This is a omniblog that will cover a wide variety of topics ranging from education, disabilities, finance, and alternative health to aesthetics and human potential. These topics encompass the range of activities covered by the Enabling Support Foundation (www.enabling.org)

Sunday, July 1, 2012

What would happen if paper and pencil were banned in school?

Look at today's preschool children. The iPad has become their busy box.  They are confused at paper magazines that do not scroll to touch.  They can have relatively complex conversations and they understand pictures and icons.  They are on cell phones and would soon learn to text just as they learned to speak and listen.  These children come to school in a 21st Century environment.  And then, we put a pencil their hands. 
There are those that think the students would not really understand unless they learned to do it for the 19th Century workplace.  They make a good case for what we will have lost.  But the bottom line is all the students will lose is handwriting.  Create a new discipline called, something like "Handwriting Arts."  It would be required of all students, but not as basic to Education.

Getting back to the 19th Century, arithmetic then, was the basis of all higher mathematics.  It was essential to progress.  The 20th Century changed that, and in the 21st Century paper and pencil is replaced by a spreadsheet.  It is easier to teach mathematics when the student is not distracted by arithmetic.  Like handwriting, there would be computation courses which would stress 19th Century approaches.  The emphasis, however, would be on advanced estimation rather than exact arithmetic.  If I want exact information, I would use automation, not mental arithmetic.

I answered the question on the negative consequences to Education without paper and pencil.  Turn it around:

What would be the consequences to Education if computers were banned?

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I am a retired research neuropsychologist who is now CEO of the Enabling Support Foundation, a non-profit with a mission aimed at Education and at Persons with Disabilities.