Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives
Response to Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives. January 9th Edition.
I respond specifically to the section: The Classroom will learn you. The article does not indicate what is meant by "sufficient education". How can a discussion take place when we do not know what the article discusses? It never defines those "skills critical to meeting personal goals". Nor does it even give a hint what skills are needed. The article does indicate that these things will be done by computers. What these things are is left nebulous at best.
"In the next five years the classroom will learn about each student using longitudinal data such as test scores, attendance and student's behavior on learning platforms."
What is longitudinal data? What are learning platforms? I admit that the paragraph above is meant to sound impressive. But a careful look at the words brings absolutely no clarity in terms of the article. The words which do make sense such as "attendance" are smothered by "longitudinal data and learning platforms".
"Sophisticated analytics delivered over the cloud will provide decision support to teachers"- It appears to say that teachers need a computer's analysis based on statistics alone to understand a student. The article attempts to lift computer analytics to a level driving decisions instead of a tool. It is only a tool. Just a tool. But a tool which contains prejudice which is driven by the statistics selected and limited in scope by the very nature of statistics. When I taught, there was little I learned from statistics to know, as a student came in to my room, on any given day, what problems they faced. I had students , some of which, came from very wealthy homes, yet had no food in the house, parents not home when child arrived after a day at school, no discussion around a dinner table, often no one even there when it came time to go to bed. The statistics, however, showed a wealthy family who lived in a very expensive home, owned by people who made a great deal of money, had college degrees and the list goes on and on. The statistics also would have shown a student above average who had no trouble in school as far as the principal's office was concerned. Yet, this student had problems, serious problems which only one person in a school setting would know- the teacher. I emphasize "person". What we need are teachers who learn to understand people. That can only happen with human to human contact.
There is another aspect to the quote above and the article in general- the language used and the grammar employed is strange in terms of normal conversational English. As far as I know communication only takes place when something is understood. Examine the title of the section- The Classroom will learn you. We learn a subject, we learn how to do something. Who says, "He learn me"? "They learn them"? We do say "He teaches me", "They teach me."
The article treats students as objects of study, not as people. I admit that this approach has become common in schools. It has been disastrous. People are not objects, are not bugs under a glass. It is weird how in modern times we seem obsessed with talking on an on about individually, how everyone is different, how everyone is unique. And then we proceed to pigeon hole everyone into a set of given categories as though people can be categorized like the elements in chemistry. Yes, there are similarities from one person to the next but to take it any distance at all means that people are dehumanized in the sense that all must fit in some slot.
In fact this section of the article gives every indication that the teacher is merely a tool whose job is to sit and wait for "data" to come in in order to know what to do. It dehumanizes teachers into speaking tools.
It takes 10 to 15 years for a teacher to become proficient. By this I mean it takes an attitude that learning is a life long process in order to learn a subject well enough that class instruction allows for pleasant give and take in a classroom setting, and it takes at least a decade to know how to read students as they come through the door, to understand the nuances of behavior, how to direct youthful energy toward learning and how to make the lesson meaningful and useful for life. However, the article assumes that a computer will do this with statistics. Weird and inexplicable.
So I conclude with my prediction. This may indeed come to pass that computers will do what it appears the article contends. But it will happen by opposing the powerful winds of reality.
Bill Prueter
8200 Mulberry Road
Chesterland, Ohio 44026
cicero106@gmail.com
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