Laptops: Boon to learning or expensive distractions?

As education officials around the state publicly prepare their upcoming budget requests, it’s at least as eye-opening seeing what they value most as it is observing where they’re contemplating cuts.

Electronics and added tech support are at or near the top of nearly every administrator’s wish list. Laptop computers are of particular interest; many superintendents, school board members, teachers and administrators want each youngster in their local middle and/or high school equipped with one. Technology is undeniably a large part of the future; to insufficiently prepare students in that area would be ”“ to borrow a phrase ”“ leaving our children behind. But does the preponderance of electronic devices in schools ultimately benefit education? Or is Maine’s costly and ongoing investment in technology ultimately counterproductive?

It’s hard to argue with those who maintain that local students less technologically savvy than their peers elsewhere will face multiple obstacles later in life ”“ competition for both college admission and desirable employment is getting fiercer by the day. But purchasing state-of-the-art computers, which will in all likelihood soon be rendered obsolete by new and improved items (which themselves will likely be destined for the scrap heap shortly thereafter in favor of gadgets with even further upgrades), can be an exorbitantly expensive proposition. In the past, ethically challenged merchants selling items designed to permanently hook customers were either purveyors of tobacco or dealers of illegal narcotics, but today’s ubiquitous technology peddlers are far more successful at convincing young clients of the absolute necessity of their products than Joe Camel’s creators ever were.

Aspiring to keep America’s youth competitive by supplying them with the most up-to-date electronic devices and all their recommended accessories is admirable, but doing so at the expense of de-emphasizing other areas of education is folly, the equivalent of constructing an attractive and expensive penthouse atop an apartment building with a crumbling foundation. Another problem for laptop advocates: How to convert young people already familiar with computers solely as social networking tools ”“ or as a source of other forms of electronic instant gratification ”“ to inquisitive types who’ll more efficiently use such devices to access countless libraries of information worldwide.

Cell phones, which allow users to text, tweet, twitter, prattle, or otherwise babble electronically, are currently doing for literacy what electronic calculators did for basic arithmetic skills once they became standard equipment three or so decades ago. Today, most math instructors routinely deal with far too many young people who are unable to perform even the most basic of computations without the aid of such devices. Similarly, thanks at least partly to word processors, which point out all real and perceived errors in spelling, grammar, and/or usage ”“ and allow the user to “fix” such mistakes with just the mindless touch of a key ”“ teachers of subjects requiring language fluency and/or cogent thought are seeing a continuing free-fall in written articulation skills on those occasions when they ask students to put their thoughts into writing. And that’s assuming such pupils actually attempt to conceptualize and subsequently express original ideas in their own words, rather than regurgitate those of others by cutting and pasting excerpts from previously-written ”“ and all-too-easily accessible electronically ”“ compositions. And teaching children equipped with state-of-the-art word processors keyboarding skills early in life often yields another unintended consequence: Sloppy, hard-to-read handwriting that grows increasingly indecipherable as students become more computer-dependent with each succeeding year of mandated technology use.

But perhaps the most obvious shortfall created by American education’s love affair with electronic, labor-saving devices hides in plain sight. Physical education programs have been de-emphasized to the point of irrelevance in many places, despite skyrocketing increases both locally and nationally in the rates of childhood obesity and early-onset diabetes. A generation ago custodians cleaned athletic-area bathroom floors assiduously, lest youngsters who routinely showered after gym class or athletic team practices pick up a case of athlete’s foot. Today the greatest risk students take when entering a locker room shower stall is walking into a cobweb.

Participation rates for many interscholastic sports are plummeting. This season, at least one local Class A boys high school basketball program made no cuts; everyone who showed up was placed on the varsity, JV, or freshman team. Less than a generation ago most high school hoop coaches conducted tryouts that took several days just to winnow their programs down to somewhat manageable numbers.

No one is suggesting a ban on electronic devices in schools, at least not yet. But how long will parents, teachers, administrators and most importantly taxpayers continue tolerating shortening attention spans, expanding waistlines, plunging literacy rates and declining interpersonal skills before deciding there are more important ”“ to say nothing of less costly ”“ priorities than providing students with access to iPads, iPods, iTunes, and iMovies in a society that’s becoming more I-centered with each passing day?

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