bald,
Bend to screens, gathering
Information on the complex world.
Thirty screens display
their pathways through the byways
of the internet. No need to call,
“attend to work,
stop staring out the window! ”

Even on a fine bright day,
Technology will always get
The toughest class
to do the work that’s set.