jay mathews

As promised, Jay Mathews is back with a followup to his promotion for a new anti-edtech book, written by two high school social studies teachers here in Fairfax County. If possible, his installment this week features even more cliches and overly broad generalizations.

Mathews begins by citing the long discredited myth of the “digital native”, and follows that by completely misrepresenting (and likely misunderstanding) the work of danah boyd. All in one paragraph.

The rest of the column is a messy collection of anecdotes and unsupported claims from the book.

Citing much research, they concluded, “the new digital world is a toxic environment for the developing minds of young people. Rather than making digital natives superlearners, it has stunted their mental growth.”

I would love to see the academic studies they found using phrases like “toxic environment” and “superlearners”.

But what about the broad range of research that arrives at very different conclusions? While the negative side too often gets the headlines, studies of how technology impacts learning is hardly conclusive. And this blanket statement alone makes me think the authors are not going for any kind of balance in this book.

Then there’s this reasoning:

Social studies teachers, they reported, are being encouraged to move “to DBQs, or document-based questions, which are simply research papers where the teacher has done all the research for the students.” Clement and Miles stick with real research papers, after students learn about different types of evidence and plan investigative strategies. Yet their students often become frustrated when devices don’t lead them to a useful source right away.

Completely ignore the issue of whether writing “real” research papers is even a valid assignment anymore.

Back before the evil internet, very few teachers just dumped their kids in the library and ignored their frustration with finding appropriate material. The process of searching for, validating, and using evidence was a key part of the learning. It still is. If anything, these skills are even more important for students now. And banning the use of “screens” for research borders on educational malpractice.

The only idea by Mathews and the authors in this mess that makes any sense is that parents (and students and teachers) should ask questions about the use of technology in schools. But “May I opt my child out of screen-based instructional activities?” is not one of them.

Instead, go deeper and challenge educators to respond to queries like “How can the use of technology change and improve the learning experience for my child?” or “How will your instructional practice change to help my child make best use of the technology available?”.

Bottom line, I certainly support questioning the use of “screens” in the classroom. However, recommending, as the authors (and probably Mathews) do, that “teachers reject most of ed-tech” is completely unrealistic and extremely short-sighted.

It’s a matter of how, not whether.

In his regular weekly column for the Washington Post¹, Jay Mathews wants us to know about two local teachers who have written a book containing “discoveries that threaten the foundations of the high-tech classroom”.

Wow! But a statement like that is what you might expect from something with the title “Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse Is Making Our Kids Dumber.”

I haven’t read more than the excerpts provided by Mathews and the Amazon sampler for the book, but I have a few observations anyway.

Let’s start with the authors’ “three core principles for good teaching”:

(1) deliver instruction in the simplest possible manner; (2) focus instruction on what students are able to do; and (3) foster face-to-face human interaction and opportunities for community building.

That opening phrase “deliver instruction” is certainly at the core of the common view of classroom pedagogy. Someone designated as “teacher” delivers a package of carefully curated information to a group known as “students”. Unstated but assumed, of course, is that students will display the amount of information they have retained at some point.

In the third principle, the idea of “community building” is wonderful. That should be one of the primary goals of classrooms and schools. However, real communities are built by the members, not framed by someone else. Leaders come from within the community, not assigned to that role.

Then there are the opening lines to the first chapter of the book itself.

Something is not right with today’s kids. You know it, and I know it.

That is followed with the far too common indictment of “screen time” and the “misuse” of social media and technology in general, complete with the fictitious example of “typical” teenager Brett as he gets up and goes to school. Just that part of the book includes an incredible number of cliches disparaging both students and their teachers. I’m completely torn as to whether I want to read more.

However, in the course of the article, the authors’ and Mathews do land on a few truths.

They are certainly correct that “these tools in and of themselves do not make for better teaching”. And I do agree with this observation:

Students need no help from schools developing their tablet, smartphone, or Twitter skills. They are doing this on their own.

But not the conclusion that follows.

What they need help with is critical thinking, problem solving, and community building.

Most kids do very well with developing those skills. Just not for the material you are trying to get them to understand.

So, did you consider that maybe the problem isn’t with your students and their use of technology but instead with this structure we’ve designed for them call “school”?

Is it possible the curriculum we expect them to learn is a major part of the problem? Large parts of that material is irrelevant and does little to foster those problem solving and community building skills mentioned several times. Not to mention they way it is “delivered”.

Plus the kids are very well aware of why the teachers want them to absorb the information in the first place: it’s on the SOLs (Virginia’s standards of learning), it will probably show up on a test sometime in the future, and they must pass the test to “succeed” (and keep the schools/district numbers high).

In the end, I do not disagree with these teacher that there is something wrong with how we use technology in school.

The problem, however, is that, for the most part, we are trying to replicate the standard school experience through screens. We want to maintain the same curriculum, pedagogy, and academic framework with some computing devices slapped on the side.

Instead of taking full advantage of the available power from devices and networks to reimagine the entire learning experience.

By the way, Mathews closes the column with this:

Next week, I will get into what they say can be done to turn back the acidic distractions of the tech revolution in our schools, and save just the stuff that works.

You have been warned.

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1. The title in the paper, “Teachers demonstrate the power of fewer screens and more human interaction” is completely wrong; the online title “Hitting the return key on education” makes no sense.