No-Tech Schools In Tech Land 538
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.
This makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oregon at it again (Score:2, Insightful)
applies to even younger kids too... (Score:2, Insightful)
Already Exposed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oregon at it again (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, I bet Gore won in Oregon because of all that "right-wing" support. The Portland-metropolitan area, of which Hillsboro is part, is the most liberal part of the state.
Re:Oregon at it again (Score:1, Insightful)
If that's right-wing to you, then I'm pretty concerned about who you'd consider left.
I totally agree (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Here here! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.:)
Re:Here here! (Score:2, Insightful)
Alltogether I agree with the article though. Schools teaching "how to use the internet" is a joke. And I think stuff like office, online collaboration using things like , etc. are better taught at a later age. [groove.net]
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Have to use the right hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
Then they brought in several TRS-80's. Suddenly, the computer room was filled with luser burnouts playing mindless video games. (Now I too waste countless hours playing mindless video games on 1000X faster hardware.) I assume today's kids waste time on even more useless IRC or something.
The lesson from this: only let the kids have really old, broken down hard-to-use computers.That's the only way they're going to learn anything. :-)
Computers Serve Young Students Poorly (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, a few observations about kids and computers. IMHO, it's vital that young children, in particular, develop their limbs and their senses, and stock their minds with as much in the way of sensual knowledge as they can. The more they can explore their hands and feet, their eyes, ears, noses, and, yes, mouths, the richer a store they will have.
A computer is a marvelous instrument for organizing information; and I think an argument can be made that the Internet is the greatest single artifact ever created by humankind. But if a child comes to using a computer prematurely, before he has acquired a vocabulary of sense impressions that can bring the information to life, his mind - his consciousness, for lack of a better term, will be stunted.
As a thought experiment, imagine two children who are viewing a web page about flowers. One has actually handled flowers - smelled, them, looked at them close, maybe even planted some bulbs and watched the grow; and the other has not. Which child do you think will be better able to grasp the information on the page? Which will be able to notice its limitations? Which will be better able to notice flaws and inconsistencies? Clearly, the child who has real-world experience.
It need not be an either/or matter. For children in middle school and up, learning to type is a necessity; learning to navigage the web can be a great help; and the task of building web pages can be a fine exercise in organizing information - as good as a term paper, or better. But if, due to limited time or limited resources, a school system had to choose computers or hands-on classroom work, I think the computers should be put aside.
That sounds right to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
I doubt real people want their kids to become linux monkies and be dubbed "the kid with no friends", who likes to spend friday nights eating cheetos while browsing anime.
Re:Not here or there! (Score:2, Insightful)
My friend, it is you that is mired in confusion.
If your children use the computer as a learning device, they will indeed learn the concepts of mathematics and improve their reading and writing skills much quicker than without. Assuming you guide them properly. Perhaps it is you who are ignorant of the power of the computer? You gave them games, but did you give them Mathematica?
Re:Here here! (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, with that said, I do agree that video games (of any sort) should not replace legos, play-do, etc. However, I think that exposing children at a young age to computers, foreign languages, etc. is a great thing. If they show interest (beyond the entertainment value that is), then I think they should be given the opportunity to explore. We all know that computing skills are pretty much mandatory in today's job market, so imagine what it will be like in 20 years. This will also increase the demand for computer programmers and content creators over time. So why not?
My wife and I are actually expecting our first child. I am already in the planning stages for providing a Linux-based X terminal for him or her (we do not know yet
Is this selfish? Maybe. I will do my best not to force my career choice on my child(ren) But I also do not want to watch them to have their first serious exposure much later in life, when if they want to go into the field, they will regret not learning at an earlier age. There is plenty of mediocrity in this industry, and I think one great way to help it is to get children who show interest some heavy exposure as early in life as possible.
School Stifles Creativity, not Computers. (Score:2, Insightful)
In the meantime, the best way to encourage creativity is to get the hell out of the kids' way and let them be creative! If they come up with some wild eyed theory, don't just tell them that they're wrong, help them find out for themselves.... (cutting rant short to go study
BlackGriffen
Balance (Score:2, Insightful)
Balance to me means a kid should do finger painting, bang on drums or some other musical instrument, read books of all kinds including philosophy and religion, math, science, 3-5 foriegn languages and programming.
