Maps and Atlases

I first got to thinking about maps and atlases after reading a post on February 18, "Friday Draft: Fairy Tale with Maps," on Sandy Longhorn's blog, Myself the Only Kangaroo among the Beauty. In her post, she's working through a poem that, as she says, "has bits of autobiography" in it.

As I related in part of my comment to her post, "I'm also nostalgic about maps and atlases. You splay out the folds or pages, and you see potential on paper. A GPS just squawks at you."

Another cheer for the old technology, people.

And ice cream socials.

We went to Hannah's ice scream social a few weeks back. While they had all kinds of games to play and "bouncy houses," as Mrs. Nasty describes them, they were also selling books at 50% off.

One of the two books we picked up for Hannah is the Beginner's United States Atlas from National Geographic Kids. The photo below is a similar structure for what you find for every state, but the state featured in the photo is Iowa.

On the pages for each state, you get to learn about "Land & Water," "Statehood," "People & Places," a "Fun Fact," along with pictures and info about the state flag, flower, and bird. Assorted factoids dot the pages with appropriate visuals, such as the one associated  with the hog above: "Hogs outnumber people five to one in Iowa, which produces 25 percent of all hogs raised in the U.S."

So maybe that's why I like porcine goodness? I know I ate a heck of a lot of pork when I was growing up, even the dreadfully chewy pork cutlets that my dad loves.

But back to maps and atlases here.

Americans are known for not being very knowledgeable about geography.

Could GPS squawk boxes and phones be making us even worse?

Some Max Headroom-like voice is perhaps making it easier to find places you need to get to, but we could be losing, as a culture, our ability to get, as a farmer might say it, the "lay of the land," a knowledgeable background about geography. Could we be going from geographically dumb to dumber because of passive reliance on gadgetry?

I don't know, but my initial answer is "Yes."

But the question of whether technology is really helping us develop our intelligence/knowledge is something not enough people consider, and that question is part of the driving thesis within Nicholas Carr's book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, a book I believe lots of people should read.

As veteran writing teachers know, various pundits--educational or otherwise--heralded the personal computer and then the Internet as a boon since they felt the technology would help students become stronger writers. One could argue, and some have, that students are writing more than they ever have before because of computers and texting.

But think about the quality and depth of that communication.

The medium, as Marshall McLuhan opined decades ago, frames the message. If you're considering online fora, at least with a blog you can write as much as you like. With Twitter and Facebook and whatever's next, you're limited by character count. 

The whole warm embrace of the new reminds of the guy who sold us our mattress years ago. During small talk, he asked me what I was going to school for, and I told him my standard line that I plan to "teach writing and teach people how to teach writing," and his response was something along the lines of "Well, why would you study to do that? The computer will just do it for you." It was one of those moments in my life where I almost told someone, "You're a moron."

That's obviously an extreme example. But the anecdote, for me at least, displays how some people might think the newest technology is always better. It's improvement, right? It's new. The machine will do it for you. It makes our lives "easier," more "convenient."

Another anecdote that comes up for me is a conversation I witnessed where one person asked where she could get some fabric for something she was making. She related that she looked all over the Web and couldn't find any stores in the area for that merchandise. The fellow who was talking to her handed her a phone book, and she found what she wanted pretty quickly.

But part of the impetus for this post though is my nostalgia for the old technology of maps and atlases.

For a short time I had a job as an "Regional Admission Coordinator," which is a fancy phrase for an college admissions dude who traveled to high schools to give presentations. The pay stunk, but I had a job and health insurance while I finally figured out that I wanted to go back to grad school. Based in Kansas City, I traveled the western part of Missouri--west of Columbia and Jeff City--along with Kansas and Nebraska--Johnson County, Lawrence, Topeka, Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island, and some towns in between.

Driving around the Midwest in a state vehicle with only an AM/FM radio (in certain parts of my territory, it was country music or nothing), I relied on those maps and atlases. And when you hit a small town that you've never been to before and you need to find the high school, scout for flag poles, my friends.

Throughout my travels, maps oriented me and helped me see the state I was traveling in. For me, the squawk boxes of now are cold and indifferent and possibly invite passivity. The map, in contrast, is tactile and comforting. And if you're planning a trip, you depend on your brain to figure out your route while learning the towns you'll pass along the way.

Even earlier in my life, the U.S. atlas we had at our home evoked possibility.

Sure, I lived in the medium-sized blue collar town of Waterloo, Iowa, but as a kid I dreamed of living in northern Minnesota (good fishing) or in cities like Milwaukee or the Twin Cities while visiting places like New Orleans, Portland, Louisville, Seattle, and Philadelphia. By scoping out the state maps, I learned about places in all kinds of states through the process of looking around rather than being only focused on the destination.

The process is important.