Changes

It’s common knowledge that individuals change over the course of decades. Societies, too, become altered over time. Hence, it’s of little surprise that in professional, personal, and civil realms, I’ve witnessed modifications.

In the last 40 years, in my work as an academic, there have been fluctuations. Although my field, rhetoric, is still taught, today it’s referred to by “fresh” descriptions, including: “public speaking,” “expository writing,” “interpersonal business acumen,” and “human communication.”

Furthermore, when I was as a young lecturer, “alongside the dinosaurs,” “cut and paste” were literal actions that involved a light board and an X-ACTO knife and were required skills for my journalism students. In contrast, at this time, “cut and paste” is a software app. Equally, then, those of us who fronted classrooms used mimeographs to share our ideas. These days, professors merely send emails. Equally, we no longer type up syllabi but create locations, in the cloud, from where all of our course-related materials can be accessed.

In conjunction with the above, university instructors used to check for plagiarism by comparing students’ classroom writing samples to the typed ones that they brought to class. We had no programs through which to run their assignments. Similarly, they had no systems like ChatGP or Grammarly that could enable cheating. Rather, “olden day” learners memorized punctuation rules as well as used hardbound thesauruses to adjust their diction.

When we teachers wanted to add media to our lessons, we threaded film reels into projectors. Eventually, we were able to use CDs. We had no high-tech links to others’ output or the ability to project words and images onto classroom walls via a laptop.

What’s more, we recorded grades in paper trackers and tabulated semester sums via four function calculators. We had neither automated spreadsheets nor smartphones possessed of  advanced mathematical functions. Withal, we taught our students how to use card catalogs, and then, in due course, how to use touch screen directories. We had no links to collections outside of our schools.

Additionally, we taught in person. Many decades passed before onscreen or hybrid offerings became available. It took even longer for them to be regarded as valid.

Finally, both social ignorance, in general, and antisemitism, specifically,  existed in tertiary educational institutions, but they were mostly hush-hush. These days, the other way around, as evidenced in the media and in too many youths’ experiences, they’re visible and popular on campuses.

My occupation is not the only significant facet of my life that’s diverged. More than thirty years ago, I merited to become a mother. Nevertheless, that calling, too, has morphed. When I was a new parent, somewhere “around The Bronze Age,” car seats transmuted from not being obligatory, to being allowed on a vehicle’s front bench, to being restricted to back seats, to necessarily facing certain ways, depending on a child’s height and weight.

What’s more, we moms stuffed our kids into our cars whenever we needed groceries; there was no online shopping. All the more so, using delivery services obliged us to first show up at markets to select and purchase our goods and then to wait at home for their arrival. On top of that, we couldn’t use computers for bank transitions. Conversely, we got by with drive-thru banking. Whereas the advent of the ATM was a paradigm shift, the convenience of pulling up to a window, expressly not having to rouse our sleeping young ones to bring them inside a bank, was marvelous. Besides, any  rug rats who were impervious to the lulling of their mom’s car, that is, who remained awake, ordinarily, were distracted by a drive-thru’s pneumatic tubes.

Unfortunately, at this time, entertaining little ones does not include watching propelled cylindrical containers move across conduits. Usually, it doesn’t embrace weekly trips to public libraries, either. Anymore, parents use devices to switch on child-friendly narratives. Not only do contemporary kids venture less often to reading rooms than their parents, but, overall, they engage in less physical activity, too. Just as problematic, “up-to-date” moms and dads don’t regularly sing to their prodigies; the new generation of carers tap a few keys and the cartoons that their kids were watching are instantly replaced with lullabies.

Into the bargain, our culture’s become more phobic. The number of inoculations required for babies and tots has more than doubled over the recent decades. To boot, we seem to fear each other more. In this day and age, consenting to children traveling on their own can be grounds for child services being called. Except in places like Israel, where we’re one big mishpacha, it’s even frowned upon for youngsters to walk to school without an adult.

On the brighter side, unlike the span when I was raising sons and daughters, nowadays, gender prejudices seem to have diminished. Namely, girls are being encouraged to aspire to all sorts of vocations. On balance, raising children has become devalued proportionate to the increased importance assigned to women’s employment outside the home.

Much more recently, roughly twenty years ago, I was blessed to experience a fundamental pivot beyond the developments in components of my public and private life; my family moved to Israel. At the time, as a green olah, I was focused on newly accessible spiritual heights. Very soon, thereafter, though, I had to also deal with local mundanities.

For instance, my family was advised to use new rolls of paper towels and toilet paper as “packing material” for our belongings since, then, the Israeli versions were neither soft nor absorbent. Plus, after landing, we had to use metal currency to feed parking meters. We hadn’t apps or smart phones for those transactions. Likewise, pay phones and neighborhood mailboxes still existed.

On the flip side, in those days, the shuk was a locals’ destination, not a tourist spot. There was a limit on how high city buildings could reach. No electric bikes posed sidewalk danger. In a like manner, produce was cheap and plentiful and although housing was pricey, it was literally several times more affordable than it is at the moment.

COVID and many wars, including the current one, took place in the interim. Subsequently, we could use Telehealth options for care, could better appreciate trauma survivors’ challenges, and could better remember to count our blessings. Granted, Eretz Yisrael remains the Holy Land while it’s been increasingly transformed.

Nonetheless, the worlds seems to have forgotten the sanctity of our land and of our people. During the decades since my family merited to make aliyah, “Palestinian” swung from the appellation given to Am Yisrael, to a reference for our mortal enemies.

In my profession, in my familial role, and as a citizen of Israel, I’ve beheld many goings-on transfigure. Yet, as stated in Kohelet, “there’s nothing new under the sun.” Teachers still care that their students grow into moral persons and that they gain proficiencies and knowledge. Parents still fight to insure the best possible future for their children. Olim still love the Klal and Hashem and expend their kishkas to make certain that their devotion translates into a better kesher with The King and the continued existence of Israel.