children, learning, information, technology

[John Steinmetz]

About learning from websites, filtering information, and so on, I 
want to toss in Neil Postman's comment: our society's problems are 
not problems of lack of information.

In my opinion, among the many things often missing from children's 
education, access to information is far from the biggest problem. 
Some of my more pressing concerns: children need a chance to develop 
love for the natural world, to stretch their imaginations in various 
ways (including play), to contact the beauty in mathematics and other 
subjects, to get good at some activities that are difficult and 
worthwhile, to move their bodies, to make things (cookies, paintings, 
music, proofs, stories, plays) for themselves. Children need to drink 
deeply of beauty and goodness and fun in the world--including 
beautiful things that have been made by people who came before.

Maybe I haven't even mentioned the most important priorities, but I 
fear that overemphasis on developing practical skills and collecting 
facts will send to the future too many people who can manipulate 
information without being very well connected to life. We need to 
grow more citizens who are not numb.

And so with video games and movies, if we talk only about their 
content (are they too evil? scary? violent?), I think we miss the 
more important point that bombarding children with manufactured 
imagery and prefabricated experiences may inhibit their ability to 
imagine their own worlds and their own characters. Imagination isn't 
just important for so-called "creative" activities; even reading 
depends on it, because you must be able to form an inner experience 
of what you're reading. We're already hearing about children who can 
decode written words but can't understand what they read. And I hear 
from some teachers about children who arrive at preschool unable to 
play "lets pretend," and about their older siblings who reach college 
unable to form an image in response to hearing a piece of music.

Any strong medium can foster numbness or encourage aliveness, 
depending on how it is used. I think it helps to keep in mind a 
question like this one from Alan Kay: what kinds of people do we want 
to send to the future?

	John