Thoughts on Solomon’s Introduction
My gut reaction to reading this introduction took me back to my undergraduate years and studying books such as Savage Inequalities by J. as well as other books about the status of public education in America in the 1990s. As many of you will remember, Kozol described many of America’s schools in this book and the extreme divide between schools in poor neighborhoods and those in affluent ones. It describes the dire conditions of the schools and the lack of educational opportunities for so many American students. Like Kozol, Solomon describes the disadvantages of many students due to their socioeconomic status, language, race, geography, cultural background, gender, etc. In this book though the reader will see the disadvantages from a technological perspective.
I have to argue about the idea of being “disadvantaged” when students are not provided access to technology. Many schools rich with technology are also filled with disadvantaged students because they are not using the technology to enrich students’ learning. Schools are filled with teachers that are not afforded the time or opportunity to learn how to use the technology themselves. How could they be expected to teach students how to use it? So my point is students in schools without access to technology as well as students in schools with technology access but with limited instruction on how to benefit from it are both being given a disservice. So the divide in my opinion happens with and without access to technology.
One thought in the introduction that was close to home was the idea of the student being controlled by the computer or the computer being controlled by the student. On one hand many students utilize computers for remediation of basic skills and that is the extent of their access to technology. On the other hand, students are learning to program the computer so it will perform functions needed by the student. Is there a relationship between this scenario and the student’ futures? Will one student be told what to do and how to do it in his/her job while the other student is a leader and one who tells others what to do?
