Twenty-five years ago, after considerable study, discussion and consultation, the trustees--in their wisdom--appropriated a stunning sum of money, almost $70,000, to place Proctor at the forefront of prepschool technology. We bought a computer! The Digital Equipment Corp PDP-11T34 mainframe that arrived that year had a fraction of the capabilities of the handheld calculators our students use today, and the truck that fetched it a couple of years later took it to a landfill. Today, of course, virtually everyone has a computer (only seniors do not qualify for the graduated laptop initiative, but they all have them). What are our students doing on their computers? I was disappointed to find Scott with Pac Man 2 on his desktop when chemistry was starting.

About ten years ago we started hard-wiring every student's dorm desk with an Ethernet connection. Today, we are removing all of this, as the whole campus is served by wireless "airport" access to the World Wide Web. That's not the least of it: for $80, anybody can purchase a card that uplinks your computer to satellites, so you can surf the Net from the top of Ragged Mountain. Below, Winn checks out FX skiing before freshman science.

This topic is real, because--as adults--we are losing the ability (if we chose to use it) to control student access to all of the chaos available on the Web. When I started teaching at Proctor in 1976, Chris Norris taught me that educators do not want to try to control behavior that we can not control, and I am prone to favoring granting freedom, so that kids can exercise responsibility. This game is called Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4:

As we careen with increasing speed toward a world of technological innovation, it's worthwhile to note those moments in which we maintain the human connection, and schools (thank god) are full of them. Below, members of the chorus sign a get-well card for Elizabeth, who is recovering from back surgery.