Dan Widyono wrote:
Actually, Bruce's comments are perfectly reasonable. Consider the fact that I'd never laid fingers on a computer keyboard until I was maybe twelve or thirteen, maybe older, when our school got Apple IIs set up. (I was born in 1963. You do the math.)time?" The teacher responded, "Any fool, can be taught to operate a machine. You're being taught how to solve the problem yourself."
Children should not be allowed to use computers until they master the basic skills of the three R's on their own. Age 10 at the earliest.
Bah humbug, Bruce. It's up to the parents to make sure that *if* they use a computer, they are _also_ taught problem solving and other essential skills at the same level expected as if they hadn't a computer. That's the whole point of implying there are other effects like economic status and parental involvement, in households with computers (in the article).
Your blanket statement "don't use computers until 10" is not only
impractical, it's also as misleading as "computers definitely help kids
learn". If you extended your statement, you'd have to add "no TV until 10",
"no video games until 10", etc. Computers don't halt learning, uncontrolled
usage and inappropriate limits halt learning.
As for this "up to the parents" stuff, that's misleading. We're talking about what _schools_ can do. It's understood that parents have a responsibility here.
And my skills with computers are, if not spectacular, much better than most. I'd say I was the last generation to be raised _without_ computers, and I have noticed a distinct demarcation; younger users are more comfortable with computers, but they don't seem to understand what the computer's actually _doing_ behind the interface.
I don't have the references handy, but there's better evidence to suggest that _music_ education helps students far more than computers do.
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