Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood.

Abstract

thinking. A rich network of connections between regions of the brain that primarily govern emotion and highero rd e r thinking allow human feelings to collaborate in even the most intellectual of tasks.1 1 Young children make the most dramatic strides, in terms of nearing their full adult potential, in their sensory and motor skills, and the neural regions most related to them. During the grade school years and beyond, c h i l d ren continue to pro g ress incrementally in motor and perceptual skills. But now the most dramatic gains are in their social and emotional skills. The brain regions most involved in emotion near maturation as children re fine their social skills and their capacity to regulate their own moods and behavior. Finally, after pubert y, the developmental focus within the brain shifts to the regions of the brain that enable the most advanced thinking, relying upon abstractions and critical judgment. Also, a rich network of neural connections develops between these a reas and brain regions most directly involved in emotion and movement. Becoming an adult in our culture corre s p o n d s to the timing of this neural integration of thinking, feeling, and acting. The most pre c i s e movements of which humans are capable, such as the hand-eye coordination of a pediatric heart s u rgeon, the most nuanced feelings about feelings, based on mature self-awareness, and the most creative artistic and scientific achievements all tend to follow this maturation and integration of body, heart, and mind. The biological patterns of brain development appear to correspond to childre n ’s p a t t e rns of learning. In early childhood, the child most naturally learns primarily thro u g h e n e rgetic use of her whole body in a tru l y “hands-on” approach to exploring the world. The child makes the most dramatic sensorimotor gains of her life, from the re l a t i v e physical helplessness of the newborn, to the t o d d l e r ’s running, jumping, grasping relationship with the world around her. The Essential Human To u c h The elementary-age child fine-tunes these motor skills, as his senses, organs, muscles, and bones continue to mature. His thinking skills, of course, are also advancing. But his whole being is naturally tuned to learn through the window of feelings, as he makes c o rrespondingly dramatic gains in emotional and social development. This is a time for s t o rytelling, music, creative movement, song, drama, making things with the hands, practical and fine arts of every kind — in short, every educational technology that touches childre n ’s h e a rts. They capture childre n ’s imagination, waken their interest in learning, and serve their e v e r-expanding sense of the world aro u n d them. Only around puberty does the child’s dominant mode for learning finally shift toward the conscious intellect, as abstract considerations of logic and cause-and-effect re a s o n i n g gradually begin to hold sway in his mind.1 2 At every stage, however, studies indicate that strong emotional rapport with re s p o n s i b l e adults — the human touch — provides support that is critical in helping children master the a p p ropriate developmental challenges. Studies indicate that childre n ’s earliest emotional experiences actually lay the foundation for later academic achievement,1 3 and that childre n whose emotional needs were not met in early childhood benefit greatly from early school experiences aimed at helping them to develop the emotional skills that are critical to school s u c c e s s .1 4 Studies have also shown that teenheal thy ch ildren • 7