mental multitasking

upon waking this morning, i thought, 'what would be a better way to start off the day than with a nice brisk bike ride along the poudre.' so i bundled up bright and early and hit the trail with my educational counterpart, let's call him Yves.

the hope was to pace my day based on a nice casual ride; however, i found myself thinking and talking frantically while biking hurriedly. missing stop signs, dodging cars. meanwhile, yves kept quiet...took his time. maintained a steady strong pace, while i mentally meandered through my 'evolutionary anxieties.'

we started talking about bridges. in light of this summer's bridge catastrophe in minnesota, the following appeared in a cbs news article online:

"Steel corrosion on bridges is still a major concern. Infrastructure experts worry that thousands of American bridges are dangerously outdated and overburdened. In 2006, approximately one-fifth of interstate bridges were rated as deficient, either structurally deficient or obsolete.

Overall, one-quarter of all bridges in the U.S. are considered structurally deficient, and 80,000 bridges across the country need some sort of reconstruction or rebuilding."

however, the pace at which things move in today's society does not allow for total reconstruction or rebuilding. so instead, we put a bandaid on the problem, and while we are in the process of applying the bandaid we are already thinking about what groceries we need to purchase for dinner, whose phone calls we need to return. we are mental multitasking and in doing so forgetting to clean the wound and properly assess the problem.

in today's world we often assume that what we 'know to be true' is true, and we build on top of those assumptions in an effort to save time. what we need to be doing is properly assessing whether or not these truths are outdated.

we need to be CRITICAL of the foundations on which we attempt to build entire worlds of existence.

we need to FOCUS on the task at hand instead of attempting to mental multitask.

if i enjoyed my bike ride in a focused manner, i wouldn't have missed stop signs, dodged cars. my day would have started out at a 'slow and steady' pace. tea instead of coffee, if you will.

so in today's classroom where we are aware that students are much more capable of multitasking, my questions are as follow: what are they missing in such a process and how do we slow this process down in order to assure their critical awareness of the structural deficiency of the bridges on which they travel? should we slow them down?

as my bike ride with yves neared its end, i felt as though i had robbed him of something because i was too busy talking through my mental multitasking at the expense of his meditated quietude. more than that, however, was that in doing so, i dangerously disconnected from my surroundings and missed out on a more enriching ride. i have spent the last several hours drinking some tea in an attempt to slow myself down, but the pace has already been set for my day and i can only hope that tomorrow i will start the day off a little slower before i completely lose myself in mental disconnect.