THINKING WITH OUR
HANDS
Reading this book reminded me of Matilda by Roald Dahl. In
Matilda, a young girl with a brilliant mind discusses math with her teacher
and mentions, ““I've
always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn't
I?” (Dahl). Since Matilda
was published however, the calculator is not the only handheld device that can
fit safely in a pocket. Matilda Wormwood
proposes in her book is that technology does and should not reach beyond where
her mind can travel. But how much easier
is it for a child to “think” with his or her devices than to struggle with
re-routing myelin in the brain? And possible
get the wrong answer, whereas the device will get it correct? We all know that there are several different
learning types, including auditory, visual and aural learning. Advances in handheld technology provide a
wonderful new and quick way for someone to find an answer, but do they really
know how the answer came to be? Is this
thinking? Are they learning? Maybe not in the traditional sense, but
externalizing a problem in order to solve it is nothing new. Pencil and paper for example. As technology advances however, we are seeing
the gap between flesh and paper close, with popular external devices becoming
part of us gradually being realized. We
can only hope that this will result in thinking like Matilda Wormwood.
