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Fernando de la Cueva is a 2nd grade professor at the ESO of Mathematics at an institute in Zaragoza. He has been teaching for 31 years. The cloister of its center has approved by majority to replace from this course the paper books with electronic books and, although it is mandatory, he has refused to do so. It is an input in favor of the analog school, a defender of the virtues of non-digital learning.
Last Thursday Fernando presented himself at the institute with 120 Anaya Mathematics books from the 2008 paper edition to lend them to his students, contrary to the institute's management criteria. They are 103 kilos of weight that he carried by hand charging from the car to the classroom while the rest of the teachers looked at him dumbfounded. He has compiled them thanks to teachers from other centers and families who sympathized with his cause. He sent emails to all public, private and concerted schools in Aragon, to parents' associations and to the majority of mathematics teachers in the autonomous community. «It is a book from 11 years ago, but there were many people who kept it. Both have sympathized with me with a lot of generosity. I have received books from towns and capitals of the three Aragonese provinces, ”he explains.
Your class will be the only one in the course that does not use e-books in Mathematics. He defends that for his subject they don't work. «In Mathematics we are constantly making notes with a pencil in the margins of the books. But trying to modify a digital text is very laborious, because only to underline a sentence the students take 10 minutes. And how do you point a formula or a symbol, draw a sphere or mark its diameter? How do you change a scale that is wrong? It is impossible to use the compass to measure a circumference because the needle cannot be stuck in the glass, ”he argues.
He maintains that, during the last four years, in which his students have worked experimentally and voluntarily with the tablets, the performance has decreased. It's not just the technical inconveniences, but the kids hang out on YouTube or Instagram. They distracted. They think more about likes than algebra, geometry or arithmetic.
For mathematics they don't work. How do you use a compass on a tablet? How do you write a formula?
Fernando de la Cueva (teacher)Officially Fernando has almost all the center against. "Can the cloister veto paper books?" He asked the Aragon Justice , and this body - regional equivalent to the Ombudsman - has dismissed his complaint and told him that he has to put up with it, that decisions related to the curricular projects and with the didactic methods are "of obligatory fulfillment". But on Thursday several parents thanked him for his children carrying paper books this year. Another teacher approached and congratulated him. The father of a former student, Labor inspector, expressly moved to the center to meet him in person. He has become a kind of Quijote , a hero of ink and manual labor.
Actually, he is a supporter of technology. In 1988 he began using computer media in his classes; daily communicates with parents and students through email , and hangs all their materials with hyperlinks and videos on the institute's website. But in his day-to-day experience he has found that a tool that can be very useful for some purposes, has resulted in ballast for his classes. «I intend to recognize the right of the teacher and parents to choose the teaching methods they consider most appropriate for students. I have nothing against technology, but without obligations, ”he emphasizes.
Something is moving in school. There is a budding revolution starring people like Fernando. They are not anti-technological, but ask for a reflection on the tendency to replace paper books with tablets without assessing their effects. There are more and more teachers, parents and principals who are standing before the growing digitalization of the classrooms.
A letter has been popularized by the WhatsApp groups and in the teachers' rooms. Its heading says: "For an education with limited use of the tablet / computer at school". In it, the signer asks the school to have at least one class per course in which the tablet is not used "intensively" and the use of digitized material as the "main work tool" in the school is no longer used. That is concrete in that the tablet always stays in the school and the student does not have to access the internet from home to do his homework, that there are also books with paper support and that the children «work behind the screen doing, for example, Robotics or Programming , instead of in front of it as mere consumers ». In practice, the letter, whose idea came to the educational disseminator Catherine L'Ecuyer, is not binding, but serves as relief, especially for families.
Enrique Torres changed his school children by implanting tablets without consulting parents
Enrique Torres is a father of nine children residing in Sant Quirze del Vallès (Barcelona). One of the main reasons for changing them from the school they were in was because, a couple of years ago, the center implanted the tablets in the classroom "without asking families for permission."
«As of 5th grade, they eliminated paper books and everything became 100% with iPads. We were notified a year earlier. We were so shocked at the parents that we created a group and tried to convince them to create a non-digital line. We also asked that the iPads stay at school and not take them home, but they told us everything not, ”he recalls.
