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This review has been accessed times since February 24, 2005

Oppenheimer, Todd. (2003). The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved. NY: Random House.

Pp. xxi + 512
$26.95 (Hardcover)     ISBN 14000-6044-3

Reviewed by Jennifer S. Groff
University of Delaware

February 24, 2005

For another review of this book see
the review by Rotherham (2006).

Technotopia. The charming descriptor author Todd Oppenheimer uses to depict the optimistic group of educators who are fascinated with technology and its potential to transform today’s schools in his book The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved. Although, one doesn’t have to delve deep to observe the word’s condescending tone. Whereas education’s love affair with technology has endured for nearly a century, Oppenheimer uses the five years it took him to research and write this book, to comprehensively squash the optimism found in every “techno-vangel” (as he calls them) in the field of education. Although he claims to be a reporter who uses this book as a forum for exploring the “excesses” of the debate between those optimists and the technology-skeptics, the forum is fairly one-sided.

Oppenheimer’s exploration of this issue comes at a pivotal time. He recognizes, as have many others, that the fundamentals of American public education are being challenged by more interventions than ever; not only technology, but attempts at progressive school reform, corporate partnerships, and the political hot-button, testing, assessment and accountability. With all of these issues on the educational horizon, it’s not hard to understand why Oppenheimer and others are skeptical of the schooling of today’s students, and technology’s ability to improve it. But in Oppenheimer’s case, maybe we should replace the world skeptical with cynical.

In all fairness, Oppenheimer recognizes that there are times when computers are used effectively in the classroom. However, to him these circumstances are far and few between. He uses The Flickering Mind to illustrate the dysfunctions of technology-infused schools and tell anecdotes of technology use to persuade the reader into thinking that technology exacerbates any problems within that school. In fact, virtually all of the tales of effective schools in the book use technology sparingly, if at all. Conversely, the stories he tells of schools using technology intensively leave the reader with a depiction of technology as a pervasive evil that is attempting to infiltrate the basic foundations of what makes school effective.

About The Author

As with any author, Oppenheimer’s background and experiences setup the premise for his book. A journalist for over 25 years, Oppenheimer has written for publications such as Newsweek and The Washington Post. He has appeared on “Nightline” and has won national awards for his writing and investigative reporting. In 1994, Newsweek hired Oppenheimer as the magazine’s first “multimedia reporter.” It is through this position he has spent over five years researching technology’s place in education by traveling across the country observing, interviewing and assessing technology-based schools and other reform-based schools. Since Oppenheimer is not of the field of education, he reinforces his arguments by citing many of his conversations with the field’s leading experts. He uses these stories, told in exhaustive detail, to portray what he believes occurs when technology is dumped into schools (and what happens when schools avoid it like the plague). Despite the fact that this book claims it is meant to explore both sides of the issue, it is clear which side of the fence Oppenheimer falls on. His lack of exploration of both sides of the issue does an injustice to the educational technology debate, as comparison of both effective and ineffective examples of technology use in schools might help shed light on the specific stumbling blocks to making it an appropriate tool for schools.

False Promises

The longest section of the book, in False Promises Oppenheimer begins by outlining education’s love affair with technology and its continuous unproductive cycle of its use: a heightened sense of awe with the need to infuse it into the curriculum immediately, followed by teacher and student frustration, eventually leading to the technology’s exit from the educational scene. It is clear from this history lesson that Oppenheimer is not terribly optimistic about the next prototype to come down the technology assembly-line—the computer.

