James Mink

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  James commented on the article | over 2 years ago

  Technology: The Wrong Questions and the Right Questions

  Ira,

  
  

  Thanks for the thoughtful reply.  I absolutely agree that technology can improve automaticity.  My kids are using the spaced repetition in Supermemo to master their multiplication tables; they end up spending only a couple of minutes per day on it, but it's always on the combinations they need to focus on.  A nice side-effect (some would say this is the desired effect and the math knowledge is the side-effect, but on balance, I wouldn't agree) is the sense of excitement and confidence they get from mastering what looked hard at first.

  
  

  You say that "a memorizer is not a person with a trustable education."  I think memorizing gets a bad rap. Perhaps it's a matter of timing -- automaticity in multiplication and spelling surely requires memorization -- and the memorizing needs to happen in the process of gaining background data, which ideally occurs when kids are young.  This makes sense in light of young children's seemingly inherent urge to memorize whatever they come in contact with (the Blues Clues song, Harry Potter dialogue, Pokemon point values) -- they often seem to have more enjoyment, even in play, when they've mastered the background data so that they can manipulate it.  They memorize something so that they can use it in real time.

  
  

  "Memorizing" the nations of Europe may not be that helpful, but knowing about the ones that haven't changed (and the ones that have) will.  Today's (and the future's) events don't spring from nowhere; we live on the margin of history, even if that history takes what seems like a dramatic turn.  Sarejevo made a lot more sense in the 90s, and Iran makes a lot more sense now, to folks who know the history.  Can you look it up?  Sure.  But I've read stories by journalists who don't seem to have internalized what the Shia/Sunni split is about and has meant.  And it's the internalization process, the knowing of specifics about the background of a region, that can make a better "finder," one who knows when they need to look something up, and which looked-up things support or call into question the received wisdom.

  
  

  Content and skills aren't either-or, but I think it's easy to slight content because it's so damn hard for folks to agree on the important content.  Take a look at most state standards and scope and sequence curricular guidelines and you'll see that, by and large, we're shirking our duty to say what kids need to know.  I am hopeful that if we can reach some agreement on foundational knowledge, new and future technologies can help students to learn it, so that they can move on to the more interesting stuff of critiquing and creating.

  
  

  - James Mink

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  James commented on the article | over 2 years ago

  Technology: The Wrong Questions and the Right Questions

  Here's the problem I have with your argument:  it essentially ignores content, which is what American students are deprived of in comparison with other countries' systems (including countries that make much better and more frequent use of technology in the classroom than we do).  There's brief mention of a "knowledge base" in one paragraph, but that's it. 

  
  

  Where do they get this knowledge base?  When do they learn the language, history, science and math that are foundational to all other learning and clearly to functioning well in society?  You certainly would not be able to craft your cogent argument without training in language and logic, regardless of the 21st century skills that then allow you to post it, include links to other pages, and show up in my delicious.com popular bookmarks feed. 

  
  

  And what is the "knowledge base"?  We can't finesse the content point with a wave of the hand.  Kids suffer when adults fail to take on the tasks of deciding what content kids need to know, and ensuring that kids then learn that content.  Do they all need to know the kind of basic vocabulary that allows them to read at "grade level"?  Do they all need to be able to do at least basic (i.e. 1-10) addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in their heads?  If they have these ready in their minds, for instance, they can move on to the more complicated and enjoyable tasks like thorny math problems and interesting metaphors and plot twists.  I assume you'd agree that it's better to have these kinds of basics "at-hand" even though they could be quickly googled -- just because we can look something up doesn't mean it's most efficient to have to do so.  Where are the countries of the world; where are the rivers; which countries used to think they owned which other countries?  These and other specifics really help us to be aware in the world, and to more fully engage in society and in creative endeavors.  It behooves us as the adults in society to decide more or less where the line is -- what facts, specifically, we'd like kids to know and not have to look up, so that they "get" the books, blogs, etc. that they read -- and then implement it by teaching those facts to kids in the schools.  Facts needn't have the bad reputation they currently suffer from in some quarters.  Will we get some of it wrong?  Sure -- we can't predict with 100% accuracy what they'll need to know.  But we have a pretty good idea, and we need to try.

  
  

  Finally, where do skills fit in with learning the knowledge base?  Our general failure to successfully integrate computers and technology into the classroom has come about largely from a focus on teaching them separately from content.  Merely replacing computer lab time with wiki-construction time, keyboarding classes with texting classes, will only perpetuate the divide between skills and content, and will not teach kids what they need to know about either.