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You
are here: Take Back the Afternoon:
Preserving the Landscape of Childhood In Spite of Computers
by David Sobel
Have you seen the advertisements? The four-year old sits propped on a couple of pillows gazing into the computer. She is bathed in soft, multi-colored light while the rest of the room is in shadow. The light suggests alpenglow, the radiant magenta softness that high peaks catch from the setting sun while the rest of the landscape is subdued in twilight. The computer glow is supposed to be subtly beautiful; this is a moment of quiet reverence and thoughtful contemplation. The computer industry has discovered a new market-- preschool-aged children.
A Forbes magazine article laid the strategy on the line:
We have discovered that these children can be turned into consumers as readily as anyone else, if given the appropriate program . . . The discovery has been made that by age six a child's buying habits can be fully determined for the rest of their lives . . . We now have the charge to invest in the appropriate programs which will lock the children into permanent targets of manufactured goods for the rest of their lives.
If they can get kids hooked on computers and software at an early age, then manufacturers can be assured of 60 years of techno-consuming. It is just like Louisiana Pacific's practice of planting seedlings to harvest after four decades of growth, and it may be producing the same kind of monotonous monoculture in our children's minds.
A founder of a small school in northern California described his concerns about the computer issue to me. All the parents sending their children to the school had a deep ecological consciousness and were very progressive. But as soon as their children were in first grade they wanted to know, "When is the school going to get computers?" They couldn't really articulate why they thought computers were important for young children, but they were anxious to have their kids jump on the bandwagon so they would not get left behind.
Capitalizing on these latent fears and parental concerns, the advertising hook is, "If you love your child, buy her a computer!" But does the computer really make your preschooler smarter, happier and healthier? Or does it numb her brain and make her just another contributor to the globalization of a consumer-oriented, ecologically destructive culture?
Regrettably, it is not so clearly black and white. Rather, to paraphrase Judy Collins, "Something's lost and something's gained in computer use everyday." When children in and out of school are using computers, they are not doing something else. If we understand what they are not doing as well as what they are doing, we will be in a better position to decide what place computers should have in children's lives.
I got a perspective on the after-school situation from talking with an environmental educator who works with a group of fourth graders in Keene, NH, our small city surrounded by parks and woods. This past spring she read the children Alice McLaren's Roxaboxen, a book about children creating a fantasy town while growing up in the American West in the 1930's. It is a simple portrait of independent, imaginative play. "Oh, those children are so lucky. I wish we could do that," was the children's response. My friend was surprised. She had assumed the children would easily identify with the children in the story, so she asked them what they did after school. Of the 16 children in the class, two of the children were not allowed to go outside, four said they watched TV or talked on the phone, six went to the recreation center to play video games, and four played outside. If this is a representative sample, then only 25% of nine-year old children in our safe, all-American city are out playing in the neighborhood after school.
This resonates eerily with a child's comment collected by Richard Louv in research for his book entitled Childhood's Future. When Louv asked a group of 4th graders whether they liked to play indoors or outdoors better, one fourth grader responded, "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where the electrical outlets are." I do not have to tell you what they are playing inside, do I?
This erosion of childhood concerns me and computers seem like a river in flood washing away the soil that roots children to the natural world. Elementary age children, now more than ever, need opportunities to be in their bodies in the world-- jumping-rope, bicycling, stream hopping and fort building. It is in this engagement between the limbs of the body and the bones of the earth where true balance and centeredness emerge.
But as computer recreation bulldozes a swath across young minds, whole species of New England childhood pastimes are becoming extinct. When, for instance, was the last time you saw a child bending birches? It used to be a staple of farm childhoods, mostly in the spring, when the sap rising in white birches made them most elastic. Robert Frost was proud of being a "swinger of birches," and he realized the skills inherent in the refinement of the practice. A boy chooses a field-edge birch with just a few branches, not too skinny, not too fat, and shinnies up the tree . . .
