Isolation

Last night, on the Chilean evening news, a report on the first “cyber-school” in Chile caught my interest. The tone of the story was one of progress – The Future is Here, Now, in Chile! The correspondent interviewed various cyber-students and their parents, all of whom praised the school and stated a preference for red Kool-Aid. Parents expressed an appreciation for the flexibility of the curriculum and its ability to meet the individual needs of each student. The students – interviewed while “in school” – seemed thrilled that math class looked a whole lot like Tetris. Towards the end of the report, in what felt like a peace offering to the gods of journalistic integrity, the reporter interviewed a psychologist. Because apparently it takes years of graduate studies to understand the link between social interaction and healthy emotional development. The psychologist explained that for this reason, the absence of peers is one drawback of cyber-schools.

As a pedagogue, I think the cyber-school is an absolute disaster. As an animal rights appreciator, however, I see the glass half-full. In the 1960s, the controversial research (monkey torture?) of psychologist Harry Harlow produced conclusive results linking isolation to psychopathology. In the words of Harlow (from no less an authority than Wikipedia…), “No monkey has died during isolation. When initially removed from total social isolation, however, they usually go into a state of emotional shock, characterized by autistic self-clutching and rocking. One of six monkeys isolated for 3 months refused to eat after release and died 5 days later. The autopsy report attributed death to emotional anorexia. The effects of 6 months of total social isolation were so devastating and debilitating that we had assumed initially that 12 months of isolation would not produce any additional decrement. This assumption proved to be false; 12 months of isolation almost obliterated the animals socially.” The research confirmed the importance of social interaction, but of course, the monkeys were not asked whether or not they wanted to participate in a study designed to induce psychopathology (Harlow called the isolation chamber “the pit of despair”). I suspect (though wouldn´t place a bet) that the performance of such tests on unwilling human subjects would provoke a public outcry. But if the subjects were not only willing, but paying to participate in the tests and calling it “school”… well, that´s a victory for monkeys and science.

Today, on a two-hour inter-Santiago bus ride from one Chilean host family to another, I put pieces of plastic in my ears and turned on my handheld boredom alleviation device. I chose “Falling Slowly” from the Once soundtrack and turned the volume up to a level that my ears would never tolerate in a quieter ambient, but which just barely managed to rise above the sonic landscape of car horns, construction, the diesel engine, and the ice cream vendor pacing the center aisle and shouting, “helado heladito helado heladito chirimoya piña mora-crema naranja helado helado”. Shut up, shut up, shut up! I don´t want an ice cream. Especially not a fruit-flavored ice cream. That´s a popsicle, not ice cream. Shout in my face when you´re selling something with chocolate in it, ok? Now shut up so I can listen to my music. You´re completely ruining this song. Wow. The voice in my head thinks that all of you people are interrupting my enjoyment of life. Isn´t that interesting? Which part of me thinks that life is my movie theater and you better turn off your cell phone and not talk during the show?

About half way through the song, I looked up to notice that a new noise I had been trying to ignore was the music of a woman and a man – she with a guitar and he without arms – singing a duet. Almost as common as the ice cream vendors on Santiago buses, are the tough-luck troubadours – usually an unkempt man with a guitar or a wooden flute playing for coins from the passengers. This was the first time I had ever seen a couple playing together on a bus. As hard as I tried to be oblivious, I couldn´t miss the odd synchronicity of events. (Once, for those of you who haven´t seen it, is the story of a man who plays his guitar and sings on the street for money, and then meets a woman who makes music with him.) Once I acknowledged the ironic situation, I had a choice to make. I could continue to listen to my hBAD or I could turn it off and listen to live music. If I continued to listen to “Falling Slowly”, I would no longer be choosing a beautiful duet over traffic noise and shouting, I´d be choosing a recorded duet over a real-life duet. The same person who hours earlier had scoffed at the absurdity of cyber-school, I almost chose the former. In part because I noticed my own inconsistency and didn´t want to be hypocritical in addition to isolated, I took out my earphones. The music was so beautiful it moved me to contribute every coin in my pockets (200 pesos). Then, feeling better about myself, I returned to my aural isolation.