It is hardly an, ahem, academic issue: total school spending on computer technology, in the ’90s alone, was estimated at $70 billion. And the ongoing Federal “e-rate” program continues to pump $2.25 billion each year into Internet networks for poor schools. The use of heavily computer-based curricula, both in schools and in private learning centers, is rapidly increasing. And hardware manufacturers continue to court school district business as assiduously as they do the Fortune 500. If computers are bad for schools, then we’ve taken a catastrophically wrong turn.
And that’s exactly what Oppenheimer argues. At four-hundred-pages-plus, “The Flickering Mind” www.flickeringmind.net) is not a book intended for a quick browse or a snap judgment; Oppenheimer has been visiting classrooms and talking to educators ever since an Atlantic Monthly article he wrote on the topic in 1997 won a National Magazine Award. And the subject needs the space: educational computing is a mix of issues ranging from politics and capitalism to marketing and the social status of teachers.
Oppenheimer focuses on what he sees as the key failings of computers in schools. Some issues are not new: the early and excessive concern about “computer literacy,” too often at the cost of basic literacy. Other issues are familiar but more clearly documented than usual-the inability of school systems to maintain equipment or train teachers once the hardware is in place. He does give computers credit for some benefits: more efficient record keeping, and better ways to reach children with learning disabilities. But the central message is that computer infatuation has not only drained billions of dollars from more urgent educational needs, but that its misuse actually damages students, turning out a generation of kids with inferior learning and thinking skills.
Oppenheimer is brutal in his assessment of the well-to-do “high tech” schools he visits, all too often finding teachers and administrators in a fog of self-delusion, bragging about glitzy student PowerPoint productions that in fact reveal scant understanding. He is equally cutting about the technologic follies he sees in underprivileged schools. This time he lays blame on ambitious administrators and clueless federal programs that ignore the real needs of teachers-many of whom need careful coaching even to find the “Enter” key. While there are few heroes in Oppenheimer’s book, most of the villains are superficial or misguided, rather than venal, with one exception: the companies that have prospered by selling technology to schools. Oppenheimer is particularly strong in examining the Federal e-rate program, in which technology firms seem to have systematically overbilled many school districts in setting up their Internet services. Oppenheimer describes how, in 2000, the San Francisco school district turned down $50 million in e-rate funds when they found that they could actually build their network themselves, for less than even the small cost they would have had to pay in order to receive the e-rate funding. The hardware manufacturer was marking up the equipment for the federal program far over the prices that the district could get on the open market. In another extended chapter he also takes off after the highly popular (and lucrative) Renaissance Learning Inc., whose software-based reading curriculum is promoted via reams of questionable research.
Oppenheimer can overstep in his technology-bashing. At one point he suggests that “by 2002, use of the Web, by both developers and consumers, was already starting to decline,” a statement that would puzzle most Internet statisticians. And then by way of explanation for this faltering Web, Oppenheimer explains that “what increasingly filled the Internet’s void were hundreds of lucrative sites serving up pornography, swindles and various other examples of sleaze.” Had he made that “tens of thousands” of sleazy sites he’d be closer-but then there were also plenty of smart, well-designed, and reasonably informative sites elsewhere in the “void.”
Oppenheimer doesn’t limit himself to technology-laced throughout the book are nutshell summaries of historical trends in education and various pedagogic philosophies, as well as analysis of public school funding in this country. At times one wonders whether what Oppenheimer finds unappealing in his classroom visits aren’t so much computers, but the endemic problems of this country’s neglected public schools, newly reflected in the mirror of technology infatuation. But computer technology remains the central focus, and when Oppenheimer at last turns to solutions, his centerpiece is the controversial Waldorf method, an unorthodox schooling philosophy that discourages technology of any kind.
Oppenheimer’s admiration for the Waldorf method stems from the schools’ insistence that kids learn best with physical objects and activities rather than computerized graphics and abstractions. And in fact there is some evidence that too much computer activity early in life-in lieu of real-world experience-may indeed limit intellectual and creative development. That possibility, even more than the billions of wasted dollars, is certainly the book’s most worrisome theme.
The Flickering Mind will likely launch a firestorm among educators-anyone who spends much time with teachers knows that many find great value in computers, and often spend their own time and money to learn about the technology. Luddite opponents may also use the book to condemn any computers in schools, and that would be a shame. It’s important to recall that Oppenheimer’s survey covers only the very first years of a process in which educators are still learning the best ways to use the little machines. If The Flickering Mind helps redirect educators toward a more judicious and appropriate use of computers, Oppenheimer’s crusade will be worthwhile. If it merely gives society another reason to cut education spending-this time at the expense of classroom technology-then the costly lessons we’ve learned thus far will be wasted altogether.
