OPINION: Throw out the laptops and learn
OPINION: Was it just me, or did the principal of Sydney Grammar School just say what everyone else was thinking?
Ballina
Don't miss out on the headlines from Ballina. Followed categories will be added to My News.
OPINION: WAS it just me or did the principal of Sydney Grammar School just say what everyone else was thinking?
If you missed it, there was a story in the news over the Easter weekend in which Sydney Grammar principal John Vallance bagged the "computers in every classroom" experiment as a scandalous waste of money and a terrible failure.
The article has been doing the rounds among the teaching community over the past few days and, while not all will agree with it, I think Mr Vallance makes several good points.
The obvious cost of buying and then updating laptops is the first thing that comes to mind, but the principal of the elite Sydney school goes further than that.
He argues that there is a social interaction - key to the art of teaching - that is diminished the minute you stick a computer in a kid's face.
Money that could be spent on employing another teacher is being thrown away on a piece of fragile technology.
There is a time and a place for computers, but there also comes a time when you've got to let teachers do their job.
Originally published as OPINION: Throw out the laptops and learn
Watch: Tobacconist blows up in suspected arson attack
A northern NSW tobacconist has erupted in flames overnight in a suspected arson attack, with firefighters scrambling to extinguish the blaze. Watch the moment it explodes.
Builder fighting Ballina siege charges
A North Coast man allegedly armed himself with knives and a golf club during a six-hour siege in which he told tactical police he would not come peacefully and they would have to “shoot him”. Here’s the latest.