Kids are growing up stupid because the adults treat them as if they are stupid. Kids grow up with a lack of creativity because teachers and parents are too lazy or afraid of looking stupid to really try. The failure of children to grow and learn in a balanced manner is the result of our (adults) failures. There's no magic bullet to solve this problem and there's no easy fix. Politicians and school boards need to start thinking of long term solutions and not short term "what will get me re-elected" strategies.
Spending millions on stupid common sense research studies would be better spent on reducing the ratio of classrooms and giving teachers more training and less micromanagement.
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nathan
Re:From a similar experiment I've read about (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Computers should be used simply as a medium, another outlet for communications, not as an overall teching stradegy.
My 2 cents
Re:not only does it stifle creativity, but.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I was never really great at arithmetic, although as I went higher in the math world, I got better. Once I gained a higher understanding of what was going on behind the scenes, the simple stuff was just that : simple.
I think the way I was tought to do arithmatic when I was a child was contrary to the way that my brain works.
I plain just can't do long division. I forget the rules! But, I can factor that number in my head, and obtain an approximation. There are other techniqes to arrive at the same answer, and I have used those much to my agreement. I've learned that the way I think of math is very much opposite what everyone else is thinking when doing a project.
That said, even Einstein had troubles in arithmatic. His brain just wasn't wired to do that type of work, in the manner that they (tried) tought him to do it.
Imagine that, one of the most respected mathematical minds in history, and he couldn't add shit as a child.
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone actually tried telling them not to?
Re:I disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Computers aren't bad, parents are bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
-Sam
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:3, Insightful)
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
periodic hogwash... (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
Re:Develop humanity first (Score:3, Insightful)
Creativity? (Score:1, Insightful)
I teach computers to preschool through 8th grade, and until they are at least in the third grade, the best thing that a pc can do for a child is help reinforce the basics: letters, numbers, colors, fine motor control (mousing), reading and math.
Unless they have the basics of education, they can't explore higher levels.
-A teacher in the midwest
Limits = limited people (Score:3, Insightful)
Computer = babysitter (Score:2, Insightful)
Two of my close friends have had children in the last two years. One has chosen to spend time with the child, playing with him, and showing him non-computer activities. He's turning out to be a well-adjusted and bright child.
The other child has more electronics than I have! For Christmas, she received her own computer keyboard and software, in hopes that she would become a genius through computing. My gift to her- a set of pots and pans and a teddy bear.
The PC is just a tool (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:3, Insightful)
-- 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!
Better use what you have (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's a perspective from my personal experiences.
I worked for a public school system that was loaded with computers ( about 4-5 per classroom plus labs of >20 machines ). Some teachers were dependant on it a teaching aid, other used them once in a while, while some ignored them entirely. Some teacher took a active part of using the computers ( as have the students do word processing or research ) while others used it as a reward ( which is where myself as a tech really hated to go ). In most cases, it seemed to me that the number of computers in a school were inversely perportional to the acedemic achivement of the students.
It all comes down to how the computers are used; it shouldn't be more technology, but rather better use of technology. It is beyond me what is needed by a school that could be resolved by some lower-end machines with web browsers, word processing, and that's it. Most schools out there with any computers made in the last 5 years will handle that. And they don't need 5 per classroom either; maybe a lab for an entire classroom to work and then (maybe) a few machines on carts with projectors for any teacher presentations. Kids in elementary schools need basic skills and not how to render images in Photoshop or make Powerpoint presentations. Computers in the classroom are to much of a distraction and an easy way for lazy teachers to deal with unruly kids.
Putting computers in classrooms is just advocating that our lives should revolve around the computer and the internet. That is definitly the wrong focus for schools.
Home schooling is a state function (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:*stifles* creativity?? (Score:2, Insightful)
My school was teaching C and R4000 asm, not Java (Score:1, Insightful)
Now first thing they teach you is Java and ruin you as a potential programmer.