Written by: Stephanie
With a smartphone in your pocket, it feels like you have the answers to the universe at your fingertips. But it technology making us smarter? Students can look up the answer to - almost- any question they may have. Certainly they can find as much info as they want about any part of the curriculum.
With a smartphone in your pocket, it feels like you have the answers to the universe at your fingertips. But it technology making us smarter? Students can look up the answer to - almost- any question they may have. Certainly they can find as much info as they want about any part of the curriculum.
One researcher would say that this access is making people dumber. A recent study has found that Americans are increasingly relying on devices to store their information instead of remembering it themselves. For example, 40% of respondents could not remember their children’s phone numbers, 70% didn’t know their phone number for their children’s school, and 39% couldn’t remember their work phone number. A lecturer at the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham commented on a similar European study saying “Based on this research it can be argued that the trend to look up information before even trying to recall it prevents the build up of long term memories.” What is the point of education when we can quickly look up the answer and don't remember it after we read it?
Vint Cerf has some thoughts on this:
I believe that school is about more than the memorized content. Students need to learn social and academic skills that will help them for the rest of their lives. The public education system is raising children to be responsible citizens. This means those who can evaluate articles for bias and truthfulness, who can employ critical thinking to arguments, and respond articulately with evidence-based claims. The BC Curriculum lists 6 Core Competencies: Communication, Creative Thinking, Critical Thinking, Positive Personal and Cultural Identity, Personal Awareness and Responsibility, and Social Responsibility. Repetition of these during teacher and student lead activities leads them to become habit. At this time of political and social change it is more important than ever to teach these competencies in secondary school.
- Stephanie
Such an interesting blog topic, but wow, these are kinda scary statistics. I like how you looked at the parent’s side of memorizing important information about their children. This emphasizes that technology is not just an issue in the classroom, but also a larger problem being developed in privileged areas and schools, as Catherine mentions in her previous post. Seeing the data that parents do not know important phone numbers for their children and where their children spend the majority of their days worries me, especially if there is a power outage or if one's technology’s battery dies. How will the parent get ahold of their child(ren) then, or visa versa. Yet Albert Einstein is also stated to have not know his own phone number, and he was a genius and functioning member of society which provides hope for our current society (http://factsnmyths.com/facts-about-albert-einstein).
ReplyDeleteI like how you provide a positive spin on this topic at the end of your post. I wonder though, do you think that it is important for students to be taught memorizing skills despite its lack of presences in the BC curriculum? Do you think it should be a minor competency in the BC curriculum so that students gain a base knowledge of each subject, that way they know where to look for answers online? Thanks for sharing!
Great blog post Stephanie! I have to say I agree more with you than with Jen on the topic of memorization. For too long our schools have been focussed on memorization of random, useless facts. What does it matter if the Vietnam war started in 1955 or 1956? (and yes, I did just have to look up those dates!) What does matter is the overarching themes of imperialism and the power of anti-war resistance, among many others. What matters is how and why this war started, and what the consequences of it were. These are the sorts of things our education should be focussing on.
ReplyDeleteDoes the lack of memorization make us dumber? Well, what does "dumb" and "smart" really mean? So what I can't remember my own phone number? That's why I have an address book. Maybe not having useless information like dates and phone numbers taking up space in my memory allows for more room for more useful pieces of information.
I would argue that schools make kids "dumber" by focussing on memorization. They could put that time into working on critical and creative thinking skills, as Steph mentioned. Sure there are certain times when memorization is important, like with your times tables or other basic skills in math. But on the whole, these more rounded, transferable skills are what we should be focussing on.