I just ordered an iPad.
I made the move after much hemming and hawing and debating and waffling. I knew all the reasons why I shouldn’t buy one—the cost, the unnecessary expense, the unreasonable outlay of cash—but the image of me reading Dickens or flipping through family photos on the thing finally overrode all my sound financial reasoning. Forget practicality and sound judgment: I slapped down $600 for, essentially, a cool new toy.
If only I’d been a kindergartener in Auburn, Maine, I would’ve gotten one of these toys for free.
The Auburn school district, which is spending $200,000 to give all of its 300 kindergarteners iPads, doesn’t consider them toys, naturally, but a collective educational revolution. And they have reason to. The iPad is a sophisticated piece of whiz-bang gadgetry that, with its hand-friendly touch screen and intuitive programming, seems practically built for the Velcro-shoe set. Even kids who don’t know how to spell iPad can use one: All it takes is a point or a swipe—and, as a parent, I know kindergarteners are pros at pointing and swiping.
“This is truly redefining how we’re going to teach and learn,” Auburn superintendent Tom Morrill told Fox News. “We’re talking about a new tool, the iPad 2. You begin to watch how young people jump on, jump in and figure this out. It has great potential for leveling the playing field for all students.”
But critics worry that some of these iPads might wind up on the playing field—perhaps scattered over acres of it. When my son was in kindergarten, he was capable of eviscerating Fisher Price figurines and breaking rubber bouncy balls. Many of his old stuffed animals are in counseling to this day. I shudder to think how long an iPad would’ve lasted in his tiny, destructive hands.
There are other concerns, too. Larry Cuban, who literally wrote the book on how schools misuse computers (it’s titled Oversold and Underused: Computers in Schools), suspects Auburn may be wasting taxpayers’ money. “There’s no evidence in research literature that giving iPads to 5-year-olds will improve their reading scores,” he told the Associated Press.
And here’s another thing: I wonder whether getting kids so intimately familiar with technology at such a young age hinders their ability to get along without it. I mean, society is beginning to get pretty concerned with the amount of time all of us spend in front of screens, and now we’re giving children—kindergarteners—yet another. When I think back on kindergarten, I remember construction paper and Elmer’s glue, graham crackers and games of Red Rover. I may be hopelessly old school, but the thought of kindergarteners spending their days staring at screens—no matter how interactive those screens might be—makes me a little sad.
But maybe I’m just jealous. Little Bobby getting a free iPad while I have to spend my hard-earned money to buy one? No fair. I have half a mind to tell the teacher.
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