Why Computers Not Replace Teachers?
My high school English teacher, Mrs. Picquet, taught me how to think.
Not that I’d never thought about anything before, but she really taught me how to do it well – how to make connections among different ideas, how to question the texts and issues presented to me, how to understand rather than memorize. She also encouraged me to write, to think on paper in poetry and prose, to create new works instead of only reading those of others. She believed in me, and her confidence made me believe in myself. Even though she’d been teaching English for probably twenty years or more and had taught hundreds of students, she still found ways to make me feel unique and valuable.
I saw her for the last time four years ago, just before my high school graduation. Now I am preparing to graduate again and begin my new job as a technical writer for an airline. I am ashamed to say that at twenty-two years old, with only a bachelor’s degree, I will be making as much or more money than Mrs. Picquet at an easier, less stressful, and more prestigious job. In another four or five years, I might be outearning my high school principal, another educator whom I greatly respect.
Why? Because of my inherent goodness? My dashing good looks and charming personality? Unfortunately, no. Unlike public schools, which sometimes struggle to secure funding even for basic facilities, my airline turns a profit year after year, enabling it to pay good salaries even to its entry-level computing professionals. Although a writing major, I also have a working knowledge of computer programming, and will write instructions for my company’s internal software.
My fate illustrates the American culture’s devotion to what Neil Postman, chairman of the Department of Culture and Communications at New York University, calls the “god of Technology” in his essay “Virtual Students, Digital Classroom” (140). The explosive growth of computer technology and the Internet over the past decade has deluded many
Not that I’d never thought about anything before, but she really taught me how to do it well – how to make connections among different ideas, how to question the texts and issues presented to me, how to understand rather than memorize. She also encouraged me to write, to think on paper in poetry and prose, to create new works instead of only reading those of others. She believed in me, and her confidence made me believe in myself. Even though she’d been teaching English for probably twenty years or more and had taught hundreds of students, she still found ways to make me feel unique and valuable.
I saw her for the last time four years ago, just before my high school graduation. Now I am preparing to graduate again and begin my new job as a technical writer for an airline. I am ashamed to say that at twenty-two years old, with only a bachelor’s degree, I will be making as much or more money than Mrs. Picquet at an easier, less stressful, and more prestigious job. In another four or five years, I might be outearning my high school principal, another educator whom I greatly respect.
Why? Because of my inherent goodness? My dashing good looks and charming personality? Unfortunately, no. Unlike public schools, which sometimes struggle to secure funding even for basic facilities, my airline turns a profit year after year, enabling it to pay good salaries even to its entry-level computing professionals. Although a writing major, I also have a working knowledge of computer programming, and will write instructions for my company’s internal software.
My fate illustrates the American culture’s devotion to what Neil Postman, chairman of the Department of Culture and Communications at New York University, calls the “god of Technology” in his essay “Virtual Students, Digital Classroom” (140). The explosive growth of computer technology and the Internet over the past decade has deluded many