Put down the phone and listen

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This article was published 17/02/2024 (783 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Technology is here to stay, but we must maintain the ability to interact with each other on a personal level for humanity to survive.” Alice French — letter to the editor, Free Press, Feb 13.

This is not the first time I have praised those who write letters to the editor of Manitoba’s newspaper of record.

Since first arriving in this province in the early ’80s, I have been a regular reader of “letters to the editor.”

It’s my relentless search to discover how thinking people view the news stories that matter to them.

I don’t personally know Alice French. But I am grateful to her for thinking about cellphones and their use and abuse among the young and not-so-young. Her letter was in praise of Laidlaw School, College Beliveau and West Kildonan Collegiate for what she called their “forward thinking with restricting access to cellphones during class time.”

For readers who resent my proclivity for personalizing everything I write about, you can stop right here, pick up your phone and stare at photos of puppies and giraffes.

From the fall of 1998 to the summer of 2015, I would frequently describe my CJOB radio show as Manitoba’s biggest classroom. Some teachers and others claimed to be offended.

After all, I had no education degree, no teaching certificate and in their view, no right to make what they called an outrageous claim.

Some critics said I was nothing more than a dirt-disturbing conservative shock jock. It is true that I enjoyed mocking some progressive politicians. Greg Selinger and Glen Murray frequently found themselves in my political dumpster.

From my highly opinionated perspective, neither had the brains or brass of Gary Doer, the best retail politician I had ever seen. There was no room he could walk into where he couldn’t fit in and indeed command attention. He wasn’t a one-trick ideological pony. But some of those I made fun of, most definitely were.

And so the lessons I taught on the radio were about the work ethic, character and moral leadership. It mattered little to me how the critics castigated me. They would always be welcome in my studio to say whatever they wished, to my face. Few took me up on the invitation, fearing that they might be simply setting themselves up for a public chicken plucking.

Over the years I shed the conservative shock jock label, shocking some conservatives when I became critical of their hobgoblins of mediocrity and shabby ethics. I confessed then and now that nobody in Manitoba had more fun teaching life’s lessons than this son of a tailor who had the privilege of speaking into Manitoba’s most coveted microphone, five days a week.

It should surprise no one that some school principals would invite me to spend an hour in various Manitoba classrooms. I never turned down any of those invitations. I was honoured to be invited to speak to eager and curious young Manitoba minds.

But there were rules of engagement. Freedom of expression without rules is nothing more than cacophony. It’s discordant chaotic noise — not worth my time. So there were three rules I wanted students to follow if they were serious about wanting to me to spend an hour in their classroom.

Rule No. 1: Prepare questions for the guest teacher — me.

Rule No. 2: Make sure the questions are screened by their teacher, so that they are principled, informed and constructive for a meaningful conversation.

Rule No. 3: No cellphones.

Since this rule was sometimes considered controversial, and since illustration always conquers explanation, I would take out my cellphone while a student was asking a question and pretend I was ignoring the question while scrolling on my phone. One hundred per cent of the students got the message loud and clear.

I would then dump my phone in a box with all their phones and we were where the class needed to be, ready for a lesson in public communications.

I taught them how to do the kind of homework that would allow them to prepare a monologue, a speech, a column, and to no one’s surprise, a letter to editor.

Thank you Alice French. Thank you Manitobans for giving meaning to my life. If I could, I would get on my cellphone and thank every one of you personally. Thank you, Free Press leadership, for granting me the opportunity to speak to today’s largest Manitoba classroom, the most coveted page in the province — this one.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster. charles@charlesadler.com