Back to textbooks: Denmark rolls back digital learning • FRANCE 24 English

Thx, I agree with what you say but I also do not agree (a tool is rarely the issue, it can be but often it’s the way we use it). Allow me to explain.

like i do not understand why we can only see black or white - screens are good or screens are bad.

I don’t think it is a B&W vision. For one thing they don’t want to ban screens. They want to go back to printed book in class. And kids still have a life outside of class.

They only decided screens were not the best medium to teach in class. That’s not seeing things in B&W, that is saying: we have an issue we did not have prior and, in all parameters we can observe, here are the ones that were changing when the issues arose.

If that was B&W, shouldn’t you agree that forcing screens in schools is also seeing things in B&W: no good teaching can be achieved without using high-tech.

a laptop with a touch screen and stylus - works as a notebook,

That remains to be demonstrated. They mimic it. They are not equals.

Not considering the complexity layer (no need to update, charge, turn on/off a paper or a print book, or to login & to launch an app to finally be able to use it), I can think of a few other things worth considering:

• a screen is a light emitting tech vs paper which is a light reflecting tech (how that emitted light impacts brain (or not) and increase fatigue.
• Next to the stylus, which is not the most widely used in class as far as I can understand, there is the keyboard. There are a few studies that points to a weaker memorization & understanding of whatever is being written down compared to longhand.
  Keyboard is so everywhere in schools that we are now in the process of not teaching kids handwriting anymore. Like, really?
• The (lack of) privacy. The constant monitoring and spying of kids while they’re reading/learning. Tracking that is not only from the school (which is already bad) but also by private corporations, most of them being US… which most of the world is not.
• The lack of standardization. I mean, I learned to write longhand in the early 70s and I’ve not needed to relearn it ever. Compare that to learning a new keyboard layout, a new UI in an app (hello, MS Word’s Ribbon), or a new version of the OS (that is being updated and changed for the sole purpose of making it more exciting to people), or even with changing OS completely.
• Longevity. That is obviously less of a concern for kids going to school, but it should be to their parents and all citizen financing public education, imho. I still use today a few fountain pens that I’ve been using since the 80s and, to make a parallel with keyboards, I also still use a typewriter that was my grandfather’s. That seems silly and meaningless but I don’t think it is: it contributes in shaping another relation to tech, one that sees tech as a mere tool among many others and not the ‘solve everything’ magical wand it is now considered. A different relation that is less focused on needing to own the newest latest tech but on how better use whatever we already have, and in doing so creating less waste and giving less power to the corporations owning said tech, too.
• Another that should never be a concern for any kid ever, but should worry adults around them: cost. Replacing a broken pen, a book, or some sheet of paper is cheap and instant. Not so much with a computer/tablet. Heck, not even a stylus is ‘pencil cheap’.

But I insist, I would like to read studies showing using a tablet/stylus is akin to using pen and paper in terms of memorizing/understanding whatever is being taught by the teacher. Closer to it, I would happily agree but similar? I would first like to read studies.

if you buy such a laptop, once every 5 year, and basically teach good usage habits, it would not be much more expensive than giving each child separate books, or notebooks.

I don’t understand that.

• I mean, a textbook is say 50€ (not considering bulk purchase) and the kids doesn’t even need to own that book, the school can purchase them and rent them to the kids for the time required to use that textbook, and then the kid gives it back and it would still be perfectly usable for the next kid to use (if not, parents of the previous kid should have to pay a fee for the damaging of that book that would still cost nothing like buying a new computer).
• Writing longhand cost nothing. 1 liter of school grade ink (Pelikan) will cost less than 40€. And one liter of ink is enough to write, what, a hundred thousand pages? Fifty thousand? In any case lot more than what any kid will write in the years they spend learning to write and read ;)
• Access to other books (novels) and other readings? They can be accessed for free thanks to public libraries (and school libraries). And if that is not an option they can all be found used (and new) for much cheaper than any textbook. And then, after use, they can be sold used and can be resold after that too (try that with ebooks). As a side a benefit, the better the condition of that used book the better its resale price, which may encourage kids/parents to take good care of what they use.

Not so much with a computer that costs a lot more to purchase, that needs much more regular updates and upgrades. And since there is no upgrade of anything allowed anymore, that often means to buy a new computer.

Computers are also a lot more fragile than books. I mean, I can and I do regularly read books that were printed in the 20th, 19th and 18th centuries. Obviously, they’re are not in mint conditions and they can be fragile due to old age (not systematically, though) but they still fully do their job even after centuries of use. Compared that to say, browsing the Web on a 15+ years old laptop? If it is less an issue when running Linux (which is not what most schools use, right?) it’s still a lackluster experience because of the lack of CPU power/ram… that are required in order to load not the actual content but the ever increasing shit ton of tracking scripts and ads (and purely visual effects scripts) on almost every single web pages there is. Scripts that are pushed forward by similar (if not the same, looking at you Google) corporations that sell the computers/tablets kids are required to be using in class (how convenient).
Also, the laptop/tablet battery will quickly age and won’t hold a charge anymore making that laptop/tablet a… desktop, tied to a power outlet.

I usually do not consume “social” media, so i do not feel my screen usage is bad.

I don’t either. But it is not about you, or I. It’s about us, on average. And what is that average us doing?

Also, even though many of us are not consuming social media turds, I cannot not notice the increasing numbers of young people that are barely able to read (or a lot less easily, and always shorter and simpler texts), and how they are not even able to write properly anymore. I’m not referring to them making spelling mistakes, that’s not an issue, I’m referring to their ability to construct meaningful sentences.

How is one expected to be able to hear and to express nuanced thoughts and ideas if they can’t even read and write proper sentences? Once again, spelling mistake are a non-issue for the most part, the lack of grammar is.

I’m not saying kids should be taught Latin and Greek in class, like we used to (I would like to, even though I hated it with all my heart back then), but I think they should at the very least be properly taught to read and to write in their native language (that would be French, for me, so pardon my poor English) and in at least one other foreign language.

Imho, that failing at reading and writing, and at understanding and expressing ideas, is what those people noticed too. And that’s what they’re trying to fight against.

Which is great news we should all support even if there is no certainty they’re doing it the right way. Maybe future will tell us the screen (and the keyboard) were not the issue, and that handwriting, using pen and paper, was not the best solution either? I don’t known.

What I do know is that there is real issue, quickly growing and intensely spreading. And that it’s hard to not notice that learning/teaching has collapsed almost everywhere where teaching/learning has become ‘digital’ and at the same time where screens have become so prevalent. And not just in the class, btw: screens are everywhere. So, I insist: it is only about changing kid’s habits in school. Those kids will still have more than enough opportunities to access screens everywhere else.

To be completely honest with you, I’m not sure forcing books in schools will solve the whole issue either: I think it will help a lot kids get a better education but the main issue, to me, is that those kids are observing adults around them and, quite normally, they’re copying them.

And what do they copy us doing? Us not using books.

They see adults wasting their lives on screens (be it TV, streaming, social media, YT or TikTok, playing games, and so on). None of that being an issue in itself, the fact this mostly is only that becomes the issue.

A (silly?) example?

Most of us have probably watched the ‘Lord of the Rings’, right? Some more than once, too? Now, how many of us have read the books? And and realized how not the same and a lot less… nuanced and articulated Jackson’s adaptation is compared to Tolkien’s masterpiece (and I say that as someone who is not even a fan of Tolkien, btw)?

Kids will do what they see adults around do. Be it to constantly hate on people that are different to them (or don’t share their world view), or to become addicted to their screens.