Hidden Curriculum

5 Pages 1321 Words

Over the years past billions of dollars have been spent on computers for our nation’s schools. The goal was to improve and update our educational system but there is very little evidence of change through the years and taxpayers that have been paying for these upgrades in the schools want to know where the payoff is.
A small Belridge school district in Mckittrick, California was proud to be the first and only in the state to provide every student with two Apple IIg computers, one for school and one for home. It reshaped its curriculum to use computers in all subject areas and they thought it was working well. The parents were shocked to hear when the annual standardized test scores came in, that the entire first grade class, along with more than a third of the 64 member student body, had scored below their grade level for both reading and math. The school’s officials argued that students had scored even worse before the help of the computer program but in fact this was just one case where the computer program had failed.
Not only is there the argument of whether or not computers are necessary in the classroom, but which type of computers the children should use, the Mac or the PC. Many parents argue that school should prepare children for the workplace, where Macs are a rarity. Parents also say that it’s more convenient if their children can come home from school and pop a disk in to their home PC. There is a significant difference between how technology is used in schools and how it is used in business. In the workplace, he argues, a computer is primarily used for word processing, e-mail, and access to databases, whereas in the classroom it can be a powerful tool for collaborative learning.


Also, by the time today’s fifth grader enters the work force, windows may have given way to Java or maybe even an entirely different language that no one has yet begun to speak. Still, when PC salesmen whisper that children wi...