My elementary school used no integrated technology in its curriculum. We had perfunctory requirements for typing improvement and proficiency in word-processing, but during the rest of our education computers were completely peripheral and interactions with them were informal. Even research was conducted at the library instead of on the internet, with an emphasis on learning from books. One might think that someone who had so little exposure to the world of technology would find themselves behind when they reached the next stage of education, but I found no such detriment to my ability. I was of course not ahead when I got to middle school, but I could easily keep up with my classmates.

I can’t believe that extensive technology use in education is necessary in elementary school. Even for the so-called disaffected learners, there are other ways to achieve engagement. I think that the kinesthetic element of learning is too often overlooked; how else will students learn how to interact with their world if they don’t cultivate those interactions? Humans learn by doing, by feeling. The best way for a student who feels disengaged to get excited about learning is through sensory experience. Now it may seem like computers offer an excellent opportunity for sensory stimulation outside of typical teacher-student interactions. The limitations of computers, however, lie in their inability to have a kinesthetic experience (typing in no way counts), essentially excluding an entire learning style. You can’t feel your way through a virtual experience (at least not yet).

The other issue with learning using computers is one David Buckingham points out in his book, Beyond Technology. That is that students’ interactions with technology at home tend to be far more pleasurable and less educational in nature than those at school. Bridging the gap between how computers are used in school and how they are used at home is certainly an issue with technology in schools, but it is only an issue if we are insistent that technology offers the best way for students to learn. I remember in a first grade math class when we were learning how to tell time, that we made clocks out of paper plates. The entire experience would have been so different, so much less meaningful, less tactile, less tangible, if we had been manipulating clocks virtually rather than physically. Of course there are times when technology offers opportunities that physical things cannot, but I don’t think it’s necessary to push it into every facet of the curriculum.

By the way, the assertion by Prensky that Buckingham quotes, that “the true secret of why kids spend so much time on their games is that they’re learning!” is complete horse-hockey (yes, horse-hockey). The reason kids spend so much time on games is that computer games are designed with reward systems that stimulate dopamine pathways in the brain, which creates pleasure. Because children have relatively little self-control (think: candy), they will continue to activate these pathways as long as they get the dopamine rush.

-epn

Full Circle on a cold winter night

Sometimes nature is the greatest teacher. For the first nine years of my education I attended a school where the average grade size was between five or six. We played outside for an hour or more every day, and instead of standard math and science and English classes we had a set of “goals” we needed to complete over the course of the term. Most learning was done in a self-motivated fashion, with an emphasis on independence and individual development. Technology, aside from word processing, was virtually nonexistent in my early education. Because of my background as an outdoor, individual learner, I firmly believe that technology is neither necessary nor beneficial to childhood development.

The best memories that I have of my time at my elementary school, appropriately named Full Circle, are of creating a tiny village in between the roots of a tall pine tree with my friends. We spent many an afternoon crawling on our knees through the pine needles, building tiny houses or excavating them from the hillside. What strikes me now that didn’t seem all that significant then is the complexity and creativity of this activity. While we were of course pretending to be hobbits straight out of one of Tolkien’s books, what we were doing was not copying something that had already been done, but using an idea to create our own world. We built our own system of economy and trade. There were rules to be followed, laws to be voted on, and all disputes were settled by the community (bear in mind that by “community,” I mean probably five people). For money we used tiny pieces of lichen, which could not be removed from the nearby trees (this was a fineable offense), but rather had to be foraged from among the pine needles and grass and sticks. I can’t begin to estimate the hours I spent building my house in the crook of that tree’s roots. I hauled buckets of mud up from the “pond” by the school, created an internal structure out of sticks, then used the mud to create a wall. For a roof I used pieces of bark that could be easily removed to access the house’s interior. It was a remarkably strong piece of architecture, one that lasted for several years without any upkeep.

This experience mirrors my childhood as a whole. I would spend days building castles out of legos, turning my living room into an entire city. There were hundreds of stories to tell in those cities, dozens of characters, dozens of conflicts to be resolved (or not – sometimes the bad guys won). Creation – whether physical or imaginative – was the primary activity of my childhood.

Part 2 will hopefully come next week. This is a subject I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, so you’ll have to indulge me as I recount the childhood that brought me to where I am today.

-epn