Beyond Brain-Storming to Brain-Flooding: Google Maps for Personal Narrative
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John Larkin in Oz nudged me to consider playing with the idea he so creatively played with on his own site: “How Far I Roamed as a Child.”
John’s post gives the full background of the idea, and a nicely visual guided tour of his own childhood using personal photos and satellite imagery from Google Maps1. But this excerpt from John’s post brings out the historical and educational thrust of the idea:
[An] article in the Mail online, ‘How children lost the right to roam in four generations‘, is particularly telling. It sets out quite clearly how from one generation to the next children are not roaming as far as their parents and grandparents.
Firing up Google Maps and revisiting my elementary and junior high years’ stomping grounds in Tennessee was a blast – and as John seemed to understand by inviting me to play with his idea, it has all sorts of engaging applications for the writing classroom. One example is all I have time for at the moment, and it’s this: By typing in my childhood home address on Google Maps, then clicking “street view” and zooming and panning around a bit, I found, of all unremarkable things, the street-drainage ditch in front of my house, with its tunnel under the street to the other side, which I crawled through as a child surely hundreds of times – and up the hill from that, in what was once my yard, the grandest hickory tree you could ever imagine, whose autumn leaves I and my brother and sisters and parents and dogs raked into piles (okay, the dogs didn’t rake), dove into, splashed around in like leafy surf, on and on. Here’s a screenshot:
The Ditch, the Hickory, the Memory Flood
Wouldn’t This Work in the Writing Classroom?
The photo above may not do anything for you, and it shouldn’t. But me? I can hear the flung rocks echoing from the tunnel, smell the algae in its puddles, remember the sense of mystery of the world opening out at tunnel’s end. For autobiography and personal narrative, again, this beats the utter hell out of brainstorming with pencil and paper about my childhood. Never in a hundred years would I have even remembered that ditch and tunnel. But now that I do, the related memories wax exponential. That ditch, for example: after a heavy rain, it was a child’s river, and so, with my best friend Gary (who drowned with his father a few summers later), we named that “river,” in a bit of blood-brother name-combining, the “Clary.” Again, just an example of how this goes beyond brain-storming to brain-flooding.
How Far I Roamed
Anyway, like John, man did I roam as a child. I must have walked four or five miles a day on average. Here’s Google Maps, with my first attempt to use Adobe Illustrator for labels and arrows, to show the details (click image for larger view, and note the key in the lower left corner):
How Far I Roamed: Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1960s and '70s
(And for the students out there who read this, let me know: do you roam as far these days? Or have you “lost the right to roam”? And Dad: you can comment too, you know. How far did you roam as a child, on a daily basis?)
If you decide to play with this meme, by the way, please link it to John’s original post. It’s his baby, and it’s a good one.
- including the astonishing “street view” which, as the name implies, puts you in the perspective of a photographer standing on whatever spot of road you choose, and allows you to pan 360°, tilt up and down, zoom in, “walk” up or down the street [↩]
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I grew up in a very rural setting; my parents still own about 80 acres of Oregon farmland. Some of my favorite memories involve the nighttime “maneuvers” my friends and I would go on. We’d don our stealth clothes and play intricate games of hide and seek in the surrounding fields. My mom always called the neighbors – especially Mr. Arbuckle, who had a quick trigger finger – to let them know that any strange noises were probably the result of boys sneaking around.
Now, as the father of two boys and two girls, I have a hard time imagining giving them the same freedom to be out at all hours of the night without adult supervision. Sure, the world has changed…but I have no doubt that my children are missing out on a rich tapestry of memories.
Reading your post, along with Larkin’s original, I’m inspired with new angles of approach to our class focus on personal and regional histories and the authentic writing tie-ins possible. I’m interested to discover the roaming ranges of my students and what those paths mean to them. I love how real life and the connections of conversation so eloquently inform and deepen learning. Thank you for an exciting new line of instructional possibilities.
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davidcosand
19 Aug 08 at 1:56 pm
Once again, an intriguing post, and one that has both my neocortex and amygdala firing away. I may need two cups of coffee before I’m through.
First, the neocortex:
What’s not to love? Brain-flooding based on new technology tied to instructional strategies keeps the schools humming.
Progress! Writing! Google! Budgets justified, curricula met, classes engaged. I’d have to wipe a tear of happiness from my eye as the principal walks in to witness this miracle in the classroom, having interrupted his day when he learned of the miracle in the science wing.
