I have two e-mail addresses. I write and edit on a PC every day. I use the Internet for research (and fun) and help facilitate online discussion groups. I subscribe to several electronic newsletters and mailing lists and contribute to another. I occasionally telecommute, plugging into my office network via modem, and my son has wired the whole family on our own local area network at home. But I am writing this in longhand on a yellow legal pad to simulate what Neil Postman says he does.
At a conference called "Education Technology: Asking the Right Questions" on September 18, Postman stated: "I do not use e-mail. I do not write on a computer or a typewriter. I have no interest in the Internet." But, he added, "I am not anti-technology." A professor at New York University, Postman has written widely on technology and its effects on children and society—notably in Amusing Ourselves to Death and The End of Education. He says his forthcoming book will be called Building a Bridge to the 18th Century.
- What is the problem to which this technology is the solution? Postman says we need to be skeptical of solutions handed to us by government or commercial interests.
- Whose problem is it? Who will benefit, and who will pay for it? The answers are not always the same. And the people who pay often have other interests besides those of children. These are often related to the bottom line.
- Suppose we solve the problem. What new problems will result? Postman cites auto pollution, the influence of TV on politics, and the decline in children's reading as examples of problems resulting from technologies.
- Which people and institutions might be most seriously harmed by a solution? To Postman and many other conference presenters, teachers are "serious losers" in the wholesale wiring of schools. What will become of face-to-face instruction in the advent of virtual instruction? To Postman, the computer industry is the clear winner.
- What changes in language do the new technologies foster? Postman derides the changing meaning of words and concepts in a wired society: "Conversation is not e-mail," he says. An "electronic town hall" is not New England democracy. As for "distance learning," what happened to reading a book?
- What sort of people and institutions acquire political power because of the acquisition of technology? Consider politics and TV again—and how our recent presidents have been shaped and imaged and turned into sound bites. Consider ecological effects—computers increase our use of paper, while they decrease jobs, such as bank tellers replaced by ATMs.
Postman concluded by discussing information overload and the institutions that control information. He said: "The role of schools is to protect children from information." He advocated, as what I see as a desperate measure, the "thermostatic theory of curriculum construction": Schools should do the opposite of what the prevailing culture says they should do.
After Postman's speech, one brave audience member said he had come up with a problem that technology could solve—boosting children's learning. During breaks at the conference, I discovered that many participants agreed. Communicating by e-mail, doing research on the Net (plus reading books—a new technology in another century), writing on the computer, participating in distance education and virtual instruction—all these applications of technology can promote children's learning. Authors in this issue point us to many children—and teachers—who are using new technologies to learn language, math, science, and art.
Postman acknowledged that technology may help children learn, but he reminded us to be wary of other problems it may create.
Paul Gilster, the author of Digital Literacy (p. 6), has given educators similar cautions and questions. He asks, "How can we use technology to do something worthwhile for our culture and our society?" Let's keep our heads about us as we explore what our new century may bring.
