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IS TECHNOLOGY in EDUCATION DETRIMENTAL to CHILDREN? BY TIMOTHY L . GRIFFITH FELLOW OF CLASSICAL LANGUAGES, NEW SAINT ANDREWS COLLEGE
O
ver the last couple of decades, many schools, public and private, have thrown themselves headlong into the world of tablets and apps—bravely striving to build the perfect technological education for the next generation. Advocates of this kind of thing appear to have reduced education to a mere transfer of information. Since devices are wonderfully efficient at doing that very thing, the best solution—as it seems to them—is simply to plug children in and flip the switch. It would be easy to show how this enfeebles children mind, body, and soul. I could count the ways in which it hamstrings children socially and psychologically. And (obviously) how would children educated in such a system ever learn to think, debate, and lead others? But there is no need to go through all that again: it has been written
on often enough, and, frankly, homeschooling families interested in giving their children a classical education already know about these dangers. The question I would like to address here is whether technology can be a useful part of a robust, genuine classical education at all and where the line would be between that and the kind of technology-dependent education we all want to avoid. There is nothing new under the sun. Technology may seem to be a completely new thing, but in fact it is just the newest form of an old thing: laborsaving devices. The first one was called domesticated animals. Our ancestors used oxen, dogs, donkeys, and horses extensively to perform labor. In each case, the animal employed had some natural ability that allowed it to outperform a human in its given task: an ox is as strong as many men combined, and could pull a plow;
VOLUME FOUR