His experiences at different schools across the country certainly do an excellent job at covering all ends of the spectrum. The first story describes several schools in New York City school district 5, in Harlem, New York, where the 1996 Project Smart poured millions of dollars into the schools for technology—the premise being that this would help close the “digital divide” and therefore the achievement gap for this disadvantaged students. After witnessing the painful struggles these teachers and students go through to make use of the technology and how it ultimately leaves the students getting less accomplished than if technology wasn’t available, it leaves the reader feeling that technology is viewed as a figurative “band-aid” used to fix the woes of struggling schools and their students. In reality, this “band-aid” isn’t addressing the real issues troubling the school. Winston Duckett, a teacher in Harlem captures this phenomenon quite well: “There are lots of teachers who don’t realize that academic work can get a lot better with or without computers. I’ve watched countless students “working” on [technology-based] projects and repeatedly saw teacher and visiting adults observe this scene with admiring awe. It’s strange, almost as though the computer emits some kind of technological cloak of legitimacy which turns whatever is underneath it into something it’s not (p. 73).”

The scene doesn’t get much prettier at Hundred High School, in rural West Virginia, where each student has been issued a laptop for round-the-clock use. Oppenheimer’s stories of pitfalls encountered with distance education and when technology is constantly at kids’ finger-tips make you wonder where the pay-offs are. As Jerry Crystal, the district’s technology coordinator, put it, “Are we getting $500,000 of improvement out of these kids (p. 115)?”

Perhaps one of the most insightful chapters in the book, “Money, Bureaucratic Perfection, and the Parenting Gap” explores the successes and tribulations of a well-off, highly funded, technology-infused high school in Montgomery County, Maryland. Though a rare appearance in this book, Oppenheimer offers us examples of both effective and ineffective instruction in this school, with technology and without it. By drawing parallels between these classroom portraits, the readers is able to gain insight on how, and in exactly what way, instruction can be enhanced and hindered with technology. A teacher at Blair explains that “with computers, if you tell them exactly what to do, they won’t learn much. But if you let them flop around but lead them, then they really learning something (p. 129).” However, the challenges of managing the class seem too great to let this scenario unfold as an instructional model. Oppenheimer agrees that having a smaller class would aid the teacher in managing the class’ technology issues, allowing this lesson to be much more effective. But he counters that the same benefits are gained in small classes that don’t use computers—where other challenges (such as students developmentally not being able to handle the technology) are not an issue.

Possibly the greatest pitfall that Oppenheimer observes is the “technology-blinder effect” associated with the Technotopia mindset. At New Tech High School in Napa, California, Oppenheimer observes how teachers are presented with wonderful teaching opportunities—like using the abundant web resources that became available as the one-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks—results in a content-void technology “song-and-dance.” Oppenheimer states, “Almost every time I visited classrooms where the teacher, or someone else, had boasted that great technological learning was going on, the actual exercises staged were nearly empty of intellectual content. How could the contradiction between perception and reality be so severe? Why would teachers get so close to something useful and then miss its opportunity so profoundly (p. 159)?” Here, Oppenheimer raises a valid point—teachers are masters at structuring lessons and curriculum, so why, so often, do they throw out that mastery when developing units using technology? One expert claims that it is because we need to train teachers on how to select the best teaching tool at the time. Oppenheimer would counter that it’s more likely the inherent problem with technology. But his “optimism” doesn’t end there.

Hidden Troubles

In this second section of the book, Oppenheimer outlines several chapters on influences that also play into this techno-battle. Some of these influences include school-industry partnerships, where the funding of big business ultimately alters the curriculum objectives and learning experiences of students; and the educational software industry’s feeble attempt at providing effective solutions to student learning challenges, when in reality there is little research to support their initiatives.

In case you weren’t yet sold on the idea that computers are a disaster in today’s schools, Oppenheimer rallies others to fan the flames of his persuasive fire. He cites several psychologists who demonstrate how young children are not developmentally capable of grappling with a complex machine like a computer, and therefore should not be exposed to it until later in life. And for the icing on the cake, Oppenheimer makes his case for why teacher training is the essential piece that is necessary in order to have technology used properly in the classroom (one expert states that “technology in the hands of a weak teacher is a disaster” - p. 313), yet then details why proper teacher training is virtually impossible to attain.

