Customer Reviews

The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've worked as a district level administrator in the K-12 world of educational technology since 1996. The questions and topics that Todd raises in this book are identical to the frustrations many of are dealing with on a daily basis. It's astonishing how many of today's educators have a blanket assumption that "technology" translates into "student achievement" or "improved student learning". The first 100 pages of Todd's book do a great job of deconstructing the biased research that's used as sales material by the technology companies.

This is the first decent "critical" look at technology in education. A must read for anybody working in the educational technology field.

More elegantly, FORBES editor Stephen Kindel wrote (almost 20 years ago) that "it is the poor who will be chained to the computer; the rich will get teachers."

Oppenheimer visits numerous classrooms -- described alertly and sensitively -- and talks to innumerable teachers, students, company leaders, and others, observing the realities of technology in the classroom. He reports striking findings of good research into learning, since education has, in fact, a "long, abundantly documented history." His book is exceptionally readable and timely. It also prompts concern, e.g. about young lawyers dependent on online indexes who "'don't know how to use the books.'" He especially prompts concern for the experience of millions of students who will pass through priceless years of capacity for learning while being cheated because of administrators, teachers and parents who have fallen for "e-lusions," as Oppenheimer calls them.

At least two audiences should read this book:

(1) Ed school faculty -- As professionals training the new generation of teachers, you owe it to them and to yourself to be conversant with this book. If you are overworked, I sympathize; but you need to know this book, and probably need to assign the book as required reading, or at least require passages from it.

If the following terms are familiar to you, you'll recognize matters the author deals with:

attention span
collaborative learning
criticial thinking
constructivism

courseware
distance learning & university systems
"guide at the side, not sage on the stage"
information economy
instructional technology worker
laptops in all classrooms
mastery learning
multiple intelligences
No Child Left Behindpartnerships with business
portfolios
project-based learning
readability formulas
Renaissance Learning (a company)
service learning
task forces for curriculum development & technology

(2) Parents who are anxious that their kids need the school or the home to invest in state-of-the-art computers.

Here are a few sentences I marked:

"Among the greater ironies of the computer age is that information is cheap and accessible, and so no longer very valuable. What is valuable is what is done with it. And human imagination cannot be mechanized."
"Technology promises an experience by which we don't have to do anything to make it happen."

There is a need for deepened human relations "which are very different interactions than the faux relationships conducted over the Internet."

The charges leveled by a few other reviewers that this book is somehow racist because it is laudatory of Waldrof Schools, is utter nonsense. There is documentation throughout the web from varied authoritative studies indicating
that whatever the limitations of Waldrorf education (and every educational "system" has its limitations!) and of the social and racial perspectives of its founder, Waldorf education has great value for many children of varied races
and social classes but, like any educational approach, the teachers and administrators in each school determine its efffectiveness. There are great, humane, nourishing and effective Waldorf schools, and some bad ones.

I am not a believer in Waldorf education, but have seen its value for the children of friends (some Hispanic and some African American). I also think Oppenheimer's book is too often simplistic in looking at technology in education and sometimes too clever rather than insightful in its use of anecdotes. But it is also a fine and thought provoking look at education today, worth reading even if you don't fully agree with the author's viewpoint.
Also, pay more attention to the careful, well reasoned and well researched reviews from Publishers Weekly and Book List than the emotional responses of those with their own personal agendas.

Todd Oppenheimer is one of the most meticulous and respected journalists I have ever had the pleasure to come across. He would be the last person to advocate or disparage any school (or school of thought) on a whim or on the basis of some hidden orthodoxy. This a finely crafted and complex book. If you are a professional educator or a parent, you'll be glad for Oppenheimer's help assessing the state of modern education.

