America is in a frenzy to wire its tots.
The latest computer software, called “lapware,” is targeted to babies as young as 1 day old, who can’t sit up but who can gaze from a lap at high-contrast images. Day-care centers tout computer classes for toddlers not yet potty-trained. Schools are even cutting out music instruction to have money for installing hardware in ever-earlier grades.
But the race to make younger children cyber-whizzes has a small but growing group of critics asking: What’s the hurry?
As the debate unfolds, more kindergartners know how to point and click before they can spell M-O-U-S-E.
“We’re thrilled,” says Karen Koncannon of St. Davids, Pa. Her cyber-savvy tot, Ian, 2, uses a computer at home–for up to 40 minutes–and at the Magic Years day-care center in Radnor, Pa. “He’s got his little mouse skills down. In today’s society, I think it’s essential.”
A 1995 survey conducted by the American Association of School Administrators found that parents ranked computer literacy more valuable in the 21st century than honesty, good citizenship, geography, biology, classic literature or athletics. Only the three Rs and good work habits came out ahead.
“When I get inquiries about the school, the parents ask right off the bat: `Do you have computers?’ ” says Nancy McKinney, the director of Magic Years. “They expect computers.”
That sort of passion–along with fears that children will fall behind without exposure to computers at the earliest ages–is powering an educational-software market whose fastest-growing segment is the under-5 set.
“What’s next?” asks Ann Stephens, president of PC Data, of Reston, Va., which tracks software sales. “Wombware?”
Almost. A Texas company has unveiled Just ForBabies, the ultimate newbie software. The CD-ROM displays black-and-white images–in essence, a high-tech mobile–that promise to soothe and mesmerize newborns. Another program, JumpStart Baby, aimed at children as young as 9 months, features a cute teddy bear that explores shapes, colors and animals on the screen.
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But even as PC Data reports that annual sales of software for those age 5 and under has nearly tripled to more than $49.6 million between 1996 and 1998, critics ask: Why put mere babes on computers?
“It’s absurd,” says Jane M. Healy, an educational psychologist and author of “Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds–for Better and Worse.”
“It’s nonsense. It does not prepare them for the future. It prepares them to be droids.”
Healy, one of the most vocal skeptics, contends that the exposure may do more harm than good to developing brains by shortening attention spans and hampering creativity. She has chronicled vision problems and repetitive-stress injuries, such as “video wrist,” in young children after prolonged use.
“It’s taking time away from things the brain is really supposed to be doing. No normally developing child either needs to be on a computer or probably profits from a computer” until about age 7, she says–and then, only if he or she is working with a highly trained teacher.
But don’t unplug that PC quite yet. Advocates, including educators and child-development experts, compare early computing to early reading. They argue that baby software, like a baby’s first book, is a tool that preschoolers need to master for success in the world, one increasingly made of bits and bytes.
A computer “never gets tired of being positive. It never gets tired of teaching,” says Tony Fernandes, creator of babyWOW!, which uses photos to expose toddlers to words in eight languages. “You can’t say that about parents.”
The computer is fast becoming a household appliance–one that parents prefer to that other box.
“TV is not very interactive,” says Don Wegeng of Rochester, N.Y., who made sure to put his oldest, Jimmy, in front of a computer at 18 months. “I am absolutely convinced this is a useful tool. It helps with rote learning. This is a triangle. This is blue.”
Now 27-month-old Jimmy, who gets up to an hour of screen time a day, knows his letters, his colors, his shapes–and how to exit a program. “He would not be as far along in repetitive learning if not for the computer,” his father insists.
Incidentally, critics don’t much value rote learning. “Chimpanzees can learn skills on the computer if you give them a banana,” Healy says. Youngsters should learn to pay attention, motivate themselves, and use language creatively, she says.
Joanne Romano, an educational-technology specialist who consults for the Southeast Delco and Radnor School Districts in Pennsylvania, exposed her grandchild to computers at 9 months: “If we want children to be engaged, to love learning, they need to have access to all the tools. Why should we keep some information or access to information away from them?”
At Eddystone School in Ridley, Pa., kindergartners play math and letter games on computers almost daily. Two classroom computers, teacher Victoria Clement says, serve as extra instructors: “I can have four students getting enrichment without me actually being involved.”
Not all educators share Ridley’s enthusiasm or the Clinton administration’s goal of one computer per five students. Samuel G. Sava, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, maintains that computers have yet to make a difference in student achievement.
Given that, he says, schools shouldn’t shortchange other “less-exciting educational missions” such as art, music and physical education to pay for a technology that requires teacher training and that is costly to maintain and upgrade.
From 1992 to 1998, national spending on instructional technology in schools rose from $2.1 billion to more than $5 billion. In that time, the number of personal computers in public schools more than doubled, to 7.4 million, according to Learning in the Real World, a California group that opposes excessive spending on educational technology.
Some schools refuse to jump on the techno-bandwagon. Kimberton Waldorf, a private school in Chester Springs, Pa., doesn’t offer computer instruction until 10th grade. In September, parents of first-graders will be asked to sign a “no-screen” policy, requiring them to ban computers, TV and videos in the home.
“We’re not antitechnology,” says teacher Peter Lehman. “The fact is that you use technology in the appropriate way. We say there’s no reason to give a child under 16 a license to drive. . . . It has to do with judgment. We would also argue that young children should not use a computer.”
Besides academics, the school emphasizes activities such as knitting and sewing, woodworking and bookmaking. “The computer is an information box,” Lehman says. “Our philosophy is that education is much more than information.”
Reed Foster, a junior, says he is as computer literate as his public school friends. He surfs the Web and sends e-mail, though he prefers a well-written letter.
But such a philosophy is a hard sell. Those who support early introduction of technology insist that computer time should be seen as just another activity in a day of music and swing-sets, stories and blocks.
“We’re not going to warp our kids,” says educational psychologist Will Staso, who wrote Brain Under Construction.
Debra Formal’s children both learned computer skills as preschoolers. “My kids can do better at computers than the people I work with,” says Formal.