Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How America made its children crazy
Asia Times Online ^ | 31 Jan 2012 | Spengler

Posted on 01/30/2012 8:26:15 PM PST by Theoria

Now we know that computers don't help children learn and that drugs don't help them concentrate, because the establishment mandarins who sold us the computers and drugs have conceded failure. In the January 29 New York Times, [1] a prominent professor of child development shows that attention-deficit-disorder drugs only harm the three million children who take them. One out of 10 American children have been diagnosed with so-called Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and most of them have been medicated. [2]

Some months ago, the Times reported that test scores lagged in school districts that invested massively in digital education. [3] It does not seem to have occurred to the mandarins that computers cause attention deficit disorder. The brain is a machine, in the enlightened secular model, and so-called brain science teaches us to tweak its functioning with pharmaceuticals, or stimulate its development through digital approximations of intelligence. The grand result of a generation's worth of brain-science application is a generation of schoolchildren who are disproportionately illiterate, innumerate, anxious, angry, and unhappy.

Professor L Alan Sroufe's debunking of ADD medication in the New York Times contains this admission:

''Back in the 1960s I, like most psychologists, believed that children with difficulty concentrating were suffering from a brain problem of genetic or otherwise inborn origin. Just as Type I diabetics need insulin to correct problems with their inborn biochemistry, these children were believed to require attention-deficit drugs to correct theirs. It turns out, however, that there is little to no evidence to support this theory.''

That is an astonishing statement: in the mainstream view of the academic psychologists, the brain is another pancreas, except that its function is to secrete thoughts as opposed to insulin. That is to say that the psychologists have a pancreas where their brains should have been.

(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...


TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: add; children; computers; editorial; education; publicschool
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-27 last
To: impimp; RightGeek
Except I believe in digital education. The author’s opinion is wrong on that matter.
I believe in Alvin Toffler's formulation, "High Touch and High Tech."

That is essentially what Apple has been doing. And, in digital education, there is khanacademy.org. The high tech aspect of KhanAcademy is that the Internet delivers the content on demand, and provides sample problems automatically, giving a teacher or coach complete insight into a student's progress and any specific difficulties. The high touch aspect of it is that the lectures, by Salman Khan, are done in a very human and approachable way. Even though it would be easier for him to simply redo a lecture when he makes a mistake while lecturing, he has his team simply annotate the video to correct the error. That is humility, and it makes the experience very human.

The fact that the lectures are short, essentially spontaneous, and available on demand means that the student is unlikely to feel intimidated by the process. Indeed, the "on demand" nature of the video lectures has, according to Khan, made them even better accepted by students than live, interactive discussions with him.

Students can learn from KhanAcademy alone, but an even "higher touch" approach is to "flip the classroom" of a school, having the students view the lectures at home and devote the classroom to human interaction around the practice exercises which traditionally have been "homework."

So, yes indeed, very interesting educational work can be done with the aid of computers. I certainly hope Khan succeeds in "flipping the classroom" in education generally. Apple has made a significant thrust into education with its authoring tool, available free to Mac users, to empower textbook authors to port learning tools to the iPad. And with concomitant iPad software to view and interact with the educational content, making notes and empowering drill and practice.

I suppose that it is entirely possible to misuse such tools to the detriment of the child's education. It's not obvious that Khan needs those tools. He is on record as questioning whether textbooks are needed at all with his approach. I think that books are in their own way more accessible than digital content, tho . . .


21 posted on 01/31/2012 4:30:53 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (DRAFT PALIN)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: TheMole

This article wasn’t the place to argue the case, but to the extent I can speak of philosophy of mind as a non-professional, I sympathize with St. Augustine’s “Divine Illumination” theory. That is, what Kant calls synthetic a priori reason — our ability to understand certain things intuitively and synthesize a concept out of disparate elements — is made possible by participation in the mind of God. Kantian and neo-Kantian epistemology has roots in Augustine, but excises God from the picture.


22 posted on 01/31/2012 5:39:25 AM PST by Spengler (It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Sequoyah101

You are a great man. Thanks!


23 posted on 01/31/2012 5:44:18 AM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion

My girls have used Switched On Schoolhouse since third grade. They have been using Saxon DIVE and Teacher for three years.

They are on their fourth year of Latin. The first year was in classroom (with a fourteen year old teacher, I might add), the next two years the class was on DimDim, right in our livingroom. This year they moved onto Powerspeak. The 11-year-old has a 90% and the 14-year-old is at 93%. There was a period of getting to know HOW the program worked that would have been solved by better technical support so, their grades would be higher with that.

Digital education rocks!


24 posted on 01/31/2012 5:49:02 AM PST by netmilsmom (Happiness is a choice)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

Jan Healy wrote extensively about screens and the developing brain.


25 posted on 01/31/2012 6:45:05 AM PST by Chickensoup (In the 20th century 200 million people were killed by their own governments.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

I believe, firmly, that there truly are mental disorders such as ADHD. My sister, for example, has severe attention deficit problems. However, her brain scan is not normal, and she has had a lot of inexplicable problems throughout her education. Medication has helped her to a degree.

I have also known some boys who really truly had a problem. Medication helped them.

HOWEVER, and it is a big huge however, MOST “cases” of ADHD are misdiagnosed by those who stand to make a buck off of the hysteria. The article is right in that the condition is overdiagnosed, even though I disagree that ADHD is basically fictional.

Prescribing ADHD medications for attention span problems in school is basically like saying that anyone who coughs has strep throat and should take antibiotics.

My sister and I were both homeschooled and we both are effective learners (even with lil sis’s disabilities, she is pretty good at learning things, if a bit slower. If she can’t remember something she will look it up again).

I agree with the conclusion that excessive use of electronics and the public school system has caused the behavioral and learning problems that we see today.

And the fact that ADHD is overdiagnosed gives a really bad name to the kids who actually have it. That is what makes me the most angry.


26 posted on 01/31/2012 9:09:39 AM PST by Conservaliberty (25 and conservative. I guess I have no heart, Oh, well, makes shooting the bad guys easier.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: PGR88

The War on Kids
http://www.tagtele.com/videos/voir/47708/1/


27 posted on 01/31/2012 9:26:33 PM PST by TenthAmendmentChampion (OMG - Obama Must Go!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-27 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson