I’ve got to beat this dead horse some more. An excellent article in the New York Times by Randall Stross: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality reviews some recent studies on technology and learning in children. Though some of these studies were about the use of home computers, the results are applicable to technology in schools as well. This is especially true of the “technology immersion” study out of Texas.
Some ideas in education simply won’t die, even when they are demonstrably wrong. The supposed benefit of homework for younger students is one example. Another is the runaway obsession with technology in well-off school districts based on the notion that it improves learning, usually measured by test scores. Based on the studies covered in this Times article, not only does authentic learning drop by the wayside, but test scores drop too! I find the high stakes test scores irrelevant and detrimental anyway, but the technology lust in public schools is helping to crowd out the former emphasis on reading for depth and meaning, writing that is original and persuasive, and other fundamental skills. That I do find deeply troubling.
My local K-8 public school district, like many others, has students and parents sign a contract of sorts for “acceptable use” of district computer resources. This contract, loosely modeled after similar documents familiar to new employees at larger businesses, is sent home for students as young as first and second grade to sign. The very idea is laughable and sums up the kind of twisted thinking common to educators in our public schools. My local school district’s version is viewable here.
Before we even look at the specifics of this document, consider the big picture here. My local school district is asking elementary students to sign a binding contract for use of district “computing resources” and yet these students have no concept of what a contract is, the younger students cannot read all or even any of the contract, they cannot understand many of the concepts and words even if the contract is read to them by an adult; an fact, many of the younger students have not ever had occasion to sign their names yet! To call a written contract for elementary students developmentally inappropriate is the understatement of the year. Author Chip Wood in his excellent book Yardsticks notes that cognitive development allowing for an interest in rules and rulemaking tends to begin developing around age eleven. So, it isn’t until middle school that a student could really grasp the implication of a contract, and, as we will discuss below, that doesn’t mean that a contract is a good idea even at that age.
Parents are also asked to sign this contract, and yet the parents are not in the schools to enforce the rules in the document. Presumably the intent is to force parents to explain to their children the rules in the contract and to serve as some kind of legal notice:
“Ultimately, parents and guardians of minors are responsible for setting and conveying the standards that their children should follow when using media and information resources.”
In another part of the document it states that, other than “clarifying” standards, the district is “not responsible for restricting, monitoring or controlling the communications of individuals utilizing the network.”
In other words, the district believes it is covering its collective rear-end by having parents sign this contract. The district will open up this can of worms, but will take no responsibility for what happens next. In the classrooms parents will have no means of observing the use of these so-called “resources” and no opportunity to prevent misuse (however that is defined) by their children. Yet, the parents will be considered ultimately responsible? What, then, is the function of the educator in the classroom standing over the child?
Before we have even looked at the specific language of this document it is clear that the thinking of the educators who thrust this contract onto students and parents is heavy with self-protection and light with the purpose of educating children on a developmentally appropriate level. Glancing through some of the language in this document reveals just how utterly stupid is the thought processes of these educators.
Sprinkled throughout the contract is the idea that computer and internet access is a “privilege” and not a right. Huh? Public schools are financed by taxpayers who expect that the schools will be doing their best to educate students by whatever means is necessary and efficient. If that means the use of computers, internet access or similar tools, then so be it—but this isn’t some kind of gift to students. The students in all but the poorest areas have their own internet access, not to mention a smartphone, a computer, and all sorts of other devices. They don’t need the “privilege,” thank you anyway. More to the point, what is the basis behind the idea that a public school is bestowing a privilege or gift to students through the use of “district resources”? Those are taxpayer resources and public education is not a gift, it is required by law.
More of this contract is comical. Is a parent supposed to explain to his or her third grader what “defamatory” or “obscene” means? For that matter, do most parents know what a “proxy server” is and what it does? One section explains that student work will be published to the district’s website with a copyright notice that prohibits copying of such work without express written permission. This is irony in the extreme, considering that both students and teachers routinely copy—steal—text, images, music and sound files from internet sites for use in their Powerpoint presentations and other school work.
Let’s cut to the chase. This contract typifies the way in which public education has been poisoned by so-called educators who have anything but the education of children in their tiny little minds. You want to introduce computers and internet tools into the workflow of students? Great. These are children, not yet fully developed, so you will need to teach them the pros and cons of using such tools. They will not need assistance in the mechanics of using the software and hardware—their natural curiosity alone will do that. What they will need assistance with is determining what is true and what is not true in what they discover on the net. They will need to be taught the meaning of copyright material and the ownership of intellectual property. They will need teacher guidance on the ramifications of publishing their personal thoughts in public forums, on the analysis of information by date, accuracy and expert corroboration, and on the limitations of technology tools due to legal and physical parameters. These and similar things must be the responsibility of the professional educators who want to use these technology tools. Yes, limits are needed for children learning these tools—but those limits must be taught in formal processes and in teachable moments in the classroom not referenced in a meaningless contract and forgotten shortly thereafter.
What is happening in many public school districts like mine can be traced back three decades. As technologies become useful in the adult world of business and personal life, there is a mad rush in the schools to install the same physical infrastructure. However, it is a checkmark in a checkbox, not an educational strand with forethought and integration into curriculum. Computers? Check. Internet? Check. Email and distance learning? Check and check. Just because you give a person a complete set of the latest power tools doesn’t make him or her carpenter. And that is the trouble with these contracts. The school districts have installed tremendous amounts of power tools for use by the children but the children are not carpenters, there is little or no guidance on becoming carpenters and there is great opportunity to lose a finger or two as a result. This contract says, essentially: we are making these power tools available to students whether you like it or not, we will show them where the power buttons are located, and it will be the responsibility of parents and students to watch for their fingers, not ours. I simply wish that educators would stop thinking of children as short adults and engage in the profession they supposedly embraced.
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?