The Joy Of Learning

Computers in the Classroom

It worries me to see preschools start offering computer classes or claim that they use multimedia for teaching. And in my opinion, the computer classes they now offered in all Malaysian primary schools are just a business opportunity for a few people to get rich.The New York Times just recently published an article titled “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops“, which doesn’t come as a surprise to me. But at least there is transparency in the system that allow this to be told in a major newspaper. An average parent in Malaysia will never know who are the people who set the curriculum for the computer classes, who are the people the school hired to teach the classes, what/how do they teach (what approach, which curriculum, which learning theory)?

I think this is a very revealing article. It shows how little educational establishment understands about learning and how to support it — and how little they understand the nature of computing technology. Note the reasons offered for the failure of these laptop programs: technical difficulties, bad children, soaring costs, teachers who don’t know how to integrate computing technology into their curricula, teacher’s resistance. What a list!

IMHO, the real reason these programs failed is because the people who implement the program do not fully grasp the nature of the computer and how it interacts with the nature of the human being.

Computers by nature reflect and amplify our thinking habits and consciousness. Yes, that’s what computers are: amplifiers of thinking. All tools amplify human ability in some way, like glasses help us to see clearer, telescope helps us to see further, but only the computer has such ability to reflect and amplify the mind. The trouble is that computers amplify ALL the thinking habits and consciousness of their users, the bad along with the good, the primitive along with the refined. The computer is like those magnifying mirrors they have at the cosmetic counter - you can see yourself a little too clearly, every pore, every hair, every blemish. :-)

The computer can only transform the thinking of the user, and the thinking itself has to be built the “old-fashioned” way, by many years of self-construction in a developmentally appropriate environment. By just having “computer skills”, let alone just owning a computer, will never be a substitute for the discipline and conscious efforts it takes to build a well-trained mind.

Filed under Education, learning |