their math exams to allow for the use of calculators.
Learning arithmetic today means learning three things—one and one-half of which are calculator-related. First, it means learning the basic concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—which takes the average first grader about twenty minutes. Second, it means learning how numbers are written—another twenty minutes—and how to push the correct calculator buttons to display the desired numbers—twenty seconds. Third, it means learning which buttons to push in order to actually add, subtract, multiply, and divide the numbers—another twenty seconds.
Yet even though Benita is a wizard at using her calculator to come up with the correct answers to arithmetic problems, some adults who have watched her fingers skate across the buttons feel uneasy about it. They think that she should still be made to memorize 8x8 and 9x9. My response to them has been: why? Wouldn’t this be a huge waste of her time? Isn’t this the reason we invented calculators in the first place—so that Benita, and the rest of us, would not have to memorize the “times” tables?
No, you might be saying, it wouldn’t be a waste of her time. Memorizing the rules of arithmetic would help Benita to learn to think and reason. It would be good mental practice for her. And besides, she’ll never know when her calculator’s batteries might give out or when she might get stranded on a desert island without her calculator and need to know 8x8 and 9x9.
Bypassing the batteries-desert island issue, I’ll just say that it’s not clear to me that memorizing “times” tables would be good mental practice or mentally beneficial for Benita. It’s an example of rote learning. Learning to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers that are presented to her might have a minor role in keeping a few of her brain cells polished. However, it certainly can’t be compared to the superior mental benefits of her using critical thinking to explore some of the theoretical concepts underlying arithmetic—and then using this understanding, and further critical thinking, to solve mathematical problems. Mathematics is critical thinking with numbers.
Helping Benita and her grade school classmates to learn when, in which situations, to multiply rather than divide, subtract, or add would offer them important practice in thinking critically. Helping them to learn how to multiply, divide, subtract, or add wouldn’t really be about thinking critically, and would be better left to their calculators. Giving them the knowledge and skills to understand and think critically about a concept like “number” and its applications—now, that would benefit them mentally.
Similarly, it isn’t clear to me at all that—in the coming age of universal grammar-check, spell-check, and talking computers—memorizing rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation in order to know how to write will be mentally beneficial to anyone.
Don’t confuse our learning our native language’s grammar—which is the nexus of innate, creative mental and physical processes together with environmental processes that exists when we first learn to speak our native language—with the memorizing of the grammar rules of written language that takes place in school. It’s the latter that is the example of rote learning. Memorizing the written grammar rules for subject-verb agreement may provide modest exercise for our brains, but it doesn’t really stretch them.
The question shouldn’t be: how much is 8x8? It should be: how can we use what the calculator tells us the product of 8x8 is to help solve the problems of our world? Likewise, the question shouldn’t be: what’s the rule that guarantees that our verb agrees with our subject? It should be: how do we create thoughts and communicate them to others so that they—our thoughts and words—can help us and others to solve the problems of our world?
The spoken word can do the same work as the written word. The heard word can do the same work as the read word. Reading and writing isn’t what’s important here; thinking critically and creatively—that is, poetically, scientifically, ethically, politically, musically, artistically, environmentally, communally, self-consciously, common-sensically—and communicating, storing, and retrieving our thoughts is.
But, you may argue, we’d lose something if we didn’t read or write anymore. We’d lose the ability to think. Our thinking is tied up with our language; if we lost language, we’d lose thinking.
Yes, our thinking is tied up with our language, and if we lost language, we would lose thinking—at least as we know it. But who said anything about losing language? I’ve only suggested that the reading and writing of language will be rendered obsolete by today’s and tomorrow’s electronic technology. Actually, it’s yesterday’s technology that’s the culprit. Blame the phonograph! Language itself certainly won’t be rendered obsolete. It will be just as essential for thought and communication as ever.
This recognition is based not only on the advent of VIVO technology, but on another fact: writing and reading aren’t simply writing and reading. They’re ways we store and retrieve information. This is their primary function in human society. VIVOs will allow us to store and retrieve information faster, more accurately, and more efficiently than writing and reading. As with most other technological advances, we’ll go with the new and drop the old.
When was the last time you churned your own butter? Or even ate butter, for that matter?
Musing 2
Sometimes, however, we seemingly go with the new technology and don’t drop the old. The car definitely seems to have replaced the horse-drawn carriage in the industrially-developed countries. Yet radio, which many people thought would be replaced by TV in the electronically-developed countries, has survived and appears healthy.
When does a new technology, such as VIVO, replace an older technology, such as text, and when do new and old continue to coexist? What conditions must be present for replacement, or coexistence, to occur?
It’s a discussion that gets to the heart of the debate swirling around this book’s thesis. While I forecast that VIVOs will replace text in the electronically-developed countries by 2050, others argue that text and voice recognition will continue to coexist in the computers and societies of the future. While I model my view on the car’s replacement of the carriage, they model theirs on TV’s non-replacement of radio. Who’s right?
Those who disagree with my thesis seem to have banked their argument on two points. The first is that written language is so central to survival in our print-literate societies that we can’t imagine life without it and won’t ever abandon it. Point two is that, in the future, written language will still allow us to do certain information-accessing jobs better than VIVOs will, and that this advantage will guarantee written language’s long-term coexistence with voice-recognition software and computer graphics.
In Chapter 6, subtitled “Searching for Information Using Sound and Image but No Text,” I wrestle with this second point in very specific terms, arguing that, in fact, VIVOs will do those certain information-accessing jobs better than text will. For the remainder of this chapter, I want to address the two critique points above in a more general, overall way. Along the way, I hope we can gain some insight into the nature of technologies and how they evolve, and also into some of the ways people, rightly or wrongly, think and talk about both familiar and new technologies.
Some people, as I said in Chapter 1, think that written language/text has become as basic, irreplaceable, and necessary to our survival as food, water, and sleep. I’ll explain why I disagree.
Let’s begin by creating a couple of concept-tools to work with. We’ll call an activity that every human society needs in order to survive a basic survival activity. Eating, drinking, sleeping, finding shelter and/or clothing, reproducing, transporting ourselves, and communicating information are some basic survival activities. There’s a lot of room for discussion here. I think that creating music, song, dance, theater, visual arts, poetry, stories, ritual, science, mathematics, and engineering fall into this category. You may disagree