The promise was that technology was going to revolutionize education and teachers would become a thing of the past, but after decades of results and many studies, the evidence says technology will not revolutionize education and removing human interaction between human teachers and students is already a disaster for learning.
The Verge.com reports, “Evidence mounts that laptops are terrible for students at lectures. Time to reconsider the notebook and pen. …Writing things by hand is becoming less common as gadgets and speech recognition software continue to replace pen and paper, but it’s long proven that handwriting improves motor skills, memory, and creativity. So even though note taking with a laptop might be faster, you might want to think about how much information you’re retaining.”
Studies at Princeton University, the University of California, York University and McMaster University and the United States Military Academy all confirmed that students who do not have access to a [technology] device performed significantly better than those who did.
In fact, Psychology Today reports, “Too Much Screen Time Damages the Brain. But what about kids who aren’t ‘addicted’ per se? Addiction aside, a much broader concern that begs awareness is the risk that screen time is creating subtle damage even in children with ‘regular’ exposure, considering that the average child clocks in more than seven hours a day (Rideout 2010). As a practitioner, I observe that many of the children I see suffer from sensory overload, lack of restorative sleep, and a hyperaroused nervous system, regardless of diagnosis—what I call electronic screen syndrome. These children are impulsive, moody, and can’t pay attention—much like the description in the quote above describing damage seen in scans.”
In addition, Dr Aric Sigman, Health Education Lecturer, Fellow of the Society of Biology, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, writes, “Screen time has now become a medical issue. Research published in the world’s most reputable medical and scientific journals shows that the sheer amount of time children spend watching TV, DVDs, computers and the internet is linked with significant measurable biological changes in their bodies and brains that may have significant medical consequences. … Conclusion: What can be done? One may ask why the studies above are not reaching decision makers such as the European Parliament. An editorial in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine asked a similar question: ‘Why is it that something that is widely recognized as being so influential and potentially dangerous has resulted in so little effective action?’”
The answer is simple: it’s all about money from the many becoming profits for the few and who has control of what our children learn by teaching our children that the Earth was created in six days a little over 6,000 years ago and that the science of evolution is a lie; that climate change and global warming is also a lie.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and disabled Vietnam Veteran, with a BA in journalism and an MFA in writing, who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 