by Lam Luu

Created on: March 21, 2009

I have always had great suspect for the role of computers in school, especially K-12 level. It is useful to remind ourselves: WHY do we send those youngsters to schools? What do we expect them to learn from school, other than a bunch of knowledge that they can acquire rather easily through books, movies, and the Internet? Plus, how do we expect our students to use computers and technology in general? And how should we teach them that? In answering those questions, I always come to a weird conclusion: the computer's role in school should be minimal, and the education with computers must be carry out with extreme care.

First, remember, students go to school to learn more than just common knowledge. If all you want from a high school graduate is, math, English, science, and computer skills, why bother sending that student to school? Why don't we just put him in a library, with appropriate books, movies, and, of course, the Internet. That's enough: all knowledge necessary can be acquired alone, without anyone else, without schools and such.

However, a person needs more than just that. In schools, students are taught not only technical side of life, but also social and emotional sides. Students interact with each other and with teachers, argue face to face, read and communicate through voices, body languages, hand writing, etc. Those activities are essential to the growth of the students. We have all heard of "geeks" and "nerds", who is technically apt, but social inept. Do we want to make all students nerds? If not, why making computers so important in schools?

Furthermore, most, if not all, people interact with computers at some levels in their daily life anyway. This explains programs such as One Laptop Per Child for poor countries: children there have no access to computers and technology. In advanced countries, the situation is in the reverse: there is too much computers already. People would rather sending text messages than saying "hi" on the streets already. Language of the Internet, of emoticons and short hands, has evaded everyday life already. The young has too much technology, not too little. Thus, to further "introduce" them into technology is not that necessary.

Moreover, such introduction is pretty simply. Software nowadays, except the case of very sophisticated tasks such as image editing or programming and the likes, is relative easy to learn. It can be said that a person learns how to use Windows faster than how to mop the floor. In such world, the

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