The Fundamental Dilemma of Computer-based Instructions

The fundamental dilemma of computer-based instruction and other IT- based educational technologies is that their cost effectiveness compared to other forms of instruction — for ex-ample, smaller class sizes, self-paced learning, peer teaching, small group learning, innovative curricula, and in-class tutors — has never been proven. So why are we, as a nation, so enamored of computers in childhood? This one-size-fits-all fix for elementary schools does seem to meet a lot of adult needs. It makes politicians and school administrators appear decisive and progressive. It tempts overworked parents and teachers with a convenient electronic baby-sitter. And it is irresistible to high-tech companies that hope to boost sales in the educational market.

But a machine-centered approach does not meet the developmental needs of grade-school children. Nor will it prepare them to muster the human imagination, courage, and will power they will as adults need to tackle the huge social and Replica Watches environmental problems looming before us. Young children are not emotionally, socially, morally, or intellectually prepared to be pinned down to the constraining logical abstractions that computers require. This sedentary approach to learning is also unhealthy for their developing senses and growing bodies.

What’s good for business is not necessarily good for children. We cannot afford educational policies that will expand the market for Microsoft, Compaq, IBM, Apple, and other companies at children’s expense. Nor can we afford the fantasy that pushing young children to operate the very latest technological gadgets will somehow save them from economic and cultural uncertainties in the future. Nothing can do that — certainly not soon- to- be obsolete skills in operating machines.

In the long term, what will serve them far better is a firm commitment from parents, educators, policy-makers, and communities to the remarkably low-tech imperatives of childhood. Those include good nutrition, safe housing, and high-quality health care for every child — especially the one in five now growing up in poverty. They also include consistent love and nurturing for every child; active, imaginative play; a close relationship to the rest of the living world; the arts; handcrafts and hands-on lessons of every kind; and lastly time — plenty of time for children to be children. A new respect for childhood itself, in other words, is the gift that will best prepare our children for the future’s unknowns. Empowered by this gift, our children can grow into strong and creative human beings, facing tomorrow’s uncertainties with competence and courage.

School reform is a social challenge, not a technological problem. The Education Department s own 1999 study, “Hope in Urban Education,” offers powerful proof. It tells the story of nine troubled schools in high-poverty areas, all places resigned to low expectations, low achievement, and high conflict. But all transformed themselves Tag Heuer Replica into high-achieving, cohesive communities. In the process, everyone involved—principals, teachers, other staff members, parents, and students — developed high expectations of themselves, and of each other. The strategies that worked in these schools, the study emphasizes, were persistence, creativity in devising new ways of collaborating, maximizing the attention focused on each child, and a shared commitment to meeting the full range of children’s needs.

Perhaps what we’re looking for is not a technology, not a product to be bought and sold at all. Perhaps the gold is something to be mined and refined within ourselves.