RUST COMMENTARY; COMPUTERS AT SCHOOL

"MICHAEL BLOOMBERG is the most creative media entrepreneur of our time and, with BILL GATES, perhaps the most successful." -- Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO, NEWS Corp.

This is one of the cover comments on the author of "BLOOMBERG by BLOOMBERG" ... the autobiography of the man who's shaken up the financial industry and is helping to consolidate two others: on-line services and journalism. He's becoming a financial threat to the DOW JONES Information Services (a division of the same company that publishes The Wall Street Journal) with his data-processing use of computers.

YET ... I found his remarks on computers and education one of the more fascinating observations in his best-selling book:

"Receiving fewer benefits from computers than promised is not a phenomenon particular to Wall Street. We have invested billions in automating the workplace, and yet sales of paper to offices are up, not down. Most of us just are not ready to gamble on the general PC's reliability without hard-copy backup.

"Look to our schools for more of technology's failed promises. Every parent wants his or her child to be computer literate. We all believe those without PCs in elementary school are doomed to a life of poverty and illiteracy, so we spend millions to equip classrooms with computational abilities and Internet access. The results? For all the purchases of computers in the classroom, our children don't read as well as before, have a worse sense of historical perspective, know less geography, possess fewer mathematical skills, and have reduced exposure to the great literary and cultural achievements of humankind. (`Why bother to learn that? I'll look it up if I ever need to know,' a kid might say. `Forget spelling, I have a spell checker in my word processor.' `Math? That's what calculators are for.') In terms of work habits/social skills, we're creating a disaster. Not only can't Johnny read, he can't speak grammatically either. Are we using technology as an excuse not to teach how to think and how to work with others? Is the money spent on hardware discouraging the best teachers and limiting the curriculum? Dollars are limited and fungible. Sending them to Silicon Valley means less for teacher compensation (worse instruction) and school construction (larger class sizes).

"I vote to take the computers out of the classroom in the early grades. We should focus on teaching the basic skills or reading, writing, arithmetic, logic, concentration, cooperation, personal dress, social interaction, and hard work. With automobiles, most students will be drivers, not mechanics. They don't need internal combustion engine thermodynamics courses. Likewise with computers. They'll find the knowledge to use the latest data storage retrieval and manipulation devices when they need it. The tools are getting simpler to use and are starting to come with the instructions built in. A computer science course for kids may make parents feel good in the competitive world of the Parent-Teacher Association. (`My kids's got a faster CPU than yours!') Hooking elementary school classrooms up to the Net may make for good political theater. But a glorified video game that, at best, teaches children the marginally useful skill of better eye/hand coordination? That's hardly what today's kids need. Try the `three Rs.'

"Interaction with a sympathetic, understanding teacher can't be automated. For young children, it's the only way to teach the basics. It's also the only way to teach the social skills needed to survive in society. (I recently was introduced to half a dozen teen-age students in a receiving line at a high school function. Not one could look me in the eye, shake hands firmly, or use their full names in introducing themselves. Time after time, I'm caught by the difference in enthusiasm and productivity of a New York City deli-counterman who is a blur of motions versus a clerk in a supermarket elsewhere who does things sequentially and slowly. Unless they're taught differently, not one of these shy slowpokes will ever get a meaningful job!)

"News delivery has also not yet been transformed by computer technology's high promises. After trillions spent on television news production and delivery, serious consumers still get their basic in-depth news from a medium that existed in Shakespeare's day, the newspaper, and their real-time news from the 95-year-old radio. Is a more entertaining (and arguably more informative) video presentation less important than a newspaper's direct access to what we want? Is television better than radio or is the content really in the sound? Could it be that spending money to add moving pictures to print or sound misses the point?

"The `broadsheet' format of newspapers presents stories concurrently rather than sequentially. Newspapers inform by headlines we see peripherally, giving us what we need, even when we don't know we need it. From deaths, marriages, divorces, property sales, legal judgments, government actions, and religious and social events -- the staples of community newspapers -- to the complete coverage and in-depth analysis of the big city dailies, newspapers are sirloin steaks; radio and TV news are Big Macs. Both are great for what they do, but they are different products with different utility. Want to follow the O.J. case? Use radio or TV. Interested in science, diplomacy, politics, finance, business? Newspapers and magazines are still where it's at. For better or worse, the news agenda in every city in the world is set daily by the print media." -- Michael Bloomberg, "Bloomberg by Bloomberg"

Note: A quick-read book with great management, success and business messages of discipline and hard work combined with a willingness to make mistakes.

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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will not sit down on a hot stove-lid again -- but also she will not sit down on a cold one either. -- Mark Twain

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The FBI and China: Here we go again. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward filed a front-page story recently showing that the FBI knew of evidence going back to 1991 that proves Chinese government efforts to buy political influence. The evidence was never made available to Sen. Fred Thompson's investigative committee whose hearings have now been suspended. Janet Reno has yet another black eye, and the Chinese government gets the last laugh. In fact, after Thompson's hearing ended, the FBI obtained evidence showing that the Chinese Ministry of State Security, their CIA, boasted it had been successful in "thwarting" the congressional inquiry. Incredible!

Politically Incorrect Heroes: By now you have probably heard about the unbelievable attack on the Marine Corps that took place last week. No, it wasn't done by Middle Eastern terrorists or North Korean commandos. This barrage came from a top Clinton appointee at the Pentagon -- Sara E. Lister -- who used a public forum to call the corps "extremist" and "a little dangerous." Not satisfied with these comments, Lister went on to attack the Marine Corps uniform.

Under pressure, Lister resigned, but Americans shouldn't miss the larger meaning of this controversy. Ms. Lister was not just any appointee. She was widely rumored to be in line to become Clinton's next secretary of the Army! Why not? She reflects his loathing of military values. The truth is, the Clinton administration has harbored an anti-military bias from day one. Its main concern has been to remake the armed forces into the image of liberal political correctness. A few months ago, another Clinton adviser complained that the military was too masculine in its attitudes. Clinton, himself, began his presidency by pushing the bizarre idea of allowing open homosexuality in the ranks. Ms. Lister has been the leading proponent of women in combat. All of this has been resisted most strenuously by Gen. Charles Krulak, the Marine Corps commandant. For this, his beloved Marines have to take verbal sniper fire.

Some of America's finest moments have been written in blood by the "extremist" Marines. The "dangerous" leathernecks, as they were called in my dad's day, have struck fear in the hearts of tyrants from Guadalcanal to Tripoli. It is unbelievable that they are being subjected to this sort of clap-trap by people whose views were formed in the anti-military culture of the 1960s. Ms. Lister's departure closed the book on this incident, but the culture she represents is alive and well. -- Gary Bauer, Washington Update

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They call you stubborn when you fail, but persistent when you succeed. -- Anonymous

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.