They Learn the Really Important Stuff, Like Excel, in High School
by KevinSeptember 1st, 2006
Oh, for fscks sake:
And some parents, while concerned about safety, are still enthusiastic laptop proponents. Anne Carson, a 49-year-old parent in Glen Allen, Va., says the laptop has helped her twelve-year-old son master critical professional skills like how to compile a PowerPoint presentation.
What a stupid, narrow view of the role of education that displays. Schools are supposed to teach you how to think, and PowerPoint presentations are the antithesis of thinking. It is bad enough that the school is apparently letting students do presentation in that great destroyer of coherent thought, PowerPoint, but to have a parent think that wasting time on learning how to use a piece of software that will be obsolete by the time the kid is old enough to actually use it in a professional setting is just too depressing for words.
Fortunately, some parents are a bit more clear-headed:
But some parents worry that the laptops are teaching the wrong skills. Dugan Slovenski, 47 of Brunswick, Maine, says having a laptop has encouraged her thirteen-year-old son to spend more time dazzling up presentations with fancy fonts instead of digging through library books. “They need to be able to learn to research beyond what is accomplished by Googling a word or phrase,” she says.
Technology is useful in a classroom only to the extent that it facilitates the teaching of critical reasoning and the basic skills and concepts that underpin more complex subjects and skills to students. Classes on how to use the computer can serve those functions, as can things like the use of scientific calculators at certain grade levels and using computers as aides to word processing and perhaps simulations. But you still have to teach them how to run a real experiment. You still have to teach them to navigate a research library. You still have to teach them how to dissect a piece of literature or a position paper. You still have to teach them time management. You still have to teach them inter-personal skills. Computers can hinder all those lessons if not used properly. Right now, there seems to be too much “wow, computers are great!” and not enough “this is how we intend to use them” from school districts for my comfort.
It’s not just computers. The history of primary education in the USA for the last century or so has been an endless series of fads (e.g., whole word reading, bilingual education, new math, etc.). The biggest problem with all of this is that the educational establishment has no interest in checking whether any of these fads has any positive impact on educating children. It’s much better to move on to the next fad. The only difference this time is that there’s more publicity.
Instead of learning computer stuff, students need to have “women’s studies” and sex education classes. It is more important that they learn how to put a condom on a banana than it is to use the prevalent technology of their day. Of course, tolerance classes and the reading of books full of profanities and immoral situations need to be thrown in there too. It is also important that any “critical thinking” class teaches them to think the “right” way. Other non- approved critical thinking should not be tolerated.
[Comment edited by tgirsch per poster's request]
Kevin, as you stated, being taught computer skills in and of themselves are not detrimental to a child’s learning, in fact is necessary in this day and age, as long as it’s not done at the expense of other areas ie. learning to analyze history, literature etc. Even when learning an Excel spreadsheet you have to understand math, statistics to plug in formulae, understand syntax etc.
Fred wrote:”It is more important that they learn how to put a condom on a banana …”
Hey Fred, y’know, you tend to obsess about the weirdest things. Are you and your wife getting along OK? I’m worried about you, man…
Janutz: “Hey Fred, y’know, you tend to obsess about the weirdest things.”
Fred: You are a very strange person. Mentioning something one time is hardly an obsession. Why do liberals lie so much?
It’s not just the banana, Fred. You’ve been dropping hints all over the place recently.
All kidding aside, is everything okay? We’re worried about you.
Brooky, you are a liar.
Kevin, I believe we have touched on this before.. My stance is there is a place for some vocational training in some schools. Not at the lower levels, but maybe grade 9 and beyond. I believe it is a bit elitist to inherently value skills like running experiments, navigating research libraries, and parsing literature over marketable skills. Not everyone has the luxury of an extended education followed by a white-collar job. In fact, less than half the population does. Truth be known, I have not set foot in a research library since my school days and have not run a proper experiment either. I never did learn how to parse literature. But I wish I had learned how to type!
I realize my comment does not directly address the thrust of your piece, I just wanted to reiterate my opinion on the value of vocational training. I worship at the alter of Edward Tufte, and he wrote a piece titled “PowerPoint is Evil”, so I have to accept your basic premise
Ted
Maybe, but vocational training shouldn’t start in middle school. The longer you try to teach kids to thin for themselves, the better they will be abel to navigate the world at large, whatever kind of job they get.
And Powerpoint is just a minor demon; the frickin paperclip is true evil
Agreed.