Attention Literacy for Today's Students?

A serious suggestion floated last month near to the end of a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, Class Resentment -- managing to mix together both senses of that qualifier, the actual classroom and its dynamics, and the economic stratification -- shocked me at first, then got me to thinking.  To the indeed-needed cultural literacy, religious literacy, and information literacy (all of which I'm strongly for), it's being proposed that what our college and university students now need us educators to start inculcating "attention literacy."

The author, Laurie Essig, recounts her experience and reasons for ire arising during an incident in a colleague's class:

I was struck by three things. One, he was giving a brilliant lecture. Really beautifully prepared, interesting stories, using images, props, writing on the board, and inviting student participation. Two, about one-third of his students couldn’t be bothered to notice.  And three, it makes me really, really angry to see a talented teacher treated like background noise. 

Acedia, the Internet, and Social Media

A younger friend and colleague of mine recently decided to close his Facebook account.  It's striking, isn't it, that such a decision can be the object and occasion of considerable reflection?  Would that have been conceivable ten years ago -- leaving a virtual social network and its interactions behind?  Certainly conceivable, but rather within the realm of speculative fiction. And now, it's a practically conceivable, even for some pressing matter, no longer just a sheer possibility, but a thought-over necessity at times.

His case and process of decision-making -- narrated in an insightful and thought-provoking entry on his blog The Christian State of Life -- might be viewed as both entirely comprehensible and yet rather unique, off the beaten track of normality, divergently following a path less taken.  You see, he's a seminarian, in training and under discipline -- so, of course, he doesn't have the time, he's looking to higher things, living with one foot out of the secular world, detached from the worldly matters that we chatter about via the social media networks that seem to metastasize deeper and deeper into our lives, workplaces, relationships, perhaps even the cycle of liturgy and prayer.

Neophilia: Curiosity by Another Name?

I've been meaning to comment on a New York Times piece, What’s New? Exuberance for Novelty Has Benefits, since I first saw it, since it touches on a matter that has been explored, invoked, exhibited and exemplified, condemned and praised -- whether in narrational passages, speeches, philosophical dialogues, proverbial exchanges, compilations of reflections upon life and wisdom:  Curiosity, the desire not only to know, to connect, to uncover, but also in a certain sense to contrast, to find, experience, or produce the novel.  Researchers are reevaluating and nuancing their assessment of a trait upon which they'd previously taken a more categorically negative stance, "novelty-seeking, a personality trait long associated with trouble."

Originally, employing methods focusing on genetics and the brain:

they linked this trait with problems like attention deficit disorder, compulsive spending and gambling, alcoholism, drug abuse and criminal behavior.

Now, though, after extensively tracking novelty-seekers, researchers are seeing the upside. In the right combination with other traits, it’s a crucial predictor of well-being.