Notes from my Knapsack 7-11-24
Jeff Gill
New tours of the vastness of the Newark Earthworks
___
On Saturday, July 20th, I will be leading two tours, one at 9 am and another at 6 pm, of the eastern half of the Newark Earthworks.
This is a double helping of the tour I've led many times over the last few decades, starting and ending at the Great Circle just off of Rt. 79 on the border of Newark and Heath, but walking the streets to view "remnants" in between the major preserved elements of that two thousand year old, four and a half square mile complex.
We have two major portions preserved by citizens of Licking County back in the Nineteenth Century, acts of awareness which we benefit from today: the Great Circle set aside in the 1850s as the county fairground, and the Octagon Earthworks in 1891 by vote of the citizens on a ten year bond issue to purchase the parcel. Yet in between, spanning a mile and more of today's Newark neighborhoods, there are bits and pieces, remnants of the original complex, you can still see.
The long running "Remnants Tour" I lead takes about three hours, covering three and a half miles of walking, down side streets and along a few alleys, to surprise even longtime local residents with what's still visible beyond the two large earthwork parks. But it covers barely half of the eastern half of the complex as it once was.
This is why I'm excited about the opportunity on Monday, July 22nd, at 9 am, to lead a "Remnants West" tour for the first time, starting and ending at the Octagon Earthworks which has one of its four "open house" days on that date. This one will be a bit shorter, taking about two hours and covering not quite two and a half miles, staying west of 21st St. just as the Remnants East tour (as we'll need to call it now!) loops north and back to the south all well east of 21st. St.
These Remnants tours help the visitor see how much of the Newark Earthworks are still present on the landscape, and by walking the outlines of what was once fully present here you get a sense of the scale of what Native American builders accomplished along Raccoon Creek two millennia ago.
While the route is fairly level and easy, we do cross busy streets, and walkers are asked to bring a good hat or sunscreen, and water (it is July in Ohio, after all!). In previous years we've had two ventures at walking the entire outline of the Newark Earthworks, which takes most of a day and covers about seven miles, so it seems prudent to keep with two shorter loops for logistical purposes: but if you come to one of the Remnants East walking tours on Saturday, and then Remnants West on Monday morning, you'll see most of the whole between the two!
Or just enjoy the grounds of Octagon Earthworks at the corner of Parkview and 33rd St. between 10 am and 4 pm on Monday, July 22 for yourself. It is indeed a sight to see, and to experience.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's looking forward to covering some "new ground" this month. Tell him where you're seeing sights this summer at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Friday, June 28, 2024
Monday, June 24, 2024
Faith Works 6-28-24
Faith Works 6-28-24
Jeff Gill
Contact and communication in the summertime
___
Word out of Los Angeles is that their giant school district is taking steps to ban or block student use of cell phones on campus. Still many details to come, I can tell.
When I've written about school staff talking about their concerns around student use and misuse of smartphones during the school day, I've quickly gotten pushback from parents about the core concern they have over being able to be in touch with their children, and the issues they raise are not just "to prevent them from having a bad day" or other easy retorts one could offer.
Health and medical issues, as well as problems with existing student care plans arising, are real and a problem. It's not as simple as "well, write the IEP to give them permission to have a cell phone on their person" which is one reaction that comes up often. Having one in a hundred students with an authorized phone creates issues all their own, including pressure from peers to use their phone, et cetera. You can imagine how some of those scenarios would play out.
Meanwhile, reputable scholars and educators, Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt foremost among them, are mustering evidence that smartphones and social media should be held back from children until age 16 or thereabouts. And as I've said here before, local educators have said to me they believe the harm they see done between youth with this technology makes them want to treat smartphones like firearms: legal in society, perhaps, but completely banned on school property. I'll admit, it seems drastic, but I got to grow up without these tools, and didn't have to learn how to manage them until I was, um, old. Older, anyhow. It was still fairly new when my child got to that age, and we simply didn't have to deal with the question of a nine year old having an Instagram account, or a twelve year old with Snapchat.