The Flickering Mind devastates the notion that computers in school somehow provide children with an educational boost. In fact, by draining funds from traditional programs and distracting teachers and students from real learning, computers have been an educational drag. Oppenheimer exposes the underpinning of the arguments of pro-computer political leaders and educators as a blind faith that computers can motivate students to learn in a way that teachers cannot. We should be relieved that the computer's motivational power for education has been revealed to be a myth.

This motivational myth has not only cost billions but it has obscured the real value of computers for education (at least in elementary grades). Computers excel at quantitative work. People excel at qualitative work. Motivating a student to learn is not a quantitative task, instead it is one of the most challenging of qualitative tasks. Computers cannot motivate students except in the novelty stage (as can any new activity). Motivating the individual student must be left to the humans in closest proximity and thus the responsibility largely falls to the teacher.

Leaders looking for the next quick fix for education's woes should not throw the computers out and swing the pendulum back 50 years. Unfortunately there is little in The Flickering Mind which argues against such a backlash. Oppenheimer's conclusions that we should give teachers more responsibility, pay them more and step back from standardized testing as the primary measure of learning effectiveness are easy to agree with. I disagree, however, that the computer is just another teaching tool in the same category as the overhead projector.

While it is not the motivator that many have believed in, the computer has more potential than a fixed-function machine because of its adaptability and interconnectivity. This potential has been overlooked because the idea of the computer as the magic motivator has drawn all the attention. A paradigm-shift in thinking is needed to illuminate the real opportunity that the computer and the Internet hold for primary grade education which I call "paperless teaching."

How interestting to compare and contrast the editorial and customer reviews. Could these people have been reading two different books? How appropriate would this contrast be for an illustration of Plato's cave analogy. Incompatible realms of reality require the death of one incompatible party. Or do they?
In the education business the labels are so significant that non-conformity is a death warrant. Perhaps, the effort to read sub-texts rather than plain text is a hard thing to do. Oppenheimer is a non-nazi that is also a non-marxist who dares to ask a few WHY questions and make some serious points about education that need to be addressed with intellectual integrity rather than partizan alacrity. If our "public schools" were in perfect shape and produced the best education in the world for citizens of the best country in the world whose taxes support the best teachers in the world, a book like "The Flickering Mind" would be useless; however, if the converse is true, then the book is worth a reading and its theses merit careful consideration rather than condemnation since better teachers are the ones who produce better students rather than viceversa.

I'm astounded at the vitrolic responses on this site to this meticulously researched and well-told narrative about the downside to yet another panacea offered to rescue public education in America. Read the book -- and these negative reviews -- you'll see that the story these critics see is in their heads, not on the the pages that Oppenheimer wrote. You'll also see why time and again that education has been hijacked by both those with good intentions and those with hardline agendas and rigid theories that claim to know what's best. This is a brave book, and a compelling read.

A wonderful book - enlightening and fun to read. Imagine peering into all sorts of schools across the country: wealthy, impovershed, white, diverse, black, high-tech, low tech. This is what Oppenheimer has done - in spades. His research speaks volumes about educating the mind and the tools we use (or misuse) to do so. If you're at all interested in what and how American's kids are learning, read this book.

Todd Oppenheimer has done a masterful job of exposing the magical thinking and willful deceptions behind the educational technology craze of the last 25 years. His research is meticulous, and his approach is even-handed and open-minded. He systematically spent time in the classrooms of schools that are renowned for their exemplary uses of technology, and he reports in detail what actually goes on there: countless hours and days wasted as students aimlessly surf the net, play computer games, and wait for someone to fix the broken machines and crashed networks. His book clearly documents how poor inner-city schools, especially, have been ripped off by the false promises of technology pushers, and astutely describes what students in such schools really need to succeed.

I have always been skeptical of the inordinate amount of emphasis that's been placed on the whiz bang aspect of computers. The Flickering Mind, with clear and well researched prose, explains why computers don't teach my kids to think in ways that will ultimately help them in the big, bad world. Let's use Oppenheimer's book as a platform from which rethink the way we're emphasizing computers in the schools!