My mother subscribes to the Washington Post, I mooch off of her subscription. I tend to prefer getting my opinions from less professional sources, but they have some interesting things to say. They also say things that I completely disagree with from time to time, but to be fair, most newspapers do that.
Recently I read an article from the Washington Post, titled Covid-19 brought new technology into elementary school. It’s time to remove it which I cited below in case you want to read it yourself. I confess, most of my issues are with the way the paper is written, specifically the lack of examples, but I agree with the point the author’s trying to make, sort of.
Here’s the thing, I was born in 1995, so when I was in elementary school computers weren’t really a thing in the classroom. From what I hear, that’s still the case today. For most children, that’s a good thing, for me it was a problem. I was the kind of kid who was always worried about what people thought of her, so I didn’t want to be the only one who used a word processor, even though it would have helped, because none of the other kids in my class used one and I was worried that they thought I was weird. It didn’t help that I didn’t know how to type. I honestly wish that cheap laptops had been available and that my school had put more resources into making sure kids knew how to type. It would have helped me a lot.
I’m also the person who collects stationary and likes writing in notebooks in my spare time. I think that, because writing gave me so much trouble as a small child, I appreciated it more than other kids did. I’m also the person who thinks we should keep cursive in schools, at least as an option for children with fine motor issues. I sucked at writing and found cursive much easier to write, at least once I finally got to learn it, and I’m not the only person who feels that way.
There’s also the issue that while I think having access to computers in the classroom is a good thing, I don’t think having the internet in the classroom is. I have a lot of trouble avoiding the internet while learning as an adult, I don’t think any kid, especially in elementary school, is going to have much of a chance.
Something I should mention is that the expert in the article mentions that one benefit to keeping tech out of the classroom is that kids will have to learn to find an answer in a book rather than just looking it up on google, helping them learn the value of delayed gratification. Setting aside the fact that I don’t think the internet belongs in an elementary school setting, I think making kids look through books to find answers is a poor reason to not have technology in the classroom. Firstly, I don’t think books are an inherently superior source to the internet in terms of finding information. The gatekeeping standards may be higher, but that doesn’t always mean the information is better. Secondly, every child in school today is going to grow up in a world where google is readily available, so I don’t see how forcing them to read through books is a useful skill. I think it would be more useful to encourage a classroom environment where kids are encouraged to look at more websites than just Wikipedia. That way they could develop their own opinions.
If it were up to me, every child would get a computer built for learning at about 3rd grade or so. And every child would be exposed to computers from a young age no matter which school district they were from. But I don’t think computers should be a core of our classroom environment, not yet at least. I’m not an expert. I’m just the person who read a paper written by an expert and thought, “You make a good point, but your article sucks.”
Strauss, Valerie. “Perspective | Covid-19 Brought New Technology into Elementary School. It's Time to Remove It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 29 Nov. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/11/29/remove-technology-from-elementary-school/.
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