On a typical weekday, I'm on a computer 8-12 hours a day. They're a great tool for getting things done, and I'm very glad for them because their existence provides a living for my family.
They are, however, a terrible waste of time for primary education, and with the exception of word processing or Internet-based research, they're probably a waste of time for later grades, too. This article -- from San Francisco, of all places! -- calls computer-saturated education a bunch of b.s.:
Throughout the country, computer technology is dumbing down the academic experience, corrupting schools' financial integrity, cheating the poor, fooling people about the job skills youngsters need for the future and furthering the illusions of state and federal education policy.The article shows that money from intellectual, soul-enhancing activities like music and arts get a much lower priority than technology, to the detriment of the kids.
Education is a human activity. It can be supplemented by machines, but machines do not educate. Putting an excessive number of computers in schools, and using them as a panacea for true education, is thus one of the many tentacles of the culture of death, which attempts to subordinate men to processes, artifacts, and rules, rather than making those things subordinate to man's needs.
Luddites and Lefties Unite! You have nothing to lose but your SCSI daisy-chains!
Thanks so much - not a subject I see addressed much, if at all.
I've been saying this exact same thing for years... since my daughter entered 1st grade in a school (like all of them) that touted "a computer in every classroom!" "the school is wired for technology", etc., etc.
When I started to volunteer teaching the computer class for the local grammar school it dawned on me that the kids do nothing except play games and "learn" to use a mouse - which most of them have been doing at home for a long time. Funny how they can figure out how to use a joy-stick on PSII or Gamecube without classroom instruction. Once and a while we taught them how to look up things on the computer - nothing earth shattering and in fact, most of them could figure it out for themselves. The thing is, most parents are dupes regarding this subject and I know that many of them, when looking for a good school system, use the "computer in every classroom" as criteria for choosing a particular community and its school system.
Myself, I couldn't turn on a computer eight years ago and now I am an analyst for a fairly large firm - repairing and diagnosing computer problems for the entire company. No school training, either. Technology changes so fast you have to learn it on the job.
I am divided sometimes though. I just spend the last few months hunting down computers for my daughter to do mandated school reports on. She needed the latest version of power point twice and another time she needed front page. I'm glad she is learning to use those programs but most of us don't have those programs on our home pc's and so these school projects entail frenetic activity from parents - or at least in my house they do.
The schools get involved in way too many subjects (like computers) and end up shortchanging the time spent on core subjects - accounting for dismal national testing.
Colleen, your response is better than my orginal post.
My "formal" computer education consists of ten days of training: three classes on Microsoft Access in 1997, and two classes on ColdFusion in 2000. There were the computer classes in my public schools, but I already knew what they were teaching, so my friends and I contented ourselves with making obscene messages appear on the screens and laughing at our own cleverness.
Something like 15-20% of IT workers have an IT-related degree. I doubt many of them benefited much from computer integration: they either had a computer at home with which to experiment, or they learned later in life.
As a math teacher, I would have to agree about technology in the classroom. On the whole the impact has be negative. There are legitimate uses for technology but educators seem to be incapable of using technology in a discriminating way. Also, there is pressure from administrators to use technology for PR reasons.
Eric,
You might be interested in reading (if you haven't already) some Neil Postman -- he was very skeptical/critical of the role of modern technology in education.
I've read Postman and made "Amusing Ourselves to Death" a part of me. Theologically, he's got some whacked ideas; politically, he's hopelessly left-of-center; his cultural criticism is ground-breaking and without peer.