Comment Re:here come the righteous (Score 1) 538
Back in the industrial revolution, they called them Luddites, they broke the looms in the factories of the north of England because they threatened their livelihood as independant weavers.
This is different, the issue is not that the computers per se are a bad thing (most if not all correspondants to slashdot discussions are computer professionals) it is that their use in education (in junior schools) is inappropriate.
Like many of the people who have written on this article, I was lucky to have a sufficiently enlightened math teacher in junior school (actually up to age 13) we were not allowed to use calculators for any reason until it was appropriate to do so.
what is the most important thing that you learn at junior school? math? history? geography? latin? french? ... none of these, but how to learn. This, together with the reading, writing and number skills which are to some extent facilitators and colatteral benefits set you up for a productive life in the future.
My real issue with the focus on the computers is that the use of computers for study is useless if you don't know how to evaluate the sources you use, focus on the job in hand (very difficult to do in some instaces) or organise information on a basic level. You need to know how to make these sorts of decisions before stepping to the keyboard.
Maybe I am a luddite - I prefer to use pen and ink to get my first draft of a document in place so that I can use my touch-typing skills to get it all down on the computer, I then edit offline on paper. It means that the iterations in producing a document are generally fewer and the text has generally been fully proofed before it goes out to its intended readership.
Computers are no panacea, I expect them to disappear from the home as monolithic items within the next five years, giving way to items which perform specific functions.
After all, who wants to spend their time farting about with a computer when there is snow to be skiied, waves to surf, lawns to mow, beer to be drunk......
This is different, the issue is not that the computers per se are a bad thing (most if not all correspondants to slashdot discussions are computer professionals) it is that their use in education (in junior schools) is inappropriate.
Like many of the people who have written on this article, I was lucky to have a sufficiently enlightened math teacher in junior school (actually up to age 13) we were not allowed to use calculators for any reason until it was appropriate to do so.
what is the most important thing that you learn at junior school? math? history? geography? latin? french?
My real issue with the focus on the computers is that the use of computers for study is useless if you don't know how to evaluate the sources you use, focus on the job in hand (very difficult to do in some instaces) or organise information on a basic level. You need to know how to make these sorts of decisions before stepping to the keyboard.
Maybe I am a luddite - I prefer to use pen and ink to get my first draft of a document in place so that I can use my touch-typing skills to get it all down on the computer, I then edit offline on paper. It means that the iterations in producing a document are generally fewer and the text has generally been fully proofed before it goes out to its intended readership.
Computers are no panacea, I expect them to disappear from the home as monolithic items within the next five years, giving way to items which perform specific functions.
After all, who wants to spend their time farting about with a computer when there is snow to be skiied, waves to surf, lawns to mow, beer to be drunk......
