Windows Vista

When I was having my requisite new ownership hassles with Microsoft Vista, my computer guy, who is knowledgeable and honest, told me that Vista is a superior operating system and is genuinely misunderstood by most people. I laughed. I thought Vista was snarky.

My guy told me that my problems with Vista weren’t really its problems, but that I was making bad decisions about what I could and could not run on it. He told me that, since many of the old software from previous Microsoft operating systems conflicted with Vista, it was best to wipe away all the old programs, and Vista would work like a charm. Vista needed to not be in conflict with other systems to function at its best.

But I was irritated with such radical talk about Vista. Shouldn’t Vista have been the one to make their system run my old HP printer without me having to buy a new printer? How about my Cakewalk Home Studio II? I didn’t care if they were up to Home Studio VI orsomething! Why should I have to buy that new program so that my computer would be Vista compatible? Too much new stuff!

My guy was patient, and when he finished laughing, he again
explained that we were dealing with something new here, and the old really wasn’t going to work with the new. The two would instead work against each other in many ways on deep levels, and since the old wasn’t nearly as efficient and productive as the new, why not just make the changes?

So when Jack says CI and grammar are mutually exclusive, I have to agree with him. But when Nancy mentions multiple intelligences and how each class is different and each teacher if gifted to teach in different ways, I have to agree with her.

For me it is like a race car driver. For 24 years I didn’t have a race car. I had a 1973 Chevy Vega, my grammar car. It ran all right. I didn’t get fired. But that grammar car sure sputtered and, like me, broke down a few times.

But that car was all I had during those 24 years, so I used it. Until one fine day I drove down to Colorado Springs and Susie Gross, still in her classroom then, showed me a Porsche. I took it for a test drive (practice taught in her classroom with TPRS).

The only image I can think of to describe what it was like to teach a Susie Gross-trained 8th grade French I class in April is what it must feel like to fly a 757 airplane.

It was a big hunk of CI, and those kids moved around in the language with ease, turning, banking, a big hunk of airborne CI. It was in that moment that I knew the old way was dead, and that TPRS was the future.