Rethinking Our Approach to Technology

© BappleBusiness. You would not believe how hard it was to find a non-AI generated image of a smartboard in a classroom that was also free for use with attribution…

Let’s start with an anecdote. A lot of discussions of technology use in education tend to immediately turn into “But people said the same thing about calculators? Do you want to go back to doing things by hand like some sort of caveperson? You’re just being a Luddite!”. So here’s my answer.

When I was 17, I came (back) to the US for college from India, having graduated high school there. I was buying something small with cash at a CVS – for the purposes of the story, let’s say it cost $9.91. I pulled out a 10 and handed it over, then told the cashier to hang on and started to rummage through my wallet for 16 cents in change. The cashier, older than I was but still young and clearly confused, said “Hey, you’ve already paid 10, it’s only $9.91”. I said “Yeah, I know”, handed over the $0.16, and then gently asked them to enter it and give me change. They did so with the air of a volunteer in a magic show expecting a rabbit to appear from a hat – and when the change came out to exactly a quarter, their jaw dropped. “How did you do that?!”, they asked. I was genuinely perplexed by the question, since I assumed that they were looking for an answer that wasn’t “very basic arithmetic”, but I wasn’t sure what that answer was supposed to be. I just didn’t want to get nine cents in small coins, when I could get one (useful!) quarter instead and rid myself of a bunch of coins in the bargain!

Before and after that incident, I had done similar things any number of times in India, with shopkeepers who had much less formal education. I was completely accustomed to them being able to write and add up bills without a calculator, including for items sold by weight – and in similar circumstances, them being the ones to ask me if I had some small number of extra rupees to make the change a conveniently round number. I took it for granted that people could just do basic arithmetic on paper or in their head, and I was floored that in advanced, educated America doing so made me feel like I was about to cause a recurrence of the Salem Witch Trials¹.

So, do I want to go back to doing things by hand in schools? Damn straight. Let’s proceed.

STEM education does NOT need technology in the classroom

In recent years, STEM education has become somewhat of a fetish object. I’m a card-carrying STEM professional², and in a future post I’ll talk a bit about how I really do not agree with the primacy we give STEM education in school, especially before high school³. But we can put that aside for now. The larger point is that one does not need a tech-heavy (and particularly screen-heavy)⁴ approach to teaching STEM subjects – and the evidence seems clear that it actually hurts more than it helps.

Now, I’m not an extremist about this. Using a computer is just as much of a life skill today as doing laundry or balancing a budget. Students absolutely need to learn computer skills, and there is little harm in starting that process early. However, those skills should be taught in a compartmentalized way. I have no objection to a dedicated computer period or two a week, starting with basic typing skills and progressing through other topics. Similarly, I have absolutely no problem with things like coding or robotics as after-school activities – properly done, it can be a great experience for kids. Finally, there is an entirely separate conversation to be had around accessibility – for students with certain types of obstacles, technology has powerful solutions to offer that can help bring equity to classrooms.

However, and this is really critical, computers and coding are tools. The important thing, whether one is a carpenter or mechanic or plumber or computational biologist, is knowing what you want to achieve, at which point you can identify the tools needed to achieve it. It is at this point where you need to be good at using the appropriate tools – but if you don’t know what tool to use when, it doesn’t matter whether you’re good at using the tool, you will not be successful. “Learn to code” types will say learning to code involves problem-solving skills and algorithmic thinking, and that’s great – but we can have that without the focus on a particular tool! Properly done, teaching any subject involves problem-solving skills – language, math, science, social studies, arts. So this isn’t really a defense of emphasizing coding and computers in schools.

The benefits of writing

At this point, the science is pretty unequivocal – handwriting has distinct benefits. One of the ways in which this is true – the development of fine motor control – is too obvious to need elaboration⁵. The second way, which is less obvious at first, is cognitively.

Note-taking is a fundamental life-skill, as there are very few (if any) memory tools to equal it. Taking notes, whether in the context of a formal classroom or in a less structured professional interaction, helps retain information. What has become increasingly clear is that taking handwritten notes is much better than taking typed notes⁶. While handwriting is an inherently more complicated task than typing, requiring more neural processing and integration, it is not the act of writing itself that somehow magically causes better retention. Rather, handwritten notes tend to be slower, which forces students to process the material in real time and pull out key themes⁷. Additionally, a paper notebook doesn’t have the same capacity for distraction that a laptop or tablet does. For similar reasons, writing-based assignments have advantages over computer-based assignments.

The spectre of AI

Of course, the entire education landscape has been changed very quickly by the advent of generative AI, which has entirely changed the calculus⁸ when it comes to assigning work. Anecdotally, we are entering a sort of arms race between teachers attempting to AI-proof their assignments, and students (and AI tools) finding workarounds⁹. The entire issue of what genAI is doing to learning is a separate one¹⁰, though at this point I think it’s quite clear that anyone suggesting that we “teach students to use AI” in elementary or middle school should be treated like someone suggesting we “teach students to use cocaine”.

