Computers In The Classroom

An excerpt from Udolpho.com:

It could be that the money spent by schools on computers in the classroom has accomplished little more than the money previously spent on televisions in the classroom, film projectors in the classroom, and tape cassette-narrated slideshows in the classroom.  It has bought apparently priceless nap-time for pedagogues and given students another way to avoid studying or learning anything.  Has it made them smarter?  Take a guess.  (Maybe the most insidious effect of computers in the classroom is that they encourage the moronic sentiment that learning can be "fun" – is this a culture that undervalues fun and overvalues hard work?)

The real crisis in education is that which affects students who begin school well behind their peers and never catch up.  By the end of elementary school these students are reading four or more grade levels behind and are perfectly positioned for a life of ignorance and hardship, competing with sub-minimum wage illegals for the few jobs they are fit to perform – effectively disenfranchised.  They are pushed through the system by indifferent educators despite their obvious difficulties until they reach an age at which it is suitable to eject them, grossly unprepared, into the real world.  Yes, the problem is that when you put these students at a school desk with a computer they are already screwed.  When you are hopelessly behind other students in such subjects as English and math, what is a computer supposed to do for you?  It serves much the same purpose as oxygen masks on an airplane about to make an uncontrolled landing – it keeps the student sedated and untroubled by the harshness of life to come.

Comments

[Bryan]

Whoever wrote this drivel has spent as much time in a classroom as I have spent in outer space.

[Maven]

Well, if you'd like the perspective of one who has spent MUCH time in the classroom, look no further than John Taylor Gatto, former New York State Teacher of the Year.

Here's a good article he wrote:
"How public education cripples our kids, and why"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm

[Andrea Harris]

Gee, Bryan, I've somehow managed to learn to read and write without having a computer. I used these funny old things called "books" and "paper" and "pencils." And I learned how to read so early in my life that I can't remember a time when I didn't know how to read. These strange things called "parents" taught me. I've met kids today who, with all the internet and tv and so on at their disposal, who know less about the world at fifteen years of age than I did at ten. So where is he writing drivel?

[Noumenon]

I don't know how much time you spent in outer space, but unless this guy also grew up there he probably spent at least twelve years in the classroom. (Sorry.) This pretty much matches Bob Somerby's view at the Daily Howler, and he actually educated these kind of kids and is a liberal.

Andrea, I would bet that you could have met the same kids who knew less than you did when you were ten. Most people don't learn that kind of stuff.