I recently called Charlie Atkins up on Lake Azicohos.

I call Charlie every year at this time to reserve the first-night campsite for my upcoming canoe trip with Jim McLaughlin, chair of the performing arts department, two senior proctors, and a bunch of new students. That call and the particular blue of the August Maine sky both remind me that we are rapidly approaching the beginning of another school year.

The new student orientation trip that Jim and I will lead next week had me thinking on this recent article in the New York Times, regarding how our brains function when unplugged from our laptops, iPhones and other mobile devices.

All of us who have spent time in the wild understand the "Third Day Syndrome." This article is not a basis for being suspicious or fearful of technology, but it is a strong reminder of our responsibility to find balance for ourselves and our students.

I believe we do a very good job of achieving this balance here at Gould.

This year our students and faculty will embark on a maiden voyage into our 1:1 laptop program. As I told our incoming families in a recent letter home, it is the most significant development in technology at Gould since the arrival of the Internet twenty years ago. Our hope is that this technology will eventually take us beyond mere enhancement of learning to transformation of learning by helping us to see, hear, and understand ideas and phenomena that heretofore have been out of our reach. That is a high hope and cause for great excitement.

Nevertheless, before this technological embarkation, we will climb into our canoes, or strap on our backpacks and set out into the wild to get to know one another a little bit better. We'll unplug again on Mountain Day, during junior Four Point, and a number of other times throughout the year.

Balance. It's what we teach, and it's what we do.