The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved

The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved

The Flickering Mind, by National Magazine Award winner Todd Oppenheimer, is a landmark account of the failure of technology to improve our schools and a call for renewed emphasis on what really works. American education faces an unusual moment of crisis. For decades, our schools have been beaten down by a series of curriculum fads, empty crusades for reform, and stingy funding. Now education and political leaders have offered their biggest and most expensive promise ever—the miracle of computers and the Internet—at a cost of approximately $70 billion just during the decade of the 1990s. Computer technology has become so prevalent that it is transforming nearly every corner of the academic world, from our efforts to close the gap between rich and poor, to our hopes for school reform, to our basic methods of developing the human imagination. Technology is also recasting the relationships that schools strike with the business community, changing public beliefs about the demands of tomorrow’s working world, and reframing the nation’s systems for researching, testing, and evaluating achievement. All this change has led to a culture of the flickering mind, and a generation teetering between two possible futures. In one, youngsters have a chance to become confident masters of the tools of their day, to better address the problems of tomorrow. Alternatively, they can become victims of commercial novelties and narrow measures of ability, underscored by misplaced faith in standardized testing. At this point, America’s students can’t even make a fair choice. They are an increasingly distracted lot. Their ability to reason, to listen, to feel empathy, is quite literally flickering. Computers and their attendant technologies did not cause all these problems, but they are quietly accelerating them. In this authoritative and impassioned account of the state of education in America, Todd Oppenheimer shows why it does not have to be this way. Oppenheimer visited dozens of schools nationwide—public and private, urban and rural—to present the compelling tales that frame this book. He consulted with experts, read volumes of studies, and came to strong and persuasive conclusions: that the essentials of learning have been gradually forgotten and that they matter much more than the novelties of technology. He argues that every time we computerize a science class or shut down a music program to pay for new hardware, we lose sight of what our priority should be: “enlightened basics.” Broad in scope and investigative in treatment, The Flickering Mind will not only contribute to a vital public conversation about what our schools can and should be—it will define the debate. The other side of the much-ballyhooed promise of technology in improving education is the reality that it often distracts from real education, provides new opportunities for commercial interests, and only contributes to growing inequities and lack of performance. Oppenheimer sorts through the concerns of advocates and critics of technology in the classroom and examines the ways that schools actually use computer technology and the Internet, from absorbing research projects to typing drills to games. Part 1 focuses on the false promises of technology, citing past failures to deliver improved academic performance. Part 2 examines the hidden troubles of high-tech kinks, from system incompatibilities to the shifting of funds for books into computers. In part 3, Oppenheimer examines successful technology programs at schools, businesses, and even the U.S. Army. He concludes with suggestions on how schools can maximize the benefits of technology and integrate computers into effective educational programs. This is a helpful resource for educators and parents weighing issues concerning computers and education. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “This is the most important book of its kind since Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities, and it carries the same torch—telling us what’s really going on inside the public education system. The Flickering Mind is a powerful work and a must-read for anyone who cares what will be within the minds of the next generation of Americans.” —Gregg Easterbrook, senior editor of The New Republic, author of The Progress Paradox “Todd Oppenheimer brings two great strengths to the subject he explores in The Flickering Mind: an understanding of technology’s possibilities and limitations, and an appreciation for the day-by-day realities of the way children learn. He also has a good eye for what is working, and why, in the classroom—and for what is hucksterish in the sales tactics used to promote high-tech learning. The combination makes The Flickering Mind authoritative and original, clear in its main message but also nuanced and fair.” —James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, author of Breaking the News “Todd Oppenheimer addresses the implications of computers in the classroom