Computers and Calculators in Schools

Photo: iStockphoto

Neal Koblitz, professor of mathematics at the University of Washington, begins his critique of computers in K-13 mathematics education as follows:

In Peru, as in many Third World countries, the system of public education is in crisis. Teachers’ pay — traditionally low — is falling rapidly because of inflation. The schools are dilapidated, and there is no money for basic supplies. …
Yet President Fujimori has said that he wants to get computers into the schools as soon as possible. The government’s priority is to “modernize” the economy and the educational system, and computerized learning is supposedly one way to do this.

Change Peru to New York City, and Fujimori to the city’s Department of Education, and we reproduce the current news of New York City’s half-a-billion-dollars-and-change effort to shove more technology into the classroom while eliminating 6,100 teaching positions (4,600 of those through layoffs).
In my last entry, I criticized high-stakes tests as the most damaging item in public education. But miseducation is a very competitive field, and I had momentarily forgotten about calculators and computers (whose baleful effects extend to the private schools). It’s hard to think of a better way to ensure that students not be able to reason or think for themselves.
Here is a small illustration of the problem. As I was finishing graduate school, I was helping to pack up the computer lab and ship it across the country. I went down to the IT desk and asked the price of one DAT tape for backing up all the files. I was told $6.50. Then I realized that we would need several, so I asked the price of the box of 10. The sales clerk whipped out his calculator and fiercely punched away. Perhaps he was figuring the different-in-every-county California sales tax — was it 7.25 percent or maybe 8.375 percent? Just as I had thought up that explanation, he announced the results of all the calculation: “That’ll be sixty-five dollars.”
It happened almost 13 years ago, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. The situation today is even worse thanks to graphing calculators, which have done for students’ understanding of algebra and functions what the regular calculators have done to their understanding of the number system.