Having said that, the easiest way to AI-proof schoolwork is to make it analog. Yes, students could potentially go to the trouble of copying assignment prompts into an AI program, and then longhand copy whatever the AI produces. And you know what? Even that is better than them simply copy-pasting things! Again, writing things down helps them stick, and even if you’re cheating in this particular way, you will end up doing some learning in spite of yourself. Switching to default-analog learning – that is, making classrooms a default laptop-free space – is the best way to counter this.

A STEM professional’s perspective…

As I said, I’m a STEM professional. When I think about what makes “good” STEM education, or really any education, it’s rigor. It’s providing individualized, high-quality, frequent feedback. It’s challenging students and pushing them to explore their limits. It’s inspiring students to develop interests and passions.

It’s not screens, or expensive software. Those things can, maybe, help, insofar as they help meet the goals I mention above. But digital tools alone don’t help – and uncritically adopting digital tools hurts. Glen Rock teachers are, in general, amazing at what they do. The idea that they are not capable of teaching without technology is simply not credible. If anything, it seems like calls for more tech in classrooms come from above, and not from the actual educators in the trenches.

If we can get back to basics – if we return to a pen-and-paper education, through at least middle school¹¹, and focus on concepts rather than tools – then we’ll be doing right by our children, and preparing them for whatever career they choose.

…and a romantic view

Beyond all this, there’s just something about writing. The advent of writing is up there with agriculture as one of the most consequential advances in human history. My kids write handwritten letters to their grandparents (and they write letters to my kids), just as I did when I was a kid, and my parents before me. There is something about the tangibility and individuality of handwriting that has a unique place in our psyche. It would be a massive shame for this to be the first generation for whom writing is no longer a matter of course.

New Jersey has a brand new cursive mandate¹², which makes a switch to handwritten assignments easier. Let’s bring writing back into our kids’ lives, and let’s also do our best to demonstrate that to them – leaving them handwritten notes, using whiteboards and sticky notes rather than digital calendars at home, helping them write letters to friends and family. Let’s critically evaluate our use of technology, in classrooms and in our lives, and judge it by whether it works for purpose, not whether its cool or faddish or shiny or expensive or easy.

Let’s make fingers inky again.

1. To make it particularly piquant, this anecdote happened in Massachusetts. ↩︎
2. First-author scientific publications and everything! ↩︎
3. I will admit to some amusement about the fact that the trend went from STEM, to STEAM, and then STREAM, at which point someone presumably noticed that they had successfully reinvented…education. But I’m sure the consultant fees were worth it! ↩︎
4. Obviously, there are non-“tech” things like lab equipment and other hands-on stuff that are invaluable. ↩︎
5. But here’s a couple of citations anyway – a study showing how OT-style handwriting interventions can improve overall fine-motor performance, another showing something similar in students flagged for fine-motor challenges. ↩︎
6. See here, here, and particularly here. ↩︎
7. Another anecdote – in high school, I had a history teacher whose spoken cadence made it possible to take down her lessons verbatim. I proudly did so – and then when I went back to read them a few weeks later for our first test, I found the notes to be absolutely unusable. ↩︎
8. Figuratively. Fortunately, literal calculus remains unchanged. ↩︎
9. In the process of writing this, among the many terrifying links I encountered, this was probably the most terrifying – it compared long-term student performance on two types of math problems before and after ChatGPT, and found that student performance on problems that could use ChatGPT went up sharply – but only on assignments, not tests. Evidence of widespread cheating AND worse learning outcomes in one neat package! ↩︎
10. Hint – not good, very bad. ↩︎
11. A final anecdote – my very first college assignment was a one-page reaction to a reading, in a class on Colonial Latin America. As a matter of course, I handwrote it…but when I was in line to submit, I watched, totally bewildered, as every student submitted a typed version. I shamefacedly waited until everyone left and then asked the professor if I could type mine up and submit late without penalty. She was very nice about it. It was the first printed assignment I’d ever had. Point being, I’d be perfectly happy to stay with pen-and-paper through high school. ↩︎
12. I’m all in favor of writing. American-style cursive, on the other hand, is…bad. It is very much not the universally-taught style of “running hand” using the Latin alphabet worldwide, and it is slower and less legible than other versions. When I innocently debuted it in India when I moved there in fifth grade, I was laughed out of the room by peers and teachers alike. I have a distinct memory of a big argument with my Indian-educated father in third(ish) grade, who refused to believe the bizarre-looking thing I’d written to start my name was the “correct” way of writing a cursive capital G. Pretty much every adult has a faster style of writing than printing; virtually no adult uses standard cursive. ↩︎