He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.In tuning the body to the birch, the child sensed the literal interdependence between himself and the natural world. He felt the analogy between the flexibility of the trunk and the comfortable suppleness of his own body. And he knew, deep in his heart, that he was responsible-- he measured the risk and designed the task. When the software's on the screen, someone else is in charge. And the analogy that reigns is mind-as-computer, not person-as-living-organism.
Childhood games have gone the same way; they have become mechanized and consumerized. Whatever happened to neighborhood-wide Capture the Flag and Kick the Can? I lived for those evenings of scheming and sneaking and finding yourself nose to nose with a toad but having to contain your giggles so you wouldn't get caught in enemy territory. Hockey is a great example of the adulteration of childhood. Nowadays it's ice time at 4:30 in the morning, a fortune spent on gear, weekends spent driving for hours and $5 rewards offered to kids who will take down the high scorer on the other team. The landscape is industrial ice, pallor-inducing stadium lights and Zamboni fumes. Charles McGrath, in a recent Outside magazine article, sings the praises of pond hockey, a game that was more like jazz improv than pre-recorded keyboard jingles.
Some of that pastoral quality still lingered even when I was growing up, outside Boston, in the fifties and early sixties. I may be one of the last generation of Boston school kids who never skated on artificial ice until I started playing hockey in high school. All through grammar school I played on reservoirs and frozen playgrounds and ponds; we would sometimes trek for hours from one spot to another, our feet and fingers numb, in search of better ice-- a kind of wintry grail, always shimmering just a littler farther on.
In our rush to prematurely instill competitive values, we have diminished the experience. McGrath speculates that, "In teaching kids from a very early age all the systems of hockey--where to line up, where to sit on the bench, where to be on a three-on-two--we may have deprived them of some of the joy that comes from just playing, from fooling around and figuring things out on your own." And pond hockey connects you with the weather, lets you appreciate the silver lining of snow followed by rain, and challenges you to understand the physics of ice.
Regardless of whether it is indoor or outdoor hockey, however, I suspect that either is more valuable than the software version now available on CD. Computers invite children to be inside, in their heads, sedentary and unconnected to people and animals and trees. We have a computer at home and every now and then, especially in the winter, the kids will go on a little computer jag. Nowadays they are really into Quest for Glory. But after school and before supper in April and May, they disappear outside as soon as they get home. They ride bikes, make forts and pretend they are lost children, smell the wet dog trilliums, play baseball, knock on neighbors' doors and hide in the bushes. They arrive back for dinner with flushed checks and muddy pants, and I feel completely happy and grateful for living in a safe neighborhood with other parents who believe in the simple joys of fresh air and friendship. Everyone sleeps better when afternoons are filled with re-creation rather than Reader Rabbit.
Computer use in school may be something of a different story. My children regularly comment that computer class is one of their favorite things in school. The interactivity and dynamic immediacy of good software is appealing. Getting immersed in a good computer game like Myst is like getting engrossed in a good book. The problem-solving, chronology-deciphering and map-making are compelling and, to me, invite the development of thinking skills. And watch kids at work on Sim-City or Oregon Trail. Despite the inherent limitations and hidden values of the software designers, the immediate feedback on the decisions you make and the compression of time allow children a kind of time-lapse photography insight into historical processes.
The message here is that good software is much more dynamic and interactive than most of the rest of the stuff that goes on in school. Working on the computer gives you a sense of playing with another thoughtful, playful, and complex mind. Sitting at your desk and taking dictation or listening to a lecture makes you feel like a drone. Be honest with yourself. Would you rather do pages 37-39 in the language arts workbook, or would you rather telecommunicate with students in New Orleans and correct each others' spelling sentences this week?
This does not mean, however, that we should cave in to demands for more and more computers in schools. Instead, we need to focus on creating learning environments and educational challenges that are equally as engaging, interactive and sophisticated as good software. Like the bully who threatens to take over the classroom, the computer needs to be put in its place. The old Sufi saying of, "If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail," has relevance here. Technology enthusiasts want us to believe that all educational problems are nails and that we can solve them by giving everyone a computer hammer. But cooperative learning, apprenticeships, real science, social action projects, and community-based environmental education are equally important tools in creating educational reform.
