Editor:
I think Ms. Samaras missed the point of the documented letters written by Chris Rowan regarding the overuse of "technology" in education (Coast Reporter letters, April 16).
Parents as taxpayers want the best for their kids. They know that when they say "technology" they mean computers.
When parents fear that their children are "being raised by technology," what they fear is that their kids are not getting the deal they signed up for - getting a real person to stand up in front of their child and demand behaviour that will increase the kid's knowledge and teach them how to learn various curriculum: a language, the history of the Medicare system, how to solve a quadratic equation in their head, the reason for the decline of the salmon stocks or how to survive in a snow cave when lost in the Tetrahedron.
As for teachers becoming "remnants of the past," given the number of on-line classes, a total of 108, in this District, some parent may be worried that their kids may be co-opted into programs that don't require school attendance.
Parents may also be worried when their kid comes home from school telling stories about playing games on-line, e-mailing or Facebooking in classes when computers are placed in front of them. If teachers aren't teaching how to do research or discussing the uses of technology "philosophically" or they are letting kids play games under the guise of "cognitive development," as a parent, I would be worried too.
Unfortunately, kids in high schools seem to use computers mostly for entertainment. No kid would willingly sit in front of a computer for an hour doing math drill unless there was an entertainment component. Parents need to demand supervision of computer use in school is led by best practice. After all, they are paying for expensive technology.
Lou Guest
Gibsons
