The youth report is now under consideration in the Storting, and will be assessed during November. But one thing Elise Waagen (Ap) believes is missing in the message is a proposal to remove PC screens from subjects such as Norwegian and maths.
– We know that the use of screens in school affects children’s reading skills. We have seen this, among other things, in the PISA results, where Norwegian children score low. We were probably too quick to digitize the school, and did not have all the consequences in front of us. The downside is that it affects children’s ability to concentrate, and reduces reading skills, says Waagen to Dagsavisen.
– Not good enough
As the Labor Party’s education policy spokesperson, Waagen now proposes that the report to the Storting include a point that screens should be thrown out of basic subjects as much as possible, in favor of a separate technology subject.
– Today’s school children are skilled users of apps and dupp ditties, but have little understanding of what happens behind the screen. In order to improve the working life of the future, young people cannot only be users of the technology, but also be able to develop and understand it themselves. We don’t do that well enough in school today. Therefore, technology should become a separate subject where you learn more in-depth about the effects, she says.
The wish is to introduce the subject in fifth to tenth grade, and preferably as a compulsory subject, so that everyone gets the skills. The subject should include coding and artificial intelligence, she believes.
– These two are developing rapidly and will be part of future working life. Pupils need to know what these two things are, what dark sides they have and what possibilities they have.
Today, technology subjects are offered to a small extent in primary school, most often as elective subjects at some secondary schools. Instead, data is integrated into most other subjects.
– As it is now, it is spread thinly, with a separate competence target that is spread across subjects and levels. But to get a better yield, it should be collected in a separate subject.
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– Not useful
Managing director of the voluntary organization Lær Kidsa Koding, Helge Astad, is however skeptical of the proposal. He fears a separate technology subject will be too narrow.
– I think of IT as a tool that can be used to solve a problem in all types of subjects, and the students then learn skills that are, and will be, in demand in the future. It is not just a tool for engineers, but for all professions. The children need to understand how the world works, they are going to have to live with digital tools forever. Taking the screens out of basic subjects sounds strange, says Astad.
He reserves the right to say that he has not read the proposal Waagen brings to the Storting message.
– It would be positive to have a separate technology subject, but it should not come at the expense of technology use in other subjects. Simply learning IT without applying it to something more concrete is not that useful, he believes.
– But the screens have been blamed for the decline in reading skills among pupils?
– Yes, and I think it sounds strange that you don’t learn from reading on a screen. I don’t think the choice should be between screen or no screen, but rather to find a better way to have teaching adapted to digital tools. If everyone knows a little bit about coding and computer science, it will be good for the whole society.
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Read in books, not on a screen
Elise Waagen emphasizes that her proposal does not involve removing technology from all subjects.
– There will still be a lot of useful learning in, for example, creating a social studies podcast. But reading must be done in books, and the way we do it today by spreading technology education over all subjects means that pupils do not know this well enough, she says.
Ten years have passed since then Prime Minister Erna Solberg (H) proclaimed that “knowledge is the new oil”. And in 2016, the Center for ICT in Education spoke warmly of the technology in the report “Programming in school”.
– Why is this proposal only coming now, Waagen?
– That is a good question. But right now we are processing the youth notification, and then it is important to address it. We must be crystal clear that there are negative effects with screens, but also that there is not enough good technology training in schools today. My proposal is a feedback to the ministry that this is missing in the report that has been submitted, and then the Minister of Knowledge, Kari Nessa Nordtun, must take a position on it.
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