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Really, the whole pledge is just one big hapax legomenon, a string of syllables that only comes to life in classrooms and school assemblies. But there's a lesson for children in that: The attachment to flag and country is a unique bond that requires a special language of its own. In theory, the pledge could do most of the same work if we had children say it in Anglo-Saxon or Arapaho, or if we replaced it with the lyrics to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." They're going to turn the words into jabberwocky anyway: "I led a pigeon to the flag," "one Asian under guard."

A way of coming to a more integrated understanding of emotion is to surrender to the boundless accessibility of laughing and crying. I spent the last year occupied with such a task. The search for answers led me to areas as new to science as the mirror-neuron system, as painful as neurological disorders, and as artistic as method acting. There emerged a uniquely human science of emotion that begins to sew closed the doggedly dualistic notions of mind and body, heart and head. 

For years, these narratives were passed down from older sibling to younger sibling and kept alive through iconic events embedded in the monoculture as well as smaller moments trafficked through the bootleg circuit run by ardent fans of the music. But, with the dawn of YouTube, these narratives started being perpetuated by the instant, free accessibility of archival footage. This is content that, until YouTube came along, had no real place in media besides the occasional kitschy or overly reverent clip show. In the past, if you wanted to experience that iconic moment in which Dylan muttered "play it fuckin' loud" in response to the man who cried "Judas," you had to track down a bootleg. Now, all you have to do is fire up your browser:

So what’s it all about, this Twitter? Is it signaling, like telegraphs? Is it Zen poetry? Is it jokes scribbled on the washroom wall? Is it John Hearts Mary carved on a tree? Let’s just say it’s communication, and communication is something human beings like to do.

Contestants had two moves available: 1) Swap the position of two games on the list or 2) Replace a game on the list with one not on it, putting the new game in the departing game's spot.

It’s emotionally casual, designed specifically to not challenge the player’s feelings of empathy or guilt. Although it takes a lot of design work to make sure the player won’t feel sorry for the extras, seeing how many pixilated crash-test dummies you can run over isn’t emotionally challenging for the player.

Sing the virtues of those processed pulp products called books. Hit students with your best shot about why they cannot find everything they need by sitting in their pajamas and surfing the Web. Require that research projects cite a certain number of items from the library. And after you’ve done all of that, take a cold shower and face the reality that most of them are still going to rely primarily on electronic sources. Don’t tell students not to use them; you’re only setting them up to deceive. (They’ll simply consult these but not cite them.)

Technology upsets the traditional hierarchies and categories of education. It can put the learner at the center of the educational process. Increasingly this means students will decide what they want to learn, when, where, and with whom, and they will learn by doing. Functions that have long hung together, like research and teaching, learning and assessment, or content, skills, accreditation, and socialization, can be delivered separately.

Today, handheld and networked devices are at the same turning point, with an important difference: They are tools for expression and connection, not just passive absorption. "You put a kid in front of a TV, they veg out," says Andrew Shalit, creator of the First Words app and father of a toddler son. "With an iPhone app, the opposite is true. They're figuring out puzzles, moving things around using fine motor skills. What we try to do with the game is create a very simple universe with simple rules that kids can explore."

For children born in the past decade, the transformative potential of these new universes is just beginning to be felt. New studies and pilot projects show smartphones can actually make kids smarter.

Even the most prolific users say Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap in to the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts. And once you get pulled in, you might just find you have something to say after all.

Interestingly, the classes aren't just in film studies or media studies departments; they're turning up in social science disciplines as well, places where the preferred method of inquiry is the field study or the survey, not the HBO series, even one that is routinely called the best television show ever. Some sociologists and social anthropologists, it turns out, believe The Wire has something to teach their students about poverty, class, bureaucracy, and the social ramifications of economic change.