COMPUTERS: Teachers add more to learning

I am so glad Tracy Turell has brought the confliction between teachers and computers to light. I agree with his interpretation that the school system is offsetting expenses by using electronics, at the loss of teacher hours which in turn puts the student learning at risk. Students need the personal expertise of teachers to offset the automatics they receive from machines.

My experience with some students who have graduated and are working in the service areas are as follows:

1. It’s difficult and sometimes impossible to read their writing. Computers are not instructors of writing skills.

2. Without a cash register to tell them how much change a customer receives back, they cannot make change readily. Embarrassing for both customer and cashier. Where were the basics of math this person is missing? Computers give answers, not thinking. Teachers give both.

3. Show me a computer that teaches honor, respect and responsibility. That is part of the instruction a teacher would impart to a student.

My final thought is that the computer age — iPads, phones that compute, electronics that tell you how to go, where to turn, texting at times which put you at risk — these are objects that keep you from thinking for yourself. A person needs to have the ability, and the need, to know what they are doing. What that person does not only affects themselves, but others.

I think teachers instill that in students. Computers won’t.

TOM DEPEW

Hayden Lake