A laptop in every knapsack

Bob Johnstone has always been one of the liveliest and most passionate writers about technology in the media universe. Long before the days of Wired and the dot-com boom, long before I even personally owned a computer, I used to read his columns in the Far Eastern Economic Review simply for pleasure. He had a way of writing about the latest developments in LED display technology that drew me in, even when I didn't understand half the things he was talking about.

That passion, along with his breadth of technical knowledge, makes me trust him in a case where my predisposition is to look askance. When apostles of technological deliverance start preaching about kids and computers, the spittle is soon flying, and the superlatives quickly get out of control.

But kids plus computers isn't always a simple equation. When my children (currently 5 and 9) were smaller, I steered them away from computers, in part due to research that indicated that too much time spent at a keyboard might even be harmful to very small children. A developing brain needs to spend time grappling with the real world, not the virtual. There's also very little evidence that starting a child with a computer at age 3 gives him or her any particular advantage over a child who starts at age 8.

But I'm prepared to believe that, when integrated correctly into an older child's education, computers can have a liberating impact. The comprehensiveness of Johnstone's reporting is convincing. He tells the stories of too many effusive teachers and reviews too many case studies to be talking out of his hat. Although there are times when he does sound like an unreconstructed dot-commer, I'm inclined to believe that he's more credible for making his argument now, when everyone else has stepped back from the hype.

Johnstone's focus on educational theory and the history of computers in education distinguishes his account from other treatments of the same issue. Unsurprisingly, the notion that kids can benefit from computers has been a part of computer science from the get-go. Among the legends of computing who appear as bit players in "Never Mind the Laptops" are Alan Kay, the man who first conceptualized the laptop and led the development of the pioneering Alto computer at Xerox PARC, and Seymour Papert, the MIT professor who wrote the programming language LOGO, which was later incorporated in Lego's Mindstorm robot system. More ominously, there is also a strong role here for Microsoft and Bill Gates. Where better could there be a convergence between Gates' philanthropic instincts and Microsoft's business growth than in the spread of computers in education?

Interwoven through the historical account is a treatment of the long-running debate in educational circles over how best to teach children, with or without computers. It's refreshing to note that for at least a century, educators, parents and politicians have been unhappy with the state of education in the United States. It's nothing new to be moaning about it now, in California or elsewhere.

What is really intriguing, however, is how the belief that computers inspire creativity and empowerment and innovation dovetails with the recurring critique that progressive educators have had of curricula that in the past have relied on rote learning, or that have been blamed for taking energetic, curious youngsters and turning them into alienated drones.

I was a fourth grader when the so-called Open Movement surged through schools in the early '70s. I recall a couple of years in which I pretty much did what I wanted -- including playing a lot of chess, and endlessly reading books. I remember those years fondly, and I'm sure that if I'd had a laptop to play with, I would have fallen in love with it, too. It seems intuitively right to me that kids will respond to the power and possibilities of computers -- that they will, as have so many grown-ups before them, thrill to the way a computer eliminates drudge work and empowers productivity. There are a couple of iMacs in my daughter's fourth grade classroom, and the teacher uses them to help put out a class newspaper. Who doesn't feel like an instant publisher when a computer and a printer are in reach?

But the obstacles, again, are ensuring equity of access, and providing funding. Johnstone repeatedly makes the argument that even in disadvantaged school districts that have no money to spare, there are ways to get laptops in the hands of children. Schools can arrange leasing plans, get breaks on insurance, set it up so parents are paying as little as $50 a month. If we will it to happen, he says, we can make it happen.

I'd love to believe it. I'd also love to believe that if we willed it to happen, we could fully fund our schools to the point that quality teachers aren't in danger of being fired; that, as happened this year at Malcolm X, orchestra classes for fourth graders aren't cut because of a budget shortfall; and that funding for schools isn't warped toward incremental improvements in test scores that require teachers to drop everything in favor of what will result in the best chance of passing a multiple-choice exam.

If ever there was a place for the federal government to make an impact, this would be it. Instead of a chicken in every pot, it should be a laptop in every backpack. Politicians should be twisting the arms of manufacturers to come up with a cheap educational computer for school use; they should be setting up the insurance and warranty plans; they should be, as a matter of national interest, demanding that the market serve the needs of our nation's future.

Instead, they are letting the market serve itself. Which means that public schools struggle, private schools flourish -- and the future? Well, maybe it belongs to Australia.

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