Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall

[O]n this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway
just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops.

Morning
routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials
mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame,
enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet
Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned
— and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often
a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral
problems have virtually disappeared. —Sam Dillon

I suppose before the latest application of technology as a pacifier for teenagers, nothing was stopping these students from reading on the bus, other than, perhaps, the risk of being singled out as a dweeb.

The rainbow vision at the end of the story is just… strange. 

“Dude, there’s a rainbow!” shouted Morghan Sonderer, a ninth grader.

A dozen students looked up from their laptops and cellphones, abandoning technology to stare in wonder at the eastern sky.

“It’s following us!” Morghan exclaimed.

So… the rainbow is the sign of the new covenant between the school system and the teens, and so long as the school board answers the students’ prayers for internet access, they promise not to worship other gods?

Share
Published by
Dennis G. Jerz

Recent Posts

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

1 day ago

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

2 days ago

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” to organize a college term paper.

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham's "Disagreement Hierarchy" to organize a college term paper.

2 days ago

A.I. ‘Completes’ Keith Haring’s Intentionally Unfinished Painting

After learning of his AIDS diagnosis, artist Keith Haring created the work, "Unfinished Painting" (1989),…

2 days ago

Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene from “Dead Man’s Cell Phone.”

Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene…

2 days ago

“The Cowherd Who Became a Poet,” by James Baldwin. (Read by Dennis Jerz)

Inspiration can come to those with the humblest heart. Caedmon the Cowherd believed he had…

3 days ago