The Problem With the ‘Tech vs. Paper’ Debate in Education
The debate over technology in classrooms isn’t as simple as screens vs. pencils. After 26 years in education, here’s why data—not opinion—should drive how we use tech in schools.
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The Problem With the ‘Tech vs. Paper’ Debate in Education
The Easy Answer Is Always Binary
Tech is ruining education. Or tech is saving it.
Pick a side. It’s easier that way.
After 26 years in classrooms, I’ve watched this movie before. The pendulum always swings, someone makes a passionate argument, and we reorganize everything around a feeling instead of evidence. Then—five years later—we do it again in the opposite direction.
The argument that wealthy families will flee to pencil-and-paper schools while the poor get buried in screens? Maybe. I genuinely don’t know. And that’s the point. Nobody does yet.
What I do know is that “all tech is bad” and “all tech is good” are both wrong. Not nuanced-wrong. Just wrong. There are places where a screen changes everything for a kid. There are other places where a pencil and a blank piece of paper is still the most powerful learning tool ever invented. The job is figuring out which is which—and we can’t do that without data.
That’s harder than picking a side.
A lot harder. But it’s the only answer that‘s best for kids.
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