In an April 26, 2010 article in the New York Times, Marine Corp General James N. Mattis was quoted, “PowerPoint makes us stupid,” and Brigadier General H. R. McMaster was quoted saying that Powerpoint is an internal threat, “…dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
These two military commanders were talking about the ubiquitous use of Microsoft’s Powerpoint presentation software within the military and commenting on how it is negatively affecting decision making and the analysis and distribution of information. Anyone who works in the corporate world knows of the same issue there.
What should be even more bothersome, though, is how Powerpoint has infiltrated public schools both on an administrative level and on a student level. Just as Powerpoint slides oversimplify and overdress information in the military and the corporate arenas, it is being used by the educators who run public schools to gloss over entrenched problems or to elevate gross abridgement of information as solutions. A few vague bullet points mentioning educational jargon and nifty sounding program titles, a couple of charts about test scores, and the show is over. Yet, what has actually been communicated to parents or to school board members or to teaching staff?
On the student level, though, the potential for damage is the greatest. In many public schools Powerpoint presentations are assigned in class and as homework; encouraged as replacements for essays, reports, speeches, and other forms of communication which would require depth and thought. This is occurring even in the lower elementary grades.
A generation or more ago, middle school students assigned a topic would formulate an argument or theory, research source materials in a library, read and absorb those materials, create an outline for their arguments, write a paper or speech fleshing out these arguments, and then present the finished product to the class or the teacher for review. Shortcuts for these students might include asking for parental help during the process or even patterning their report or speech on the previous work done by an older sibling. Even so, the process of seeking sources, absorbing, examining and synthesizing the information in those sources for relevancy and accuracy, and building a case for their argument or theory with some depth and clarity could not be detoured. Yes, they may have received help from family or friends, but the process remained and that forced at least some level of genuine learning.
The Powerpoint assignments for students today are a different story. Instead of rewarding an investment in a comprehensive process of learning or even the intrinsic value of gaining knowledge, the Powerpoint assignments reward speed over depth, dazzle over content and the superficial summary of the topic. In fact, very often the point of these assignments is to learn Powerpoint software itself, rather than to use the software as a tool to present information on another subject. Successful Powerpoint assignments for class work or homework are those with the greatest amount of flash, of sound and of color. The content is subjugated by the mechanics of the presentation. It isn’t the product which is important; it is the tool the student uses to make the product which is paramount.
Today the learning process is very different. There probably is no argument or theory to be developed, only a topic to be described. Instead of researching potential source material, the student merely gets on his favorite internet search engine and clicks the first links which appear to mention the topic. Most middle school students, after all, have had no training to examine internet material for accuracy, relevancy, bias, timeliness, or any other measure of quality.
Instead of reading the material from the links, the student merely copies and pastes into his Powerpoint slides the first text he can find which appears to mention the assigned topic. The truly diligent will change a few words to avoid charges of plagiarism. Now the student will capture photos, artwork, music and sound files from whatever internet sites come up, and he will insert them into his slideshow without regard to copyrights or even attribution. He has seen his own teacher do the same thing numerous times and he doesn’t give it a second thought. His final effort will not be to polish his argument, to look for logical flaws or to back up his statements with quotes or proof. After all, there is no argument or statements—only a series of slides describing the assigned topic. No, the final effort will be aimed at creating interesting color, flashy slide transitions and humorous combinations of graphics.
As General McMaster points out, the student has now created the illusion of understanding. In truth, the student has barely picked up a passing knowledge of the topic and has certainly not begun to think about an argument or statement or theory about the topic. If any true learning has taken place, it is only about the nature of the Powerpoint software and not about the assigned topic or about a process of thinking about and analyzing unfamiliar topics.
What will this generation of Powerpoint students contribute to our society? How will they find fulfillment or success in their own lives having had little exposure to formal processes of analysis and learning? As adults will they be fooled themselves by the illusion of understanding? And, what will their expressions record the first time they meet up with their own General McMaster?