> have policies on floppy disks?
I'll up the ante on that sentiment. In 10 or 20 years or whatever we are
going to once again look back and realize how ridiculous it was to try to
limit student access to "technology." I submit that we have to stop trying
to "fight yesterday's war" and get with the program. For purposes of this
discussion I define "program" as the full range of devices used by the
modern kid: USB drives, mp3 players, PDA's and, yes, cell phones. (I'm
sure others could add to this list.)
To broaden the discussion a bit, I think there are at least two larger
issues here:
1. Will schools or individual teachers who eschew the tools of the modern
kid be seen as increasingly irrelevant to said kid?
2. How will the traditional bricks-and-mortar approach to education stand
up to the various social and technological forces at work, which possibly
include:
A. A shrinking and perhaps less qualified pool of teachers.
B. A world in which technology no longer requires students to be in the
same physical space in order for learning to take place.
To comment on point B, I just cannot believe that if the kinds of
technology that we have now and will have in the not-too-distant future
had been available when our current system of schools was in its infancy,
we would have designed the kind of bricks-and-mortar approach we have
today. If I were a betting person, I would bet that, in addition to points
A and B above, purely economic forces will force us to adopt an approach
to schooling that relies much more heavily on technology (including a full
range of distance-learning approaches). Whether that occurs in my
lifetime is an open question, I guess.
(By the way, I realize that I have probably expanded this discussion
beyond the scope of independent schoools per se.)
Ross Lenet
Sidwell Friends School, Washington, DC
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