In one of my posts, I highlighted Howard Rheingold’s post about the Amish and their relationship with technology. He suggested that instead of a mad rush to bring technology into our lives, we should have an ongoing conversation with technology. The cultural critic, Neil Postman, also has a similar view about technology. Postman in fact tries to make this conversation a little clearer by suggesting that we think about six questions that we should ask when a new technology is introduced. The six questions are:

• What is the problem to which this technology is a solution?
• Whose problem is it?
• What new problems might be created by solving the original problem?
• Which people and what institutions will be most seriously harmed by this new technology?
• What changes in language are being forced by these new technologies?
• What sort of people and institutions gain special economic and political power from this new technology?

In my view, the questions are meant to prevent us from rushing into implementing or using any new technology. In the field of education, these questions become all the more important because it is going to impact and area of human endeavor, that is, education, that is clearly supposed to be designed for the future. As an educator who had been part of Singapore’s well-known MasterPlan for IT in Education (MPITE) team, I have had an abiding interest in the use of ICT in schools. However, Rheingold’s and Postman’s suggestions for a conversation with ICT, have both given me cause to reflect on the use of ICT in education. I will be sharing my thoughts on the questions raised by Postman in relation to how ICT is supposed to be used in education. So do look out for them. In the meantime, click on the book cover to read Postman’s “Technopoly”.

I used to be left at home as a kid with my mum while my dad was out at work and all my siblings were in school. I remember being in a world all my own and looking for things to do to occupy myself. I remember getting an old clock to work again after dismantling it and fiddling with it for awhile.

I also remember the miniature “sail cars” that I used to built from cannibalized toys. The sail would usually just be a piece of paper held upright in place by a stick. Sometimes I would use those plastic windmills or propellers in place of these paper sail to power these sail cars of mine. The wheels would come from dismantled Matchbox Superfast cars, and the chasis of my sail cars would be made from empty boxes. They would be held together by rubber bands or glue.

I had hours of fun building different sail cars and racing one against another on the floor of my apartment house. The wind would come from the direction of the balcony. I would build different configurations to see what will make my sail cars move faster. I would try with paper sails or switch to plastic propellers. I would change the wheels and “chassis” to see which chassis is more stable to support the sail or fan.

Looking back I think those were wonderful learning moments for me. I was faced with a problem and had to solve it through some creative thinking. I don’t think I had learned about “center of gravity” but I knew it intuitively through trying to get a stable sail car. I learned something about “harnessing the energy of the wind” even though such words perhaps didn’t exist in my vocabulary. “Creativity” wasn’t a word to me either.

I learned science without a textbook. I explored things. I explored ideas. I learned to be creative through play. I was learning as learning should be done. It was fun and natural, and very importantly, meaningful. Meaningful without having to memorize definitions of concepts like “wind power” or “energy”.

Parents and teachers can do a lot to encourage such curiosity among by providing them with opportunities with do-it-yourself projects. Give them a free reign. Don’t even designate these DIY projects as a “Science project” or a “Mathematics Project”. Don’t attach labels to them. You may  insist that their project must not have electronic parts. Leave it to the kids to share something that interest them. Do you think learning in schools can be like this? For parents, it is a great way to wean your kids off the computers and video games.

Cat Stevens wrote this words many years ago:

Oh. I know we’ve come a long way,
we’re changing day to day,
but tell me where do the children play.
Well you’ve cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air,
but will you keep on building higher ’til there’s no more room up there.

Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry,
will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die.
I know we’ve come a long way, we’re changing day to day.
But tell me, where do the children play.

(from Where will the children play by Cat Stevens)

I often wonder about this song and what we in Singapore are giving up in a our race to build skyscrapers. Singapore has come a long way since its independence. However, one wonders where we are taking our children to with the high pressure examinations system that is the Singapore school system. Our students are known for acing their examinations. Our students also do well in international surveys and examinations. Our students are able to enter the top universities.

Do the others know what price Singapore students have to pay for these? Do they know of the very long school hours that the students have to put into school? Do they know about the amount of mechanical learning and rote-learning that is being done in Singapore schools? Do they know the amount of drilling being done to pass the examinations? Most of all do they know “where do the children play”?