TDSB no-brainers debate "no-brainer"
Submitted by mott on April 20, 2007 - 01:33
In an all-too-typical example of how educational bureaucracies have their monitors stuck firmly up their USB ports, the Toronto District School Board has voted to ban the use of cell phones on school premises. Why use what may be the most prolific, cost effective, efficient, accessible, and appealing multimedia communication tool that technology can offer to educate our young when we can ban it instead?
The rationale given by the TDSB for this ban are threefold, according to news reports (Toronto students banned from using cellphones in schools). Cell phones are:
1) disruptive,
2) tools for cheating, and
3) causes for privacy concerns.
Josh Matlow, the trustee who introduced the (Josh Matlow - News), actually said,
"Let's get on with this! Let's not debate something that's a no-brainer ad nauseam. If we do that, what are we doing?"
Unfortunately, the unintentional irony of his remark would likely be lost on him. Indeed, apparently it was also lost on the entire Board of Trustees who passed his motion overwhelmingly.
In days gone by, students would pass notes on pieces of paper or whisper to each other to "disrupt" each other or cheat. Did we ban the use of paper? Did we ban tongues?
Perhaps one or two students scribble answers on their hands and arms. In homage to western saloons, should we have them leave their arms at the door to the school?
Hour by hour, minute by minute, our lives are increasingly recorded - it is a fact of modern living. Many of students today are the first generation to have their births videotaped by their over-enthusiastic historian parents. Therefore, it's alright for us to videotape their naked bodies coming out of their mother's vagina, but not OK for them to video what happens at their school?
The solution, as always, is education not prohibition. But the solution costs money. And until we value education more, we will continue deal with it as cheaply in policy as we do in budget. Don't train the teachers in using the new technology effectively. Don't fund a program of equal access for all students to this learning technology. Don't create new modes of dialogue, discovery and innovation. Nope.
Nope.
Let's ban it.
And let's get rid of rid of the internet too. After all, it's just a series of tubes.
