Who's afraid of ICT?

One of the big electoral slogans, here in Italy a few years ago, was about the "three I's" ("inglese, informatica, impresa", English, ICT, enterprise) to be injected in our schools, something many teachers (including myself) considered either ludicrous or scary, according to the moment.

Probably we are there again. So we'd better deal with it.

One of the three "I's" was ICT. Why should we find it ludicrous or scary?

Let me state my starting point, so that I am not misunderstood: I consider the main part of my teaching profession to be helping students to develop some behaviours that are transversal to the subjects I teach, but which, thanks to these subjects, can be learned by the students. Here I am talking about things like: critical attitude, curiosity for culture, autonomous learning, introjecting universal values, consistency with said values, ability to listen, cooperate, interact hierarchically... Such little things. And I used the adjective "main" to mean that I belong to a school of thought for which if a student develops these behaviours but is not capable of integrating a rational function, I am very happy all the same. Maybe I can't grade him very high, but nonetheless he will be quite aware of my esteem for him.

Well, starting with this, why doesn't the "I" of ICT scare me? As a matter of fact, I am not convinced of the absolute usefulness of ICT in learning maths and physics: I am a bit of a traditional guy here. But I am convinced that I can use ICT to build critical attitude, curiosity for culture, and so on and so on.

Paradoxically, sponsoring a frontal attack of ICT in schools can mean that a technicist education prevails, based on notions and work-oriented more than person-oriented, but it can also mean its exact contrary. Easily. As usually, reforms travel on the legs of those who work in the field, and tools are ambivalent. If students will have less "cultural" subjects classes, if they meet the right teachers, they will also have more classes where culture pass through more modern media. And, who knows, perhaps students will be more attracted to it.

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