With all the focus on the importance of technology in our schools, there is another important issue that needs to be addressed. That is the fact that our students need to be able to know how to express their thoughts through oral reading and writing.
The use of computers in our classrooms has become the dominant way for students to use their thinking processes and express themselves. A computer does not teach a student to read or write; a teacher does. Students can easily use their computers to complete assignments with relatively little difficulty.
But ask them to express themselves through oral and written communication and it becomes an entirely different story. That is why the education system in this country must allow significant time in every classroom in every school for teachers to be able to teach reading and writing skills to their students from kindergarten through 12th-grade.
Computers are useful as an addendum in the classroom for some instruction, but they should not and must not ever take the place of the classroom teacher.
John Amato
Fresh Meadows
