The human touch: in the rush to place a computer on every desk, schools are neglecting intellectual creativity and personal growth

Education Next, Fall, 2004 by Lowell Monke

The most daunting problems facing our society--drugs, violence, racism, poverty, the dissolution of family and community, and certainly war--are all matters of human purpose and meaning. Filling schools with computers will not help find the answers to why the freest nation in the world has the highest percentage of citizens behind bars or why the wealthiest nation in history condemns a sixth of its children to poverty.

So it seems that we are faced with a remarkable irony: that in an age of increasing artificiality, children first need to sink their hands deeply into what is real; that in an age of light-speed communication, it is crucial that children take the time to develop their own inner voice; that in an age of incredibly powerful machines we must first teach our children how to use the incredible powers that lie deep within themselves.

Lowell Monke is an assistant professor of education at Wittenberg University.