What I recall each summer, now, is my work in the 1970s through the early 2000s as a director of summer camp programs, Scout camps and later church camps. There was an arc to the week that you got used to, starting with arrival and check-in on Sunday.
Sunday night to some degree, but more insistently on Mondays, you dealt with homesickness. I worked early on with mostly middle and high school youth, later on third through fifth graders. If you had a hundred kids at that particular week, you would have two or three "homesickers" to deal with. The cabin counselor would do what they could, but the most upset or fearful would end up referred to you, sobbing on a bench while the rest of the group went to the pool or had some other activity, or maybe even outside of the dining hall during meal time.
I always had an ace in the hole, though. There was one, count 'em, one phone in camp, usually in the kitchen. Maybe a second one in the camp office at the other end of the grounds. No kid got to a phone without the director's say-so. Some camp directors used the "phone's down, no idea when it will be working" trick. To each their own, but I never did that one. I just explained they couldn't use the phone until I gave permission, and as the single path to calling home, they had to talk to me.
Let's just say that is not an option any camp director has today. And that's a huge loss of leverage. But the toothpaste is out of the tube.
How should people of faith think about and talk about social media? There's more to consider here, and the summertime may be a good time to do that.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he had a candy bar phone as long as he could. Tell him how you would like to see churches respond to this issue at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.
Jeff Gill
Contact and communication in the summertime
___
Word out of Los Angeles is that their giant school district is taking steps to ban or block student use of cell phones on campus. Still many details to come, I can tell.
When I've written about school staff talking about their concerns around student use and misuse of smartphones during the school day, I've quickly gotten pushback from parents about the core concern they have over being able to be in touch with their children, and the issues they raise are not just "to prevent them from having a bad day" or other easy retorts one could offer.
Health and medical issues, as well as problems with existing student care plans arising, are real and a problem. It's not as simple as "well, write the IEP to give them permission to have a cell phone on their person" which is one reaction that comes up often. Having one in a hundred students with an authorized phone creates issues all their own, including pressure from peers to use their phone, et cetera. You can imagine how some of those scenarios would play out.
Meanwhile, reputable scholars and educators, Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt foremost among them, are mustering evidence that smartphones and social media should be held back from children until age 16 or thereabouts. And as I've said here before, local educators have said to me they believe the harm they see done between youth with this technology makes them want to treat smartphones like firearms: legal in society, perhaps, but completely banned on school property. I'll admit, it seems drastic, but I got to grow up without these tools, and didn't have to learn how to manage them until I was, um, old. Older, anyhow. It was still fairly new when my child got to that age, and we simply didn't have to deal with the question of a nine year old having an Instagram account, or a twelve year old with Snapchat.
What I recall each summer, now, is my work in the 1970s through the early 2000s as a director of summer camp programs, Scout camps and later church camps. There was an arc to the week that you got used to, starting with arrival and check-in on Sunday.
Sunday night to some degree, but more insistently on Mondays, you dealt with homesickness. I worked early on with mostly middle and high school youth, later on third through fifth graders. If you had a hundred kids at that particular week, you would have two or three "homesickers" to deal with. The cabin counselor would do what they could, but the most upset or fearful would end up referred to you, sobbing on a bench while the rest of the group went to the pool or had some other activity, or maybe even outside of the dining hall during meal time.
I always had an ace in the hole, though. There was one, count 'em, one phone in camp, usually in the kitchen. Maybe a second one in the camp office at the other end of the grounds. No kid got to a phone without the director's say-so. Some camp directors used the "phone's down, no idea when it will be working" trick. To each their own, but I never did that one. I just explained they couldn't use the phone until I gave permission, and as the single path to calling home, they had to talk to me.
Let's just say that is not an option any camp director has today. And that's a huge loss of leverage. But the toothpaste is out of the tube.
How should people of faith think about and talk about social media? There's more to consider here, and the summertime may be a good time to do that.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he had a candy bar phone as long as he could. Tell him how you would like to see churches respond to this issue at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.
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