Saying no to the big, bad Internet

Cluefon
    By Dan Dudis

As a nation, America seems to be moving quickly into the cold and lifeless embrace of the Internet. We shop online. Reach out and touch someone? Please. Try e-mail. Television news is slowly being eclipsed by the Drudge Report. And say goodbye to the red-light districts of old. Internet porn has enabled us all to enjoy our little perversions in Pentium-powered privacy. But now the avatars of the Internet, having already vanquished all previous opposition, are poised to conquer the final realm of American society as yet unwired: our public schools.

Bill Gates, eager to leave his monopolist's imprint on our school system, is donating millions of dollars in computer hardware and software to our schools. Al Gore and various other politicians prattle endlessly about the need for computers and Internet access in every classroom. To hear them talk, the fate of America's economic competitiveness hinges upon the next generation's ability to navigate their way from Yahoo! to Altavista and back again. Computers are now seen—both within the educational establishment and without—as the knight in shining armor who can valiantly come to the rescue of our much-maligned public-education system.

And yet this is all just so much talk. As a senior in high school, I had the privilege of being a student member of my county's board of education. Board meetings often featured the demonstration of new computer technology. These presentations were always done by specialists, and almost invariably went off without a hitch, showcasing the technology in the best possible light. The glamour of technology seduced the middle-aged board members, who all possessed little understanding of the technology themselves. They all unfailingly believed in the power of computers to take the place of teachers and in the power of the Internet to expand children's horizons. Computers, the Internet, and Jesus—the holy trinity took on an entirely new meaning in my small, Southern school system.

Unfortunately, when transplanted into actual schools, computers and computer-aided learning loses much of its luster. For the past couple of summers, during May and June, I was a substitute teacher in my old high school. My school now had Internet access. And let me tell you, horizons were indeed expanded. I seem to remember Internet sites dealing with Boyz II Men being particularly popular. So much for learning about Bedouins in North Africa and the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest. No, the students' interests were a bit less than, shall we say, intellectual.

All this would be innocent enough if education weren't a zero-sum game. But it is, and every visit to the computer to surf for Boyz II Men sites means less time spent learning the basics: reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. The school day has a limited number of hours. In my impoverished school district, teachers had a hard enough struggle trying to make sure that little Johnny knew how to read and that little Susie knew what an atom was. Computer and Internet literacy, while essential in today's technologically advanced world, mean little if the person is unable to read, write, and think critically. These are the things that must be taught by our public schools. Computer literacy will follow. More importantly, reading, writing, and thinking critically can be taught perfectly well sans computer. A computer in every classroom is an unnecessary and potentially harmful frill. Students have enough distractions already. In addition to the incessant note passing, talking, and pleading for trips to the bathroom, imagine if our already-overworked teachers had to deal with the added chaos that a networked computer would create. I can hear it now: "Mrs. Spragg, can I surf for 'NSync sites?" or "Mr. Marvel, Brittany found those nude Brad Pitt pictures again!" The American Revolution, the law of cosines, and glycolysis would go right out the window.

America is in many ways addicted to technology. For most of us, the new super-powerful computers are pointless. The computer of three years ago will do just fine. Still the incessant upgrades keep on coming. The aforementioned Bill Gates didn't give our schools computers out of the goodness of his heart; much like a street pusher, he doled them out to addict our students and teachers to useless technology, and thus increase his own fortune. And a technology addiction, if it robs our children of an education founded in the basics, will be just as insidious as any drug addiction.

Al Gore and his fellow politicians spout the doctrine of technology simply because they are devoid of any constructive solutions to improve public education in America. Well, I've got a simple one. How about we start paying teachers what they're really worth? High salaries will certainly attract some of the best and the brightest to a profession that is presently unjustly scorned. And while we're at it, why don't we consign Bill Gates and his computers to the junkheap of failed educational initiatives, with the open classroom and classes in single living?

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