1980’s Technology at School

Last night I helped my daughter A with her homework. She had a worksheet with several math problems (the word problem kind- the one’s we all love so much).

We got to the last problem and we hit a bump. The set-up was that some girl (I think her name was Sally), surveyed her class to find out what kinds of appliances each student had at home, and how many of each appliances there were amongst all the students.

The results were in a pictograph, with each appliance listed, and a light bulb icon indicating 4 such appliances at a students home. 3 light bulbs next to washing machine meant 12 washing machines at the homes of the students.

There were two appliances little 10 year old A was confused by. Food Processor and Walkman. Both elicited a “what’s that?” question.

Well, sweetie, a food processor is like a, umm, well it’s a sort of machine that chops up food like carrots or tomatoes for salads or cooking.

And the Walkman? I tried to explain it was like a radio you walked around with and also played cassette tapes. Which of course led to “what’s a cassette tape?”

Final response I gave to her? A Walkman is sort of an old-fashioned iPod from when daddy was a kid.