ALPHA DELTA KAPPA DECEMBER 2010 - Gedung Kuning

pressing the button on the
laptop . . . resulting in a loss of
instructional time.” She looked
bewildered, and so did I. How
much faster did IT need to go?
Was the speed of light enough
to satisfy our need to cover
first grade standards for the
life cycle of a plant?
While you ponder that
existential rumination, I’ll continue
on the line of engagement.
The teacher is supposed
to employ the programs that
allow children to uncover
the right answer or make the
clock face say the correct time,
or beep when the incorrect
answer is selected. And they
do. But I have observed, more
and more, that fewer children
actually have the opportunity
to move and touch and solve,
and that even when they do,
the physical activity is limited
in its scope and sophistication.
One teacher told me, in
great secrecy and with pleas
for anonymity, that she is
“teaching her young students
to cut and color.” This furtive
instruction in once basic
early childhood practice came
about when she discovered
that the children in other
classrooms could barely negotiate
crayons, scissors, and
glue with any level of skill and
success. I suspect that the
mandate to use technology
as the primary teaching tool
has crept down into 4-year-old
programs, leaving little time
for development of these skills
in the pre-K curricula.
In addition, the once
über-engaging Smart Board©
now seems to be losing its
allure for the most attentionchallenged
youngsters. Where
once the colors and dynamic
action of the big screen could
keep the ADD and dare I say
“BAD” (Karges-Bone, 2005)
students in place and entranced
for a time, my recent
One teacher told me, in great secrecy and with pleas for
anonymity, that she is “teaching her young students to
cut and color.”
encounters across several
counties suggest that even the
most sassy lesson on a screen
wears thin for children who
need to be doing something
themselves.
The minty smell of glue
was what my limbic system
remembered. Gluing the
paper numbers onto a paper
plate clock face and twisting
brads to make the “big hand
and little hand” that had been
laboriously cut by little human
hands was the lesson that I
was not seeing and probably
will not see in an early childhood
classroom in the near future.
That’s kind of sad, but not
nearly as sad as what I swear I
saw in a classroom last week.
“The Smart Board© is
reading the book to them,” my
pleased young teaching intern
reported. “It reads the basal
story and they follow along.
This increases fluency.”
“That’s just ducky,” I
thought, feeling like an old
curmudgeon if ever there was
one. Now the thing even reads
for the teacher. How far will we
go into the great abyss? But
I felt better when my intern
teacher made his request: “It
is Dr. Seuss’s birthday next
week. We hoped you would
come in and . . . you know . . .
read a story to them. Like you
did for us when we took your
Kiddie Lit class at the college.
That would be great.”
Indeed. The novelty of it.
Reading a story. Aloud. Without
the big board and the computer
and the blinking lights.
I’ll do more than that. I’ll read
the story and dress up in a
funny hat and smuggle some
big old crayons in and follow
up with some coloring. Lord
Action in Educational Excellence
help us, I feel like a terrorist.
Seriously, whether one
calls it a Smart Board© or a
Promethean Board© or just a
really flashy projected presentation
using a laptop, technology
infused teaching can be a
wonderful addition to a teacher’s
repertoire. My concerns
surface when it seems to be
the only instructional tool. As
one of my trusted colleagues
sighed after reading the draft
of this essay: “High tech is
great, but it will never replace
high touch.” Losing our concept
of sensory-rich teaching
would not be “smart,” no matter
how fast the lights blink or
the slides change. Somewhere,
someday, I want to smell the
minty school glue and know
that all is right with the world.t
About the Author
Linda Karges-Bone, a
50-year-old professor of
education at Charleston
Southern University, has no
grudge against the Smart
Board© nor any other kind of
technology. She has actually
been trained to use one and
does so on a limited basis.
This tongue in cheek essay is
meant to create a thoughtful
discussion on how “smart” it is
to use any kind of technology
in excess, excluding the
valuable, dendrite-friendly,
organic practices that were
once such a robust part of
one’s teaching inventory.
References
Karges-Bone (2005) “Is he
BAD or a BOY?” Natural
Awakenings Magazine. April
Edition. Charleston, SC.
Karges-Bone (2009)
“Differentiated Pathways of
the Brain.” Carthage, Illinois:
Lorenz Educational Press.
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