Uncanny. That’s the word that kept running through my mind as I read the Technos Quarterly article, Of Luddites, Learning, and Life. There are three colleagues at my elementary school who share many of the same views as the author, Neil Postman. It was interesting to consider his perspective as I read this article and it challenged me to understand his point of view.
Honestly, I found the entire article rather contradictory. Although the author claims that “they (technology/machines) divert the intelligence and energy of talented people from addressing the issues we need most to confront”, that really isn’t the case at all. The article focuses on the need to teach social values to students. Prior to the “at-our-fingertips” access to technology that we have today, the typical student was given an outdated history textbook with one opinion, a teacher with another opinion, and parents at home with a third opinion. If they were lucky, a typical student was given the luxury of three diverse opinions on a particular topic. Today, however, thanks to the machines that Postman sees as “problematic progress”, students are given access to thousands of opinions. As teachers, it is our job to teach students to sift and sort through this information to find credible sources in which to build our own opinions. Postman refers to this “information glut” and tells us that we’re overwhelmed by the information and just don’t know what to do with it all. On the contrary, because we have become accustomed to filtering through this plethora of information, we can begin to think critically about various opinions, based on the wide array of information that we have access to today. It has become a primary job of teachers to teach students how to think critically about these varying opinions. This practice of thinking critically at an elementary level will give students the skills that they need to succeed later in life. I’m always hearing and reading how today’s employers want employees who can solve problems, work as a team, and think critically. Without the access to technology that we have, I don’t feel that we could prepare students as well as we do.
The authors do agree, however, that learning needs to be differentiated to meet the needs of every learner. Postman claims that “school has never been about individualized learning” while Reigeluth and Joseph contend that “we should hold achievement constant at a mastery level”. Their opinion is that children should be allowed to progress at their own, individualized rates. This really has been the business of elementary schools for the past several years. At my school, we use a workshop approach to teaching reading, writing, word study (spelling), and mathematics. We have no textbooks in our elementary schools as a result of our teaching practices. Students are differentiated based on learning style, interest, and ability. These flexible groups allow students to do what both of the authors see as most important – start where they are, both socially and academically, and move forward from that point. Every child sees success and grades are not only measured against state academic standards but are all measured in growth and effort. Although technology isn’t directly involved in this approach to instruction, this does seem to be the beginning stages of the “learning-focused paradigm” that Reigeluth and Joseph suggest.
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