Technology Magic, or Microsoft as Cultural Capital, or How I did One Week’s Work in Two Hours

Our school is extremely fortunate to have several working computers that the students can use for a computer class. Needless to say this is very rare in my part of moz. The students learn computer basics, from how to turn it on to word processing and eventually to programs like Excel.

I happened to be in the computer classroom the other day to use the school’s internet connection, when the computer teacher asked me out of the blue to teach a class on Microsoft Publisher.

Why would this teacher randomly ask me to teach this class? Best guess on my end is that she didn’t know how to use Publisher herself. But the problem is that I don’t technically know how to use Publisher either. In fact, before this class I had never used Publisher, never even opened the program.

But Publisher is a Microsoft office product. With this fact as my sidearm I opened up publisher in a student’s computer and glanced through the menus. I knew vaguely that publisher is for designing newsletters, ads and so forth, I figured there would be an option for adding graphics that were ready-made. Other than that it looked and handled more or less like any other Microsoft product. I agreed to teach the class.

And I taught a two hour lesson on how to use this program. Besides some holes in my Portuguese, it went quite well.

One is tempted (or maybe just I’m tempted) to say, “Wow! Colin you are amazing!” But that assertion is dulled by the fact that I just learned the other day that in Microsoft Excel you can create equations to calculate averages and stuff for gigantic lists of numbers, such that Microsoft Excel will calculate and organize the equations for you, forever cementing Microsoft Excel with microwave ovens, wireless internet, and helicopters in the technological category known as “magic.” I figured out excel could do this literally two days ago, obviously no computer whiz.

So then what’s the deal? Two things: the first and most important was that these kids did not have a better option than me. Secondly just being an American these days—especially one familiar with Microsoft products—is a cultural kind of capital, one that I never went out of my way to learn, one that we just have.

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All week long our work hours have been devoted to grading and inputting grades Because the school’s operations are not computerized, grades must be inputted into certain books and grade sheets in very carefully defined ways. First you write them in pencil in your caderneta (your personal grade recording document), then you pencil them into the grade books (these books have all the information on the students’ attendance and grades; can you imagine what would happen if someone spilled coffee on one? Or if a student decided to steal one?), then in BLUE pen you trace the grades, but not the calculated averages because those need to be double checked, then you trace over your caderneta in pen, then the grades are double checked and traced in pen, then all the grades go on a huge grade sheet called a pauta, which in turn is penciled, double checked, and then traced in pen.

No wonder we have the whole damn week to do this work! Of course I procrastinated on this work and waited until the last possible night. But all I did was input all the grades into excel and politely ask the magic calculator elf inside my computer to tell me the averages, adjust the grades if need be, and tell me the percentage of students who are passing, for a max amount of two hours of work.

So when my colleague asks me if I’m sure there are no errors, I say “of course I’m sure!” because I didn’t do the calculations, the magic calculator elf did, and he’s WAY smarter than me. Honestly what I’d like to do is just print out this document and hand it in, perfect as is. But the school’s one printer is not reserved for this kind of use, and what would they do with my one straggler gradesheet? Staple it to the side of the pauta (the gigantic final grade document) with a note explaining that these are just teacher Colin’s grades?

And that’s how I did one week’s work in two hours. I will qualify by saying it isn’t a full week even for the other teachers, in the sense of five 8-hour days. But I saved a ridiculous amount of time with a ridiculously low margin of error. Technology magic.

In one hour I leave for the world cup in South Africa. I have tickets to Portugal vs. South Korea, and who knows maybe South Korea after their Greece win will be feeling lucky enough to give Portugal a run. Don’t worry mom, I’ll take lots and lots of pictures. If you want a postcard send me your address.