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No-Tech Schools In Tech Land
manyoso writes: "This article in the Oregonian tells how some hi-tech parents at Intel are opting for a school without computers for their children. From the article: 'Conventional wisdom holds that children can only benefit from exposure to technology', but children, 'shouldn't spend first-grade skipping coloring and learning to keyboard... Emphasizing computers doesn't seem to enhance students' creativity and could even stifle it... We want them to eventually see what a computer can do for them, but only after they know what they can do for themselves.'" Clifford Stoll has argued and written along similar lines.
My parents did not want me fooling around on their computer becaus my dad felt I'd screw it up real bad (because he didn't know much about computers). My dad also refused to let me access the net cause he felt all I'd do was check out some pr0n. Well, when I finally got the money (17 years old) I bought my computer and internet access. I'd already been around on BBSs so I thought I new some... Oh shit was I wrong! Nowadays I compare myself to some of my friends and I have to say that I estimate the age for learning about computers to be around 13-14 years old. Later than that and you've got a hell of a lot to catch up.
.02$
Creativity is VERY important and I totally agree that a young kid should stay the hell away from computers, especially that every program I see being designed for kids is usualy idiotic anyway compared to what caring parents can provide.
just my
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
Kids these days are now thinking within terms of Power Point... "Oh cool, i can use the sliding fade here into the next scene." They are no longer thinking outside of the box.
Worse, the time they spend thinking about sliding fades is time they do not spend thinking about the content of their work.
The most useful application of the computer in a school setting is as a word processor, and only when the students are trained to type 40wpm or faster. Yes, that's right: the best use of the computer is as a glorified typewriter.
Why? Because that properly relegates it to "tool" status, instead of "toy" status. Screwing around with PowerPoint does not add quality, detail, nor depth of thought to the content. Fast typing, however, gives the student more time for research and learning.
I would dearly love to say that there are two superb uses for the computer in school, with the other use being as an encyclopedia (ie. Google). However, I don't think the quality of information that is generally available on the Internet is typically better than that of the school library... and much of the information on the Internet is either dead wrong, or carries an agenda that isn't discernable to your average student.
(Wait, there is one other good use: computers make excellent flashcards. They can take rote learning and make it more interesting -- times tables, etcetera.)
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I'm in partial agreement.
:)
One thing that frustrates me is that most people seem to want to view it as binary.
0 Either you teach computers
1 You dont' use computers at all
I don't think that it has to be that way.
Why not allow them to do what they want to do.
that they should be taught the basics and allowed to do what they want to.
You can try to encourage, but a kids going to do what a kids going to do. I like freedom
I do agree they need better educational software though.A lot of the stuff out there is hard even for me to read.:)
Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
...and much of the information on the Internet is either dead wrong, or carries an agenda that isn't discernable to your average student.
Funny thing is, that's true of most books, too.
Teaching kids that 90% of everything they see, hear, and read is at least subtly wrong seems like a good idea to me. If the Net can encourage critical thinking skills by driving that point home at an early age, so much the better.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Actually, young children are much more likely to take the Internet at face value. Critical thinking skills don't kick in until around 7th grade (e.g. puberty).
Nathan
Actually, young children are much more likely to take the Internet at face value.
Has anyone actually tried telling them not to?
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Sculpting out of clay or play-doh is a free form exercise. It is important to feel what you are intereacting with, especially for a young child. Modeling with a computer program is nothing like it. Computer modeling is merely reshaping primitives to fit into a general scheme that looks like something. There are no primitives when you're sculpting with clay. One of the hardest art projects I ever did was I had to sculpt my own bust. I can draw alright and am a decent painter but I'd never sculpted before. It turned out I could sculpt better than I could paint. I had to put a lot of effort into getting the nose and cheeks just right, I didn't my sculpture to look like some abstract art piece. The eyes took me the longest time because eyeballs are more spherical than just about any part of the body. It was a bit of effort to make an eye that was shaped like an eye. A computer program would have made the shape for me. What does that teach me exactly? How to use a computer? Big fucking whoop. I'm much happier knowing I can take a lump of clay and make it into something that resembles my head.
