less surfing, more learning
GELERNTER, DAVID
Less Surfing, More Learning by David Gelernter Making it possible for every 12-year-old to "log on to the Internet" is one of President Clinton's main goals for the schools. The Democrats would be...
...But none of those skills ought to be treated as an academic topic at a time when (in a 1993 finding cited by Charles Sykes in Dumbing Down Our Kids) "80 million Americans are deficient in the basic reading and mathematical skills needed to perform rudimentary tasks in today's society...
...Here is John McPhee on the entertainment industry in a California gold-rush town: "While you drink your tanglefoot whiskey, you can watch a dog kill a dog, a chicken kill a chicken, a man kill a man, a bull kill a bear...
...Fact: The National Education Association and the Democratic party are bosom buddies and strong mutual supporters...
...We need less surfing in the schools, not more...
...Just one more item: No glorified electronic shopping mall ever taught a child arithmetic or history, how to read and write English, or tell right from wrong...
...But our children are barely able to handle the data they already have—the databases and computer CDs and videotapes at many public libraries, the newspapers they don't read, the 24-hour news channels and C-SPANs they don't watch, the old-fashioned books they ignore...
...That no Kleenex ever talked a single American into blowing his nose...
...We should finish the job of connecting every classroom to the Internet by the year 2000," says the president...
...President, that every 12-year-old ought to have access to the Internet...
...Public school was preventing education," Sarah Kass writes...
...Did she understand the First Amendment...
...Our schools are in bad trouble...
...Everyone knows what you do with the Web: You surf, sliding from site to site at the click of a mouse button...
...Nowadays I search for arcane data on the net, shop for books at a Web site, stay in touch electronically with people all over the world...
...Because they find credit-card shopping by phone so inconvenient that they are driven to distraction and can't concentrate on their homework...
...We don't have time or money to waste on quack cures, whether or not they are harmless...
...That no insult ever cleaned up a toxic-waste dump...
...We have shrugged it off, and the consequences are upon us...
...Voice-Over (as patient dies and orderlies cart him out): This guy's troubles are over...
...Why didn't Dole say any of the following during either debate...
...You keep telling us, Mr...
...Our children's insufficient shallowness...
...Doctor: Have an ice-cream cone...
...I am also in favor of good software, sunny skies, and pretty girls, especially when they work for me...
...Just how stupid, Mr...
...I have used the Internet or its precursor nearly every day since the fall of 1982 and would be hard pressed without it...
...Depraved indifference to glitz and snazzy graphics...
...Not because there is anything wrong in itself with Internet access for children, but because our schools are in crisis, and it is ludicrous to suppose that Internet access will fix or even address the main problems...
...Is this the same Department of Education to which NEA officials referred (according to Charles Sykes), on the night before Jimmy Carter signed it into existence, in this toast?—"Here's to the only union that owns its own cabinet department...
...What kind of fools do you think us, anyway...
...The nation thanks you humbly for pointing these things out...
...But it is also true that, always and everywhere, ignorant people care less about the world around them and are less capable of deciphering it than educated ones...
...this patient needs help desperately...
...Now we understand, Sir (as you've said), that no attack ever created a job...
...You've got to help me...
...Couldn't we teach them to use what they've got before favoring them with three orders of magnitude more...
...But is there a teacher, parent, principal, child, even teacher's union bureaucrat anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, who believes that our children are in educational trouble because they are data-deprived...
...Do you actually believe that the schools are better today than they were in the benighted pre-Education Department era...
...The Web is a great source of pictures—are we trying to cure our children of excessive interest in the written word...
...That last charge is completely phony, of course—like your claim that Republicans tried to cut Medicare...
...You figure it out: • "You have argued repeatedly, Mr...
...The Web is a wonderful source of raw data...
...Young people increasingly don't read the newspapers or watch the news on TV—in part, granted, because the mainstream news outlets are full of cant...
