This isn't just about the devices. It couldn't possibly be so simple of a problem.
Everyone is approaching this situation as if the status quo of education before computers was perfect. Bullshit! How naive are we?
These children are upset because you are taking something from them that they don't even have the words to ask for: liberation.
Without liberation, school was 8 hours a day of boredom. It was sitting at a cold hard desk waiting for the end. It was prison, and it still is.
Children misbehaving in these circumstances is not new! We talked to each other, passed notes, chiseled the "cool s" into our desks, and brought toys. Did you forget doing these things yourself? Have you really forgotten what it is like to be a child in school?
These behaviors were easy for teachers to manage. Toys can be taken away, and vandalism directly criticized. Loud conversations were competing with lectures, and lectures can win. The rules made sense.
Computers are not so easy. Toys? They are only software. Vandalism? It's a drawing app! Conversations? Silent. What moral ground do you have to stop these behaviors? Kids aren't doing "something wrong" anymore: they are doing "something else". Teachers are fighting them from a totally different position now: vain authoritarianism.
That's the difference: children feel the liberation from prison, and it is arbitrarily taken out of their hands. What value are you giving them in its stead?
It's time to confront the failure of traditional education. No child wants it, and every child has readily available alternatives now; made of flashing lights and tactile switches!
Education is failing to compete with children's attention. Why? Because it could only ever just barely compete against boredom itself. That's gone now. We have been liberated from it. The bar has been raised as it should have been at the very beginning. Wake up and get with the times.
Everyone is approaching this situation as if the status quo of education before computers was perfect. Bullshit! How naive are we?
These children are upset because you are taking something from them that they don't even have the words to ask for: liberation.
Without liberation, school was 8 hours a day of boredom. It was sitting at a cold hard desk waiting for the end. It was prison, and it still is.
Children misbehaving in these circumstances is not new! We talked to each other, passed notes, chiseled the "cool s" into our desks, and brought toys. Did you forget doing these things yourself? Have you really forgotten what it is like to be a child in school?
These behaviors were easy for teachers to manage. Toys can be taken away, and vandalism directly criticized. Loud conversations were competing with lectures, and lectures can win. The rules made sense.
Computers are not so easy. Toys? They are only software. Vandalism? It's a drawing app! Conversations? Silent. What moral ground do you have to stop these behaviors? Kids aren't doing "something wrong" anymore: they are doing "something else". Teachers are fighting them from a totally different position now: vain authoritarianism.
That's the difference: children feel the liberation from prison, and it is arbitrarily taken out of their hands. What value are you giving them in its stead?
It's time to confront the failure of traditional education. No child wants it, and every child has readily available alternatives now; made of flashing lights and tactile switches!
Education is failing to compete with children's attention. Why? Because it could only ever just barely compete against boredom itself. That's gone now. We have been liberated from it. The bar has been raised as it should have been at the very beginning. Wake up and get with the times.