Teaching children to be office workers? What the fuck is that anyways? Elementary schools aren't vocational training centers. Neither are high schools. Having kids write programs doesn't teach them anything. Having them approach problems logically is teaching them something. I run into far too many people that could not pass a logical thought through their brain if their lives depended on it. Logical thinking lends itself to doing all sorts of stuff including working in an office environment. Office work is thinking and living inside of a box, do you know anyone working in an office that enjoys it? In terms of banality it ranks right about repetitive stress injury prone assembly line work. Autocad to learn math an engineering? That's fucking ludicrous. Give them building blocks and tell them to build something. They'll get more engineering concepts out of watching their sky scraper topple over a dozen times than looking at some lines on a computer screen.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I'm 32. I got my first computer when I was in elementary school. It was a Timex/Sinclair 1000. It was interesting, and started my interest in computers . My next machine was a Commodore 64, then two Amigas. Maybe it's because of the creative opportunities these machines offered, maybe it was that I was always artistic, maybe it was because I was musically inclined, or maybe it was because MY DAD PAID ATTENTION, but I think I turned out fine. I draw, paint, play sax, write, and think logically. Exposure to computers didn't stifle any of this, it enhanced it. Computers are a tool and a creative outlet for me. The problem with computers comes at the same time that it does with TV, or games, or daycare. If a parent thinks that all little Johnny needs is a computer and Internet access to learn everything he needs to know, sure, the kid will probably fail. But if the parent takes an active part in the development of the child, computers can be a valuable resource. As can the other media listed above. I'm getting really sick of the current crop of parents looking for outside influences to blame for thier kids not turning out right. John Walker Lind, Dillon Clevold, etc... These guys didn't exactly have the most attentive parents in the world.
-Sam
Nope. Colouring _inside_ the lines teaches hand-eye coordination and an appreciation of visual shapes. Until you can colour inside the lines, you're not ready to express yourself by colouring outside the lines.
;-) that you should break it! That's where adults have to provide some control over kids - children are born literally unable to associate cause and effect, so they cannot associate shooting their little brother with their little brother dying, it's just not in their range of experience.
It's the difference between someone who drives 100mph bcos they know the road perfectly and are a good driver, and someone who's only had a half-dozen lessons driving 100mph bcos they don't know to look at the speedometer. Or the difference between a kid hitting random notes on a piano, and a great jazz musician hitting apparently-random notes on a piano.
Until you've got an appreciation of what the conventions are and why they're there, breaking them is NOT good. Conventions like "don't drink the results of a chemistry experiment" for instance have a very good basis - it isn't until you have enough knowledge of chemistry to know that the substance you're producing is harmless (or a recreational substance
Grab.
You can teach a dog to sit and you can teach a dog to roll over, but you can't teach a dog to think critically.
I mention this because folklore science tells us that a dog has about the IQ of a 4 year old. Kids aren't just minature adults with less knowledge; they also have different winring in their brains.
By all means, you need to teach your kids how to think critically, but not until they are ready.
On another note, there is also a difference between computers today and computers when you grew up. When I got my first computer at age 5, you had to type in the programs from a book. It was tedious (and ridiculous, in hindsight), but you did learn something.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
this comes up every so often, and is sheer speculation with no basis in fact.
it is someone's - in one case cliff stoll's OPINION - and the only reason people listen to him is due to a random opportunity to be the first at tracking down a pretty nasty hacker. the shower scenes and fatality made it titillating, but he's no more a pundit than the rest of us.
please - whenever people bring this up - play the old name game ("frank frank bo-bank, banana fana fo fan, fee fie fo fank... frank) and replace COMPUTERS with ANY OTHER ENABLING TECHNOLOGY USED IN CLASSROOMS - THAT'S RIGHT - JUST ASSERT THAT
-- PENCILS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- BLACKBOARDS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- PHOTOCOPIERS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- LAMINATORS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- PROTRACTORS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- CUISINAIRE BLOCKS STIFLE CREATIVITY
-- MICROSCOPES STIFLE CREATIVITY
A case can be manufactured for the truth of each of these assertions. Trouble is, folks who assemble these straw men forget one very important tenet of education:
There is no best way to teach.
There are many ways which are successful, with varying situations, students, and classes, but there is no best way.
Being a teacher is in large part being a problem solver - you have a bunch of resources, a bunch of kids, and a bunch of desired outcomes. And being a good problem solver means knowing which strategies to emply for any given moment / situation / personality.
Consequently, it is folly to simply toss out any method(s) of instruction or expression on principle.
Unfortunately, this whole debate is usually framed as a guns-or-butter argument - which it isn't.
And while we're at it - a growing number of districts no longer have kids learning keyboarding as a regularly scheduled activity.
