More chalkboards, fewer iPads
In 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released the results of a global study showing that countries which invested most heavily in equipping schools with the latest high-tech devices have yet to see a noticeable improvement in science, math and reading test scores as measured by the Program for International Student Assessment.
OECD education director Andreas Schleicher said, “If you look at the best-performing education systems, such as those in East Asia, they’ve been very cautious about using technology in their classrooms.”
It is undisputed that most jobs in the future will require knowledge of computers ranging from basic to sophisticated, and today’s students must learn how to use this technology. But there is a growing debate in this country as to just how and when such devices should be used in schools. Numerous studies have been done over the years, attempting to measure the efficacy of computer use by K-12 students. Some studies show positive results, others like the OECD study show little to no improvement, and some studies have measured actual declines in student academic performance.
But recent research has revealed findings with troubling implications for the impact of computer use on small children. At the 2016 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, researchers presented results from a study of how young mice responded to several hours per day of audio-visual stimulation. “After the exposure period,” the study reported, “the mice displayed pronounced hyperactivity behaviors, impaired learning and memory, and increased risk-taking behavior.”
Regardless of what any of the studies have shown, there are employees at giant Silicon Valley tech companies, Apple, Google and Yahoo, who have said a firm “no” to computers in schools, at least in the primary grades. Their children attend the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, where computers are not allowed in the classrooms. Instead, children write on blackboards with colorful chalk. They sit at wooden desks equipped with paper and No. 2 pencils and use real encyclopedias.
Now, why would these parents send their kids to low-tech schools? They are hardly backward Luddites resistant to change.
In a New York Times article, they expressed their heartfelt belief that overwhelming young children with too much technology too soon negatively impacts their intellectual, emotional and social development. They reject the notion that they are somehow depriving their children of vital skills needed for 21st century jobs. They believe that the rapid pace of technological change dictates that the computer knowledge of today will become quickly outdated. They scorn the idea that, by delaying their kids’ exposure to computers, this will cause them to permanently lag behind their more tech-savvy peers and condemn them to a life spent working under oil lamps, wearing white wigs and writing with quill pens.
These low-tech parents point to pronounced positive changes that they have personally witnessed in their offspring: an explosion of creativity, imagination and ingenious problem solving. Ironically, these are the very qualities most prized by high-tech startups looking to hire people for high-paying jobs.
Those who most loudly sing the praises of computers in schools should remember that while geniuses created computers, there is no guarantee that computers will create geniuses. If people truly want to increase children’s mental functioning, they should pay close attention to researchers at the University of Toronto, who found that kids given 36 weeks of music lessons had a measurable improvement in their IQ as opposed to a control group who did not get the lessons.
Any teacher, parent or taxpayer who is uncomfortable with the relentless pressure to spend millions for high tech in schools can take heart in a quote by Steve Jobs himself, who said in a 1995 interview, “I’ve helped with more computers in more schools than anybody else in the world, and I’m absolutely convinced that is by no means the most important thing.” Teresa Keegan works for the courts in Denver. E-mail her at b161tak@yandex.com.