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.
Two recent New York Times articles discussed the ways in which addiction to electronic communication is altering how children and parents interact. [See here and also here.] The general press has not covered these ideas in any great depth so I was heartened to see these articles.
Certainly there is a very good argument to be made that children are getting shorted by parents who are consumed with their electronic gadgets. Another good argument can be made that children are missing opportunities to develop the habits and means of thinking and communicating in depth and with clarity when they are, themselves, consumed with texting and similar forms of electronic communication. What disturbs me even more, though, is the reaction of educators to these recent trends.
We’ve seen this all before, of course, when, for example, television became the norm in American households and educators claimed that they could not compete for attention with this exciting media. Now, with distractions of high-end video games, internet, cell phones, and various hand-held electronics, educators again say that they cannot compete. The answer, they claim, is to fortify schools with the same technology and to use it to replace the former means of learning that now bore students to tears.
I think that is a cop-out for educators and a damned shame for students. While I have nothing against using tools of technology to enhance learning where it truly does that, I find that many educators are simply flailing about with little direction when it comes to technology. You want to use student-written blog entries to encourage stronger writing through public dissemination and peer review? Great. The focus is on the writing and the internet based blog is merely a means to that end. However, when schools are installing tablet computers, Smartboards, Ipods, and anything else they can get their hands on without any forethought as to integration into the learning process, they are putting the cart before the horse.
Educators are more often than not so anxious about being left behind, so concerned about competing with other school districts and so insecure in their own competence that they forget their professional purpose. Instead of planning how to teach students how to read dense material for meaning, or how to orchestrate comprehensive research, or how to write in a manner that is persuasive and factual, educators panic and flit about wondering how they will hold the attention of students distracted by modern life. They convince themselves that the only way to compete for student attention is to jump on the same bandwagon and fill the classroom with the electronics and shallow, short-term processes, as if somehow it will magically work itself out.
If educators would put aside their insecurities they might recognize that learning in depth and communicating with meaning still holds intrinsic promise and reward. Students can still be interested and even entertained in work and learning that includes quality, profundity and longer term challenge. The whole point of a professional educator is to instill these sorts of habits in young students. Yet, many educators today seem bent on ignoring that promise and challenge in favor of a string of sugar-highs in their classrooms.
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.