[icepat]

Not saying it is not, but what I am saying is that you should be allowed whatever learning tools work best for you. A blanket ban on computers and insisting on hand written notes, is just no good. Forcing children to manage bureaucracy to get a simple laptop in class is also senseless.

> In England your teacher would ask the school's special education teacher for advice

In Canada, they just said I wasn't trying hard enough. I can't count the number of times people fought me tooth and nail to prevent me learning in the way that suited me best. You would like to assume that teachers and school administrators are looking for the best way to educate people, but sadly that's not always the case. It often breaks down into a bureaucracy of "well, you don't have xyz condition, and we only allow this for xyz condition, so you don't get it." Another one I got was "we won't let you have a laptop because we're liable if it gets broken".

[logifail]

> You would like to assume that teachers and school administrators are looking for the best way to educate people, but sadly that's not always the case

At the latest since become a parent and having school-age kids it's become patently clear to me that this isn't what school administrators or the indeed the vast majority of teachers are looking for at all.

[Symbiote]

I draw your attention to where I wrote the laptop would be on prescription from an expert, with guidance to teachers. That puts it outside any blanket ban that might otherwise exist.

Some process is inevitable when your needs are far outside the norm and have the potential to disrupt the education of the rest of the class.

(I can't comment on the situation in Canada.)

[icepat]

And I did note that, and address it. This is exactly like the line of reasoning that blocked my access to the tools I needed to learn. Like I said, the bureaucratic process of getting an assessment is often prohibitive. Many educational experts are stuck in specific ways, and unwilling to suggest accommodations unless there's obvious disability. Radically different learning styles are not considered a disability, but rather a problem the student must rectify on their own. Now that I'm out of school, I'm completely functional at work, and in other domains of life.

I see it as similar to being left-handed in the 1800's. Eventually we're going to see that the approach we're taking now is just as nonsensical. We're essentially beating the devil out of children now by forcing them to adopt a learning approach that was developed over a hundred years ago when there was no other way.

I think you're error here is in assuming that you will be given what you need if you simply ask for it in school. I assure you, this is not the case. In many cases, I've had teachers (and later profs) explicitly go out of their way to exempt themselves from having to provide any accommodations at all. Even when supplying them was legally mandated by provincial government. One sticks out in my memory as having quite literally saying "then sue me" when I was refused an accommodation specifically required in my student file.

[logifail]

> I am saying is that you should be allowed whatever learning tools work best for you. A blanket ban on computers and insisting on hand written notes, is just no good.

Umm, not sure whether I agree with this.

Don't we expect children to learn basic mathematics without access to a calculator? This despite the fact that there are certainly children who struggle with laborious long multiplication and division. Our eldest was one of them!

[icepat]

I think there's a major difference between using something that removes the need for basic knowledge, as opposed to allows that knowledge to be learned in a different way. I'm not advocating not teaching people to write, I'm suggesting we do that, but then provide them the option to use a computer to assist their learning.

If you provide someone with a calculator, there's no need for them to learn how to do basic math. If you provide someone who can write with a computer, you're just altering how the information is retained, not what information is retained.

[logifail]

> I think there's a major difference between using something that removes the need for basic knowledge, as opposed to allows that knowledge to be learned in a different way.

> I'm not advocating not teaching people to write, I'm suggesting we do that, but then provide them the option to use a computer to assist their learning

Q1a: What would we say is the purpose of young people learning to write unaided, with just pencil and paper?

Q1b: At what point do we say "OK, that's enough basic knowledge", and we let them reach for an electronic device to assist?

and

Q2a: What would we say is the purpose of learning to do mathematics unaided, with just pencil and paper?

Q2b: At what point do we say "OK, that's enough basic knowledge", and we let them reach for an electronic device to assist?

I'm not sure that I see that there's much difference between the two.

In both cases, there will come a time when you don't have your device (or its charger) handy, and you will have a significant advantage if you can manage the task in front of you without electronic assistance.

[icepat]

Again, not advocating teaching people with the machines that abstract, just letting them use the machines to help them collect their knowledge and solidify it. My point is very clear, and there's no real ambiguity in what I'm getting at. You're constructing a slippery slope argument here and asking "well if we let them take notes on laptops, then what? Stop teaching them to add"?