"my child is going to have every advantage possible!" a laudable goal defeated by the insistence of having every classroom in america connected to the web. this implies every child having access to a computer in the classroom. is this necessarily good? i think not. we've gotten away from the notion that a strong educational foundation is tantamount for success, and have replaced it with glitz and technological "marvels" for their own sake.
computers are tools to be used once a foundation of knowledge has been built. it should not be the goal of education. "my child knows computers!", a parent will exclaim. know what? how to click on some buttons to get an answer? "surf" the web? the web is a non-edited repository of misinformation and so-called diatribes of "free speech" all too often. (i'm sure you consider this page to be exactly that...you may be right.) children learn how to collect information but not how to filter the "wheat from the chaffe" nor how to create anything of use. (oops, i forgot, we're about to transcend this existence for a kinder, virtual reality.)
"computers," when not used properly, are not going to teach children important critical thinking simply because they give the children results without having to think abstractly. logically. we've all heard the phrase: "garbage in, garbage out." well computers are the ultimate "garbage in" for a child's mind. it's a crutch, not a cure. it will create a generation capable of gathering information, but incapable of creating useful products. it will lead to a society so heavily focused on "services" that it cannot create the "goods" required to go forth.
oh sure, students, having had the luxury of using--no relying on--computers in the classroom for most of their formative years, are graduating from colleges now. they haven't built a thing; however, they assume they can design functional "things" on the computer. consider frightening real world scenarios:
yeah, to both.
personally, i think that children should learn the fundamentals. this is not necessarily a call to victorian teaching methods, but to understand that not everything technically advanced is inherently good in all places; that the old ways--though old--are not necessarily bad; and that misapplication of the latest "gadgets" for teaching is going to result in long-term problems, gleaned from short-term objectives. stepping too far into the future may land us in a quagmire of failure.
our society is obsessed with "throwing money at a problem" before thinking it through and understanding the underlying problem at hand. a problem not thoroughly understood will not be solved with cash.
nor with computers.
2018 The content above is as originally created for my ExchangeNet home page in 1998.
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This site developed and maintained by greg kimnach.
O.K., you're a PhD. Just don't touch anything!