The PC Center at the Carnegie Library’s East Liberty branch offers basic computer classes for those who may not have had the opportunity to learn how to use computers. After realizing I would never get anywhere with my service learning by simply sitting in on Open Work Time, I decided to try to sit in on as many of these classes as possible and to help the librarian(s) instruct their students in these computer basics.
So far I have attended Intro. to Computers and Intro. to Windows, two very basic classes in which I was able to help, for the most part, with the use of the mouse. Intro. to Computers begins with the parts of a computer: “this is the monitor, this is the mouse.” As the librarian explained to me before class began, the hardest part of this class is the proper use of the mouse — particularly double-clicking.
The class was attended by seven ladies, perhaps 50+ in age. They varied in computer skill and knowledge, but all appeared to be able to do everything covered by the end of the class. However, I’m convinced two ladies at the front were far too advanced to get anything from the lessons. One of them quickly explained that she was not taking the class (she’s been working with computers for years) but was “sitting in” to help and support her friend, the lady next to her. However, her friend (apparently) was not pleased about being made out to be the one in need of help or in need of such a rudimentary class, and so the “supportive” lady jokingly conditioned almost every statement with the “fear” that anything she said to me might bring down upon her an act of violence. Joking (and violence) aside, her friend was much farther along than the other students.
I had gone over to them because I had been giving all of my attention to a student behind them who was trying to get familiar with holding the mouse properly and using it to click, double-click, and click and drag — all while learning to play Solitaire. When I went up to the two ladies in the front row they were not doing the Solitaire exercise. After the “supportive” friend had quickly assured me she was not “taking” the class, just sitting in, she started telling me how hard it is for some to use the mouse, like her two year-old granddaughter, who finds it difficult to grip the mouse because her hands are so small — but she is “getting it.” The apparent relation seemed to bother her friend who (understandably) didn’t seem to like any connection with the difficulties of a two year-old.
However, as I was talking to the “supportive” friend, the other had opened Solitaire. As I was turning to go back to the back of the room, she was already at the point of winning the game. She was manipulating the mouse like she’d been doing it all her life and must have been disappointed at the basic level of the class.
There was a reason she was sitting in the front row and I remember she had asked the librarian if she could take the class again if she did not get it the first time (this was before her “supportive” friend came in late). In the end, I doubt she could have learned much that was new to her. But this doesn’t change the fact of her feelings as both ladies made them apparent to me. The ability to use a computer doesn’t make one intelligent, yet she seemed to feel what seems a popular opinion: the perceived inability might make one feel inferior.