He provided scientific evidence, argued that exposure to screens affected sleep rhythms, and told them that filters and controls in practice did not work, but it was useless. «I did not demonize technology, but I saw that some of my children were generating some addiction. Besides, it doesn't seem like a good idea for me to spend six hours in front of a backlit device at school and, when they get home, stay connected, ”he continues.
Enrique considers "very serious" that schools do not ask families for permission to introduce "such an invasive tool." "As we have to sign an authorization for our children to go on an excursion or appear in photographs, I do not understand how they do not consult us if we want them to be attached to a screen all day," he says. "And how do I defend in my house that my children do not have a mobile until they are 16 years old if they then put a tablet at school from 10 years?" He asks.
In Catalonia, 52% of the centers are prohibited from using the mobile in the classroom, according to a report by the School Consell. The International Journal of Educational Research published last year a study by Toni Mora , Vice Chancellor of the International University of Catalonia , where he analyzed the impact of the program that the Generalitat began to launch in 2009 to promote the use of laptops in classrooms . Analyzing the performance of high school students between that year and 2016, Mora concluded that the program has had "a negative impact on the performance of Catalan, Spanish, English and Mathematics," since in the end-of-stage assessments the grade It has fallen between 3.8% and 6.2%. "The negative effect is more potent for boys than for girls," he says.
How do I argue that they don't have a mobile until they are 16 if they put a tablet in school since they were 10?
Enrique Torres (father)This work is in line with what the OECD has said about it, which in another 2015 investigation concluded that computers do not improve student grades and even harm them if they are used very often. More recently, another study published in June by an international team of researchers from Harvard , Oxford , Manchester , Western Sydney and King's College has found that the internet can affect attention, memory and social interaction.
Lluís Seguí is the director of the Polytechnic Lyceum of Rubí (Barcelona), a center that in 2016 implemented the tablets between 1st and 4th of the ESO and the following year he removed them. Why? “The approach was interesting, but we saw that the quality improvement was not real. Most of the kids identified tablets as leisure instruments and were a frequent cause for distraction. As much as we controlled and put in filters, the students began to play and were very distracted, quite the opposite of study, which requires attention. When we saw that school performance was not improved, that was the reason we put them on, we removed them, ”says Seguí.
I continued to lead the only center in Spain that has developed a FabLab @ School with Stanford University , a manufacturing laboratory integrated into the curriculum where students manufacture models and robots with 3D printers, laser cutters and other state-of-the-art machinery. They are not antitechnological precisely. «It would be absurd to be against technology, but we understand it as a tool at the service of the development of the Humanities. First we think and then we build, and not vice versa. Here the tablets do not contribute anything, with a laptop for two students is enough, ”says Seguí.
It recognizes that when educational innovations are introduced in the classroom, the system is "uncritical and hardly evaluates the results." «When the Stanford ones came for the FabLab, they spent evaluating everything for three days. Regarding tablets, we must measure whether or not they help the human development of children. We saw clearly not.
We put them on and the next year we removed them because they distracted, the performance did not improve
Lluís Seguí (director)Rafael Rodríguez , director of the San Pedro de Gavá school (Barcelona), who started more than a decade ago putting digital whiteboards, buying laptops and training teachers, but he decided to remove it all four years ago because "it didn't improve performance" . And it was passed to the Montessori method, which is quite the opposite. “There are many schools that are rectifying: from basing their innovation on technology to having technology but without basing their innovation on it. Before there was a more powerful discourse in which ICTs were the change, but now they have gone to the background, ”he says.
Why? Because those responsible for the centers have seen that students are distracted; they connect without enough control and are open to a world full of dangers without sufficient maturity to address them; There are all kinds of technical difficulties, and digital books, despite being cheaper, have a limited use license. Rodríguez points out: «Only a decade ago, you were telling a story in class and you managed to have the students listening and concentrating for 10 minutes. Now they can't stand to hold attention for so long.
Rodriguez's school has also declared himself mobile-free. If a student has to carry it for any reason, he is obliged to leave it at the entrance in a locker. «I saw high school students, who were all with their cell phones and did not look at each other during recess. They were isolating themselves. Now that they can't take them, their attitude has changed: they talk, laugh, relate, participate ... The conflict between them has been greatly reduced ».
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