And for two cases that can be used to refute the generalization, here's how I have put it to parents and clients I've dealt with:
First - the importance of form in determining specific instructional strategirs - the specific example of music classes - remember your music lessons? What did you do in them? Mostly you attempted to recreate a piece of music, just as the author did it, no mistakes, very little expresion or improvisation. Yet music is one of the subjects lauded as "creative" - and most of what you do is mere skill building. You didn't go to music / band / suzuki to compose your own music -you simply mimicked the form - played heart and soul etc. - until you got it right.
Transfer such an approach to language arts - and you'd have the equivalent of having a room full of kids copy the first page of Moby Dick over and over again until they could do it flawlessly. That teacher would be out the door in short time. So form DOES matter - not all subjects can be optimized through the same instructional strategy.
Graduate now, to a music classroom full of keyboards and midi-enabled computers / sequencers / samplers. Now you can create music of your own. Notice the work CREATE - Now you can play with notes, patterns, entire symhponies, burn your own CDs, in record time, and with greater flexibility and ease than if you had to scribe each note on paper (or hire a copyist).
Yes, people will now put forth the argument that Beethoven didn't have a computer and look what he did - eventual deafness and all. Problem is this argument implies that if Ludwig HAD access to a computer he'd have been a lesser composer. Irrelevant and unsported conclusion.
As for trhe broader idea - when I was in grammar school, we expressed ourselves academically in two ways:
Book reports / essays
Shoebox dioramas full of clay things.
You had such a narrow window of expression, your work had to fit a very small number of forms.
Now we can hand a student HyperStudio or PowerPoint or Flash, and they can express themselves through printed workds, sopoken words, sound, music, the world's best graphics, original graphics, movies, 3-D animations, the list goes on.
Which is more creative? While the structure of the older two methods might be held up as a sort of academic haiku, with the accomplishment detemined by maximizing expression within the narrow form, it doesn't address the more recent benchmarks of creativity - for instance Paul Torrance's measures such as fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration - the amount, range, newness and depth of creative work.
Plus - a piece of Intel thinks computers stifle creativity? Do they watch their own ads? Enhanced creativity is most of what they push.
Seems like there are some deeper issues here that aren't seeing the light of day...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
But just about *everything* important is learned during the first five years of life - after that, it's just a bunch of fleshing out. If you want your child to have an innate understanding of *anything*, it's best to start early. I think the basics of computers, math, spelling, and yes, "humanity" should all be taught in pre-school - even if it's only in rudimentary forms. That's what provides a base for everything else children will learn in their lives.
Last post!
People who place limits on their themselves become limited people. Rather than absolutely ruling out a given tool such as a computer, just moderate it and use it wisely. Dont worship it, as many educators have, nor demonize it.
-- times tables, etcetera
This is a very narrow view of the role and possibilities for educational computing use. I agree that we don't need our children sitting in front of computers instead of engaging in creative, hands-on activities that push them to develop mentally, physically, and socially. However, I also see that computers can offer opportunities that are simply not available or feasible in any other form. As just a few examples:
In short, the possibilities for computers in education are limitless. Even the research done on computers in education points to the potential of these tools to support learning as long as they are extending beyond drill and practice (which does not help them at all.) The key is how the technology is used. As with any educational innovation, the way the teacher or parent sets up and supports the interaction with the tool is vital to the learning experience. Kids need adults to work with them, to frame their learning, to ask questions that help them tie what they do to other things they know. They need to be allowed to explore things, then have to tell someone how they explored those things and what they learned from the exploration. Kids have to be able to ask their own questions and follow-through to get answers to those questions. In this area, computers offer tremendous possibility. It's all about how they are used!
As to whether home schooling produces anti-social kids or whatever, I have no opinion. I've seen it used in a number of ways. For example, the Louisiana law is sometimes used by "parents" who wish to exploit their kids as slave labor in the family business (fishing, farming, or whatever), who have no intention of teaching their kids how to read and write because it would "just give them airs and they'll leave the farm". CPS can go after these people for neglect, but CPS is too overloaded dealing with kids in danger of being killed or severely injured to spend any time on neglect. On the other hand, I've met some home schooled kids who are as articulate, broadly educated, and sociable as anybody else. As with all kids, it mostly depends upon the parent, not the way they're schooled or by whom. A good parent will make sure that his kid gets good schooling -- whether at a traditional school, or via home schooling.
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