(Despite my crankiness, I have to admit I’ll likely try this in the classroom before the year is out–it’s a great tool.)
So why is my amygdala doing its own brain-flooding, clouding my brain with emotional energy, emitting vague noises that my neocortex interprets as obscenities? Here it goes:
1) Clay, those of us who wandered in the 60’s and 70’s have memories tucked away worth flooding. We’re grown-ups. Our memories are not screen memories, not ear bud memories.
We wandered all over, and we did wonderful (and wonderfully stupid) things. We played with living and dead animals, we nearly drowned (and some of us did) or nearly got killed on a bike or a sled (and some of us did). We got lost without phones or GPS or even (gasp) a dime to call home. We ate unwashed fruit off the trees. We had our Suicide Hill. We ate apples and homemade popcorn balls made by strangers on Hallowe’en. We mixed blood as blood brothers.
We lived.
Most of us, anyway.
And each of us will die. We are mortal critters.
The myth, the Great Myth, is that the world is more dangerous now. It is safer, far safer, at least in this part of the world, but it can never be truly safe, and we lose something trying to pretend otherwise.
Growing up, kids in our occasionally died growing up–one kid ran his sled under a parked car (no supervision), another kid got killed by an errant bat (no helmet), another broke his neck diving into a tidal creek at low tide (he died a few years later–a fine reminder for the rest of us to get a grip on tides), a classmate died of leukemia, another on a skateboard.
A morbid list, but not a prelude to return to the Olden Days. The point is this: not one abduction by a stranger, not one death from the razor blade hidden in the apple, not one drug pusher said “Hey, kid, try this…”
Our biggest fear was The Stripper, a man who supposedly lived in the woods and would make you take off your clothes. (”Don’t walk alone in the woods,” pretty good advice when you’re eleven.)
Were there sexual predators? Of course. Are there now? Yep, with even better access to children.
2) I read your post, and as I got deeper into it, I’m nodding and thinking, yes, Clay’s going to say something pithy and confirm my world view (why else wile away summer morning hours on a machine?)
(You write so well I bet I would enjoy a tech manual on how to replace a timing chain written by you.)
I thought you were going to suggest that we push the children outside, and let them roam again, so that they have brain-floods of thoughts beyond photon memories, memories framed by whatever size screen their family or district could afford.
What I fear now is that kids will find their homes on the “street view” and somehow feel “more” validated.
And the amygdala fires off another neuron or two.
3) Administrators will have to block your site because you advocate unsafe mixing of bodily fluids.
4) I love Google. I fear Google. Having a whole class of students type in this kind of information from various sites is powerful data.
Google’s not getting rich just because of a fancy pants search engine. A good chunk of their “value” comes from big investors who get the data thing.
How confused am I? I want to be a Google certified teacher. I use Google in the classroom, and not just the search engine. I get lost for hours playing with a variety of their tools.
Google knows more about me than my mother did. And only a ragged remnant tucked in my amygdala even cares anymore, and my neocortex cannot remember why anymore.
And in another generation, the first generation raised by the generation that spent most of its conscious hours at work or at school or in front of a monitor, will no longer even ask why we do not roam anymore.
(And now a completely off-topic apology–I am sorry I linked your thoughts with John Taylor Gatto’s. I might even fix the reference if I am ever caffeinated enough to sustain goal directed activity for more than 47 seconds.)
Michael Doyles last blog post..A Bloomfield menagerie: praying mantis
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Michael Doyle
19 Aug 08 at 8:58 pm
Sorry both of you to shoot off a brief reply. Busy tonight.
@David, it was nice to roam with you through Oregon past. Nicely written (and so much more evocative than your original Twitter respones
).
@Doyle, my Apple dictionary says the amygdala is associated with the sense of smell, so I’m sort of lost. But that’s okay and not unusual anyway.
The “how far did you roam” frame sort of implies the “get outside and roam” message, or so I hoped.
And Google? A scary beast, yes – but we’re all mortal, and to me, I’ll add it to the list of fears to ignore in order to enjoy the present. You know, traffic, baseball bats, parked cars, etc.