Laurette Rogers understands the potency of project-based learning and the appropriate role of the computer in the process. As a 4th grade teacher in San Anselmo, California, she was studying endangered species with her class. But her students got frustrated with passive learning about the problem; instead, they wanted to do something about it. The children decided that since the California freshwater shrimp was both in their backyard and endangered, they would initiate a campaign to preserve shrimp habitat. A one-month science unit blossomed into a four-year project that is still underway. The teacher describes that
the students work in committees and basically learn every aspect of running a nonprofit organization. Our main activities are educating the public about the plight of the endangered species and also habitat rehabilitation. We work with ranchers, planting native plants, getting funding for fencing and so on....It is community building because it breaks down the walls of the classroom and has students working with community members, so the classroom really becomes a network that builds community.
Since the project requires communication, the students are responsible for writing and producing a newsletter, which requires using page design software. In addition, they use the Internet to research habitat restoration techniques used in other projects. But they are also using water test kits, microscopes, field guides, shovels and dip nets. And consensus building, debating, money management and testifying at public hearings are equally as important as learning word processing on the classroom computer.
The point here is that computers should follow, not lead. Dynamic, real life engagements that build skills, self-confidence and a sense of purpose in life are the motive force of education. The computer has a role to play in this drama, but it should be a supporting cast member, not the star. Right now, the computer is too much of a prima donna, attracting attention away from the rest of the players and the technical crew. And if an increasing percentage of the school budget is spent on computers, then not enough will be spent on pianos, art materials, laboratory equipment, land acquisition for the nature center, bilingual education specialists and a new sound system for the theater.
Like television, computers encourage our children to become couch potatoes. The sophisticated processes of critical thinking, problem-solving and kinesthetic coordination appropriately mature out of children's interaction with concrete materials, caring adults and thoughtfully managed groups of peers. Luring children into the world of pure information and electronic images alienates them from experience and disembodies their learning. But in concert with active learning, computers can enhance the educational experience. In all things, moderation.
I will never forget sitting next to Joseph Chilton Pearce, the noted author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg and Magical Child, at a presentation about educational software. Storybook Weaver, an integrated graphics and word processing program for children, was on display. To make a picture you choose from a variety of landscapes--skies, mountains, rivers, yards--and then you choose people, animals, buildings and the like to fill out the image. It is all clip art. Then you can add text to the pictures and with a bunch of these you create a story. Unfamiliar with this kind of software, Joe Pearce was taken aback. As he watched the presenter flip through a variety of prefab landscapes, his eyes filled with tears. "This isn't imagination or creativity, it's just . . . " and he was overcome with sadness. Drawing pictures and making up stories is something that most children take to with little prompting. If the software does it for them, are we stealing away the image-making capacity from children? Does Storybook Weaver just encourage children to become consumers of externally produced images?
Let us make it acceptable for parents and teachers to just say no to significant amounts of television and computers until children enter adolescence. Childhood is short enough; there is no need to hasten its demise with exposure to soul-depleting electronic media. In my household, we figure it is a good idea to immunize our children against the onslaught of mass culture by allowing our children three or four hours of combined television or computer use per week. This avoids the forbidden fruit effect and gives us good material for dinnertime conversations. And in place of electronic media, let us work for dynamic classrooms and safe neighborhoods. I say we start a new movement called Take Back the Afternoon that advocates for real, old-fashioned play, at least a couple of days a week. Perhaps we can create our own bandwagon.
David Sobel is Director of Teacher Certification Programs at Antioch New England Graduate School in New Hampshire. He also co-directs the Community-based School Environmental Education program (CO-SEED), a place-based education initiative that enlivens learning, as it builds community commitment and environmental understanding in K-12 schools throughout New England. His most recent book Place-Based Education—Connecting Classrooms and Communities, is quickly becoming the standard work on the subject. You can contact David at dsobel@antiochne.edu.
©June 2004 New Horizons for Learning
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