One Laptop Per Child

There are many things about technology I dislike; blogging is probably numbered among them. I'm not at all certain that most of the technology to which I have access makes me a better person, or enriches my life in a way I couldn't do without and be a better person for it. And I'm definitely less than enthusiastic about the amount of time children seem to be spending, nay, be encouraged to spend, on computers or the like.

But I also understand the necessity of teaching children about technology because it is (unfortunate or not) a fact of life. It's like teaching children to drive: you may think that cars are horrible planet-polluting hunks of death, but unless you're planning on raising your children Amish or something similar, chances are good that they won't be able to escape cars. So it's important for them to learn to drive even if you raise them to hate cars as much as you do, because there's one thing less safe than a car, and that's a car with a driver who doesn't really know how to drive.

Computers are similar. They're everywhere, and most people are forced to use them at one time or another. And there are few things as disastrous in the computer world as an unschooled user. The user is what causes most security vulnerabilities, most errors, and most everything else. And they don't just louse up their own computers, either. So computer education is extremely important, for everyone, not just children.

Which is why I find the One Laptop Per Child thing so frustrating. It enables computer education, sure. It's hard to teach a child to use a computer without a computer for them to use. But most people's idea of computer education seems to be, "Well, give them a computer and the rest will follow." That's like teaching driver's ed by giving all 15-year-olds cars and letting them go out and get experience. We don't do that, do we?

Nor do we have car companies offering cheap, "learners" cars for children. Because they're only interested in the bottom line (as many computer manufacturers seem to be) but also because the funding for that program is sent instead (and rightfully so) to fund Drivers Ed programs.

So why are we spending all this money to provide children with laptops? It looks good on paper, I guess. But since all that money goes to providing the computer, none of it goes to teaching the children how to use it. I don't know many programs like that, but I'm fairly insular.

So Nicolas Negroponte, if you really want to help the world, you have to think about more than just supplying everyone with computers. That's a necessary component, sure, but there should also be education to go with it. After all, we don't let people drive until they pass a test. Maybe we shouldn't let people use computers until they do the same. Try parallel parking a Cray.