The so-called digital revolution is no different than any other technological revolution. It is permeable to excesses until the revolution is no longer a revolution and becomes better understood in the context of its correct placement and impact on human societies. Like children, humanity is driven by a great deal of excitement over the new and unexplored. The trouble is when things that aren't yet well understood are nonetheless thoughtlessly introduced on the school; that institution that shapes the men and women of the future.
Why your 8-year-old should be coding | VentureBeat | Dev | by J. O'Dell
This article from 2013 reflects a trend of a group of modern thinkers that pretend to have all the answers to what is the best teaching pedagogy. And it includes the introduction of digital technology at the driving seat of teaching and learning. The benign and luminary nature of the article, filled with good intentions and mounted on the always appealing idea that technology solves all human problems and none better than education, is bound to gather adepts. The idea of schools with computer devices and software serving the purpose of teaching-by-fun as a means to better-learn and better-adapt in modern times, is bound for quick consensus. But most easy and simple ideas, are bad ideas.
One of the chief arguments of those wishing to have schools with robots, tablets, software and modern teaching methods based on the digital revolution, is that technology is changing at a rapid pace, constantly innovating, while schools are stuck on the old methods, austere and away from technology. But, ignoring for a moment that this is a non sequitor, a glaring contradiction becomes evident in this argument as soon as we give it some thought: If that is true, if schools are that bad, where is the quick advancement of technology coming from? Is it aliens that are inventing the digital revolution? Isn't it true that the impressive rise in the number of human innovators and technologists that are leading this digital revolution are themselves the product of those supposedly boring austere schools and old teaching methods? We should expect and desire the digital world to enter our schools. No doubt. But to deny the value of the formal teaching methods is to deny the very genesis of the digital revolution. For this reason alone, we should be more careful about exactly how we wish to disturb our teaching methods. But there's more.
Experiments like on the article above are happening a little around the globe. Advocates of the digital revolution as the revolution of all things, create, adapt or adopt all sorts of educational tools, frameworks, devices and businesses, all following the central pedagogical idea that technology should be the engine of teaching and children are better served by using it as a learning tool. But how much thought has been really given to this idea? One of the first things that comes to my mind is how much this will affect career choosing as these children grow with these teaching methods? One of the advantages of the formal and institutional teaching methods is that they are not tendentious. There's less room on a tech-driven school, of the type which these advocates promote, for its students to grow into musicians, lawyers, writers, cooks, dancers, social workers, and other career choices that do not necessarily take technology as their basis.
Technology can be used as a facilitator of teaching methods and of learning. That much I can agree. But should not take such a central role in our schools. Suddenly the School is thought to be old, boring and not adapted to modern times. The same school that has been birthing thinkers and scientists since ancient Greece and the same school that birthed the digital revolutionaries. That School can't be wrong. On the other hand, we cannot expect for an ultra-technological modernization of pedagogy not to have a negative impact on career choice. Children are biologically built to follow guidance. Their educational process must be all-inclusive in more ways than just the study subjects. Matrials count too. Study materials have long been recognized as essential tools in the learning process. And to pretend that computer devices should replace most of them, is destroying from the onset of childhood the ability of young adult to choose a career from a wider spectrum of possibilities.