Computers in the classroom.

It must have been fifty years ago. I was teaching elementary school.

The School District, in its wisdom, had set up a special classroom with computers, and we were to bring  our class in for an hour training session.

Teachers I had never seen before sat my students before their own individual screens. They gave instructions, showed how to push the buttons, led the student through a trial sample. Read the passage, answer the question, when you get it right, the screen advances to the next question.

At the final tally, you are marked as proficient, having achieved mastery. Your score is recorded and you are advanced to the next level.  

You can complete an entire grade level in record time.

My students were no fools. They discovered right away that if you got the wrong answer, the computer said, “Incorrect. Try again,” so they tried every answer until the screen said, “Correct,” and advanced to the next question. The students told each other, “Just go down the row of answers until you hit the right one. You don’t even need to read the passage or the question,” and “Try answer number 3 first, that’s statistically the most common correct response.”

The supervising teachers crowed over the “rapid learning and mastery.” I thought, even then, those interloping “teachers” were paid by the computer company which had convinced the School District to invest money in “the new innovative education of the future.”

We were told our classroom would be fitted with computers installed for every student, thus lightening our instructional load.

My students were too smart and saw through the system, didn’t like it, knew they were being cheated of an education, and asked me, “Aren’t you going to tell them?

So I said to the “guest teachers,” “What did the students learn?”

“They achieved mastery of a wide range of material. They have high scores.”

“Ask them what they know.”

It became immediately apparent that the students had not read the material and learned nothing.

The District Representative sent to oversee the process put the transaction on hold. The computer people said, “We can reprogram the computers so they will not allow a student to “try” another answer when their choice is incorrect. This should discourage cheating.”

The District Rep. said, “Come back to us when you’ve fixed the system, and we’ll talk then. The money we gave you, we’ll put on hold.”

My students and I returned to our classroom to read and write and question. They said, “We’ve witnessed the future.”

That was then.

This is now.

We haven’t learned from past mistakes.

Education is in crisis.

The Government tells us what we can teach. History is rewritten. Books are removed. Religion is mandated.

Leaders in education say, “With AI, we don’t need to teach composition anymore.”

A rising star in tech proudly proclaims, “I never read a book.”

Cut the words out of Shakespeare and he’s no better than a comic book.

The computer knows more than you ever will.

Colleges, traditionally the bastions of higher learning, tried to stand up to the Government demands until funding was cut. They now realize that money is not only the highest value, it’s the only value. A college education is just job preparation.

Truth is relative, law is gone, humanity is a meaningless word, we are falling off the tipping point, chaos reigns, the end is near.

How can I have lived so long to have seen so much?

In the darkness, empty eyes look in all directions. Some look to me.

People walk the streets, their eyes fixed on a phone. They pass each other.

I stop to talk. We are still here, our hands reach across the great core of unknowing.   

I still can read, and love the words. “Created equal.”  “Love your “neighbor.”  “Do no harm.”

I have not seen it all, but I have seen enough.

While there is life, there is hope.

Sleepers, awake!