Davis, Linda and Colin Palombi. Technology and the Adolescent:Finding the True Balance in the Prepared Environment. The NAMTA Journal, 35.2: 2010. 45-63.
“Adaptation, Montessori said, ‘is the most essential quality; for the progress of the world is continually opening new careers, and at the same time closing or revolutionizing the traditional types of employment'” (50).
**I wonder if, for the purposes of our program (Rhet/Comp) “Adaptation” is a more useful concept than “Transferability”
*Towards the end of this article, the authors delineate what constitutes a truly Montessorian “prepared environment” for the adolescent. This description places the student outside into nature–on a farm, with social responsibilities as part of a community that prepares its own food, etc. So this specific application of “prepared environment” doesn’t really apply to my ideas about computers/technology. They talk about placing computers into the “prepared environment,” not puting into the computer environment such prepared spaces… They aren’t seeing the technology like a material…(Page 60, I think.)
BUt…..What they say ultimately is interesting: “those are the components of the prepared environment for adolesents. Nature, other human beings (adults and peers) , and supranature. Supranature is what human beings have developed” (61).
“She’s very clear that machines belong in the adolescent prepared environment, that students should not only be using machinery, but should learn how to take machines apart, put them back together, and make repairs” (61).
***Couldn’t be more perfect an application to the concept of CODE!!!! And this word “supranature” is awesome! I want it for my lexicon!
“It is…shifting of technology…that produces instability…Montessori wrote, “…there is one thing education can take as a sure guide, and that is the personality of the children who are to be educated'” (51).
**Using this Montessori principle as a guide, Davis reports observation of the individual student’s “psychological characteristics.” And to ground her observation, she keeps in mind three questions “Margaret Stephenson said was at the heart of adolescent development” (51):
*Who am I?
*Where do I fit in?
*What contribution can I make?
***It’s interesting to me that these are not questions exclusive to the “adolescent” mind/experience and can easily make sense in the context of a young person as she enters any new community, particularly a college one (perhaps even an FYW community).
***Palombi claims that research shows “technologies do not produce positive developmental results” (52). BY this I’m assuming he means computer technologies in particular, or video technologies? as that is his area of expertise? Not sure… But it’s intersting to think about, particularly in terms of the anecdote he offers re: Baby Einstein videos. He reports that a class action lawsuit was formed against Disney and the Baby Einstein company when American Academy of Pediatrics began recommending 0 screen time for babies. This meant the claims the videos were making–essentially that they encourage neurological development in babies–couldn’t be true. He suggests that the videos were banking on mere exposure to the videos as being enough to spark neurological development. I guess no research suggested this. (All from page 53.)
**”According to the study, adolescents were consuming various media for about ten hours a day” (54). Interesting that he uses the word “consume”–Does he mean this? Such passivity? He’s probably wrong about that… Games?
***WHoa… Linda, too, expresses a very bias and negative view of computers/technology: “I ask myself, Can a computer constitute a prepared environment? Whatever arguments are used in favor of using computers for learning, my concern is that it isn’t the real world” (55).
***No… actually it IS the real world. It’s just a new “real” world, one that requires we “adapt.”
**The authors site Montessori: “…’Growth and development through self activity is Nature’s greatest miracle’ (Montessori What You Should Know…)” (55). I’m not sure why the authors place this quotation here, as there isn’t anything in its meaning that suggests that the use of computers and technology somehow don’t qualify as “self activity” or “natural”…. By now, observing children and adolescents reveals, surely, that this use is natural, is “real.” Perhaps what they mean is “concrete”?
**What we can do is construct an environment that will provide the conditions for a normal development. Can a computer really provide the conditions for normal development? Can a computer, with access to the world through the Internet, constitute a prepared environment?” (55) So interesting…. The computer itself, of course, isn’t a “prepared environment;” it’s a window or a doorway into a Wild West of environments… What’s interesting to is this application of the Montessorian view of “normalization”: “The result of the child developing through his own work and spending time in nature is ‘normalization,’ and it’s the core of what we do” (55).
This suggests a view of “normal” that is unchangeable, fixed, non-adapting. It also seems to suggest “nature” in a very narrow view.
And then Colin gets crazy and says: “In many ways the adult is the prepared environment” (56). So this duo isn’t actually going to define the term? An adult is an adult. There is nothing terribly “prepared” about them… If there is, who did the preparing? And for what? And what was the control? And if he wasn’t “properly prepared” does that make him still a “prepared environment”? Lazy thinking.
***ON page 57-58, Colin relays an anecdote about what seems like a typical Montessori exchange in the adolescent program he is a part of, where learning happens “spontaneously” (strange way of describing it… surely it doesn’t happen this way, for if it did, there would be no “prepared environment”!!!! You can’t have spontaneity and preparation at once!). There is little to suggest “prepared environment here.” I wonder if there is any adolescent program actually applying the notion,–or trying out, intellectually, such an application–of the prepared environment in technological worlds….
The authors warn that new technology in the classroom can be dangerous: “Montessori says that the use of inventions requires a ‘new morality’ (78) and a sense of responsibility toward all people” (62).
***This is sage advise for readying any classroom for the use of a software or technology!!!!
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