Funny coincidence: I was reading your latest posts while you were apparently commenting on mine. Such a lovely voice,
to unintentionally quote Blake’s “Little Lamb.”. (Update: oops, Blake used “tender,” not “lovely.” Never mind.)Reply
Clay Burell
19 Aug 08 at 9:13 pm
Oh, and Doyle: I’d love to talk with Gatto. Agree with much of what he says, but just wish he’d consider his basic ideological assumptions more critically than it seems to me he has. Overall, I admire the guy, to be clearer.
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Clay Burell
19 Aug 08 at 9:15 pm
Oh and #2: Doyle, can you tell me where I advocate “unsafe mixing of bodily fluids?” I’m laughing as I type!
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Clay Burell
19 Aug 08 at 9:20 pm
#1)More about the amygdala soon, I’m off to meet with a teacher about overhauling our curriculum, but for now, know that it is the part of the primitive brain that has long neural connections to the cortex, and is indeed where smell “sensations” pass through (and back) on the way to our “higher” part of our brain, It also appears to be the seat of fear and rage, as much as anything can be seated in our brain.
If you remove a rat’s amygdala, it will not run from a cat. (Which brings memories now of my mother singing “…and up on his haunches he sat, singing in the pale moonlight, bring out the goddamn cat” or something like that.;)
#2) Given our generation, I took the “blood-brother name-combining” naming of your stream literally. And, of course, memories rushed in of the moments just before you prick yourself, to mix your blood with your eternal friend, becoming blood brothers.
Or maybe we were just stupid literal kids with too much time on our hands–I think eventually every boy in the neighborhood had mixed blood with every other one within a grade or two in years.
But if I’m an administrator, I’m playing it safe and removing it anyway–cannot have too much safety in this world.
(Shoot…late…hit submit and run!)
Michael Doyles last blog post..A Bloomfield menagerie: praying mantis
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Michael Doyle
19 Aug 08 at 9:41 pm
This meme really seems to have grabbed people, myself included. When I was a kid my family moved around a bit (each of my dad’s promotions meant a new town) so tonight after reading your post I hopped onto Google maps to check out each of my old neighbourhoods. I thought I’d like to see in which town I had the longest walk to school. To figure out the distances quickly I used Gmaps Pedometer. It’s a great web app I started using a while ago to figure out how long my run routes are.
I wasn’t surprised at my longest walk; 3.6 km (2.3 mi) when I lived in North Vancouver, BC. But I could have sworn that the walk to my elementary school in Prince George BC was longer than 0.7 km (0.4 mi)! I guess the pretty cold winters (-20C was usual) coupled with high snowbanks and short legs skewed my sense of distance
Anyway, I just wanted to share the Gmaps Pedometer link with those who are interested in taking on this meme. Thanks for the term ‘brain flooding’, and for the prod to take some walks down memory lane.
Claire Thompsons last blog post..Combatting Teacher Burnout
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Claire Thompson
20 Aug 08 at 1:47 pm
Thanks Clay for taking it up. Your stories of the ditch and the drain bring back memories of Cabbage Tree Creek for me. We sued to ride our bikes down a path and into the creek for a few metres up. Crazy. Riding one’s bike down the main target hill of the old rifle range was also a bit hairy too. I think I soiled my BVDs on my first effort. After that you could not stop me.
David: Loved reading your story of stealthy adventures. We used to play Phantom Agents as kids. My brother Peter even made some star knives. http://home.alphalink.com.au/~roglen/phantom.htm
Michael: Great stories. Real stuff. Life. Happiness. Tragedy. We used cardboard or masonite sleds to ride down sand, not snow. If there was a hill we would find a way to slide down it.
Claire: Those walks did always seem so long yet as we grow older those same walks become our old friends.
Cheers, John.
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John Larkin
20 Aug 08 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for that, Claire. I just used the pedometer instead of eye-balling the distances and like you, found them shorter than I thought. I guess years and miles grow shorter with age.
There’s no way I’m going to fight Adobe Illustrator to correct the text on my map, though
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Clay Burell
20 Aug 08 at 6:26 pm
Clay,
This was an odd memory stirrer for me, because rather than thinking of my own childhood, I noticed that my first place in Chattanooga (by which point I was married and in my late 20’s) was just off your map. BTW, Eastgate is a ghost mall now. Everything has moved northeast around Hamilton Place.
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Jason Green
22 Aug 08 at 2:15 am
[...] today in a blog I just found, about how far one roamed as a child. The bloggers (John Larkin and Clay Burell)who wrote the original posts are probably in the 30-40 age range, solidly marking them as an older [...]
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