...Doctor (puzzled): What're you telling me, you don't like ice-cream cones...
...And what percentage of high-school students, do you think, could define 'benighted,' except by noting that it is the answer young Lancelot used to give when folks asked him 'What do you want to do when you grow up?' Do you think federal bureaucrats will teach our children to read...
...Aside) What kind of crazy extremist position is that...
...The president has a plan, naturally, and Internet access is a big part of it...
...And you claim you are not the NEA's devoted shill...
...Like any other well-off person with half a brain, you, Sir, would sooner bludgeon yourself to death with a two-by-four than send your child to the D.C...
...Hands over a double-scoop of chocolate...
...All right, and meanwhile a late 1980s survey of high-school seniors found that fewer than half could define "profit" or "government budget deficit...
...And yet computers stand at the center of the president's schools program...
...Reelect President Clinton and he'll fix yours, too...
...It's great, and every high-school graduate ought to know how to use it—should know how to drive too, for that matter, how to manage a bank account, apply for a job, and dance the rumba...
...What kind of idiots do you take us for...
...An uneducated audience demands bear-baiting, rap music, movies awash in blood—whatever is convenient...
...Exactly which problem will Web-surfing attack...
...Stubborn unwillingness to push on to the next topic until they have mastered the last...
...Moreover, virtually everything the Internet is selling, our children already have too much of and are choking on...
...A teacher explains in the fall '96 Public Interest why she quit the public schools to found a charter school of her own...
...Why, every man, woman, and child in this country knows that you have 'I v NEA' tattooed in hot pink over your heart...
...Fine, and meanwhile a 1990 survey of college seniors found that 42 percent couldn't date the Civil War correctly to within half a century...
...The Democrats would be foolish to waste this occasion for another helpful, informative TV ad, so here is a suggested script: Scene: Doctor's Office Patient: Doc, I've got acute chest pains, my head is bursting, and I got hit by a truck on my way over...
...President, do you think we are...
...And yet in the public mind the Democrats are the education party...
...public schools...
...Contributing editor David Gelernter is professor of computer science at Yale University...
...Conclusion: The Democratic party relates to education the way bug zappers relate to mosquitoes...
...Sorry I asked...
...We have been aware of this education crisis at least since the Nation At Risk report more than a decade ago...
...I want to build a bridge to the 21st century," he says, "where computers are as much a part of the classroom as blackboards...
...Almost no one denies it, left or right...
...Could she write...
...What did we expect...
...Paid for by Americans Against Cancer-Gingrich, Muscular-Gingrich-Dystrophy, and Multiple-Gingrich-Sclerosis...
...So why did you oppose Congress's effort to make private schooling available to poor D.C...
...Excessive attention spans...
...And those are the things our children need desperately to learn...
...Because they lack sufficient opportunities for chatting online...
...I am in favor of education, Mr...
...Fact: The schools that NEA people run are in crisis and everyone knows it...
...Where education is concerned, the president's whole worldview is loopy...
...residents...
...The president's Internet proposal is absurd...
...Patient: But my brain is melting, my bones are cracking, my heart is falling out, I'm hemorrhaging, and you're offering me—an ice-cream cone...
...The only thing crazier is the Dole campaign's tactful near-silence on the topic...
...No one cared, and she walked...
...That no turnip ever taught Peter Jennings to dance the fandango...
...Could he read...
...And does that mean, Sir, that I ought to favor cabinet departments of Software, Sunshine, and Paula Jones...
...Did he know how to calculate percentages...
...President, that opposing the Department of Education is tantamount to opposing education...
...Unhealthy fixation on in-depth analysis...
...Because they can't get enough pictures to satisfy them and lead visually impoverished lives...
...Remember, your vote counts...
...That stupid, huh...
...The Doles, Bennetts, and Borks condemn the trashification of popular culture, but vulgarity is the consequence of ignorance, never mind Hollywood...
Vol. 2 • November 1996 • No. 8