Smarter Paths

The final section of the book does offer insights into some “smarter paths” that schools have taken. Certainly, a lot can be learned by the work that goes on in the schools that Oppenheimer discusses in the remaining three chapters. For example, the epistemological foundation of the Urban Academy in New York, where the needs of these troubles teens are met in heart-warming ways every day, and the “kinesthetic” pedagogy of the Waldorf schools would leave any teacher (or citizen for that matter) inspired to send their resume to the school’s administrator right away. But inspiring as these stories are, they do little to address the concerns outlined in the previous 10 chapters. For what is working at Urban Academy and the Waldorf schools, may not meet the needs of the students in Knoxville, Tennessee, for example. For as valuable as Oppenheimer’s tales are, they do us little good if we can not draw from them and use what we have learned to address problems in schools where the outlook is not as hopeful. How much more insightful The Flickering Mind would have been if Oppenheimer was able to help us make these connections and possibly answer some of the conflicting issues that have faced educational technology for last 20 years (or more).

Giving credit where it is due, Oppenheimer does an excellent job of comprehensively confronting possibly all the issues concerning infusing technology into the curriculum—especially for someone whose background is not in the field. But perhaps that is the Achilles heel for him—what prevents this book from making a deeper impact on the educational technology field. Clearly this book was written for any American citizen to read (he is very thorough in explaining any terms that may be unfamiliar to the non-techno-vangel). However, for those in the field it offers more questions that answers. For as anyone dealing with research in education knows, quantitative study does not apply itself well to the field, yet qualitative/anecdotal research like Oppenheimer’s leaves little room for generalizability and conclusion-drawing—a point which Oppenheimer may or may not be cognizant of.

The Flickering Mind raises many interesting perspectives on using technology in the classroom. To highlight one, on page 211 Oppenheimer parallels Maslow’s Life Pyramid to education. Maslow’s pyramid outlined the levels of existence: lower levels being physical needs and relationship, the higher ones being more superficial, such as exploring curiosities and aesthetic desires). His theory was that the upper levels could not be achieved until the base levels had been fulfilled. On Oppenheimer’s education pyramid, the lower levels represent a student’s ability to observe, listen and reflect in a stable environment, with the upper levels representing learning factual knowledge and using learning tools. Obviously, using technology in the classroom falls in the upper levels of Oppenheimer’s pyramid. After having read many of the stories in this book, it’s not difficult to see why Oppenheimer’s theory holds water—and plenty of it. When the students at a school like Urban Academy, are able to go on to some of the most prestigious schools in the country despite their academic beginnings, one is forced to do a double-take and review what makes those teachers so effective. It is clear from the chapter “Getting Real at New York’s Urban Academy High School” that these teachers are getting the job done right—and their not doing it with technology. As Oppenheimer explains, “Urban Academy is not a high-tech school. Nor is it against computer. Urban’s view differs from the standard techno-vangels’, however, in how the computer’s role is defined, to what extent it is used, and, most importantly, what other activities surround computer use (p. 324).”

As convincing as this “educational pyramid” theory and other ideas presented in the book are, when you turn that final page you can’t help but feel like asking, “So now what?” Oppenheimer’s stories are insightful and shed much light on what effective classroom instruction looks like, and what it doesn’t. However, Oppenheimer’s goal of this book, (as stated in the introduction), is “to sort through the two camps (techno-vangels versus the technology skeptics),” comes up a bit short. This debate between the two sides leads to essential questions that he outlines: “How do children really learn? What does society really need from schools, from technology, and from its students (p. xvii)?” By page 412, are these questions answered? Not exactly. But one can’t argue that he adds much discussion to this debate. Let’s just hope that The Flickering Mind doesn’t leave the computer’s hope to be included in classroom instruction, “flickering” on the educational horizon.

About the Reviewer

Jennifer Groff is a graduate student in the Educational Technology M.Ed. program at the University of Delaware. A former elementary teacher, Jennifer is currently the assistant Technology Liaison to the Delaware Reading and Writing Project and has worked in Delaware school districts on technology integration and technology-based professional development. Her areas of interest include technology integration, pedagogy, cognitive psychology and school reform.

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