While computer literacy alone is not enough to overcome the barriers of poverty, racism, sexism or ageism, our public school system, for all its failings, is one of the few remaining inclusive institutions in our society. As the rest of our lives get increasingly rationed by wealth and segregated by class and race, the schools are one of the last bastions of universality. Infusing the schools with advanced communications technology - and then making sure that the facilities are open to the entire community during off-hours - is one of the best methods available for ensuring that everyone has access.
But access to "bandwidth" and equipment is not enough. We also need to ensure that appropriate training is available. Despite the oft-repeated promises of user friendliness, computers are complex and telecommunication is even more so. Most Internet users did not gain proficiency in individual isolation. Most of them were given access, training and on-going support in an institutional context: their school or workplace. Helping additional newbies climb cyberspace's learning curve will require institutional support. While there are alternatives, the schools (and their parent involvement or adult education programs) are the most ubiquitous and available resource.
Life-Long Learning and Citizenship
Fifty years ago, people assumed that they'd spend most of their adult lives working for the same organization, even if the reality didn't end up exactly that way. Today, in the words of Langdon Winner (Technology Today, 8/95):
"'Lean' corporations of the 1990s demand flexibility and rapid turnover, business gurus urge us to enjoy living on the edge of chaos, creatively confronting the challenge of each day's profit-making opportunities. . . . People are judged by nearly minute-to-minute calculations of their value in the marketplace and sent packing if someone finds their productivity inadequate."
To achieve under these conditions, we are urged to become life-long learners, constantly upgrading our human capital in order to retain our competitive edge in the job market. But in addition to maintaining our livelihood, there are two other compelling reasons for continuing to learn: citizenship and self-development.
In these days of market realism, the classical ideal of a liberal education may sound quaint. But there is still enormous personal satisfaction and meaning to be found in exploring those topics and questions that spark our curiosity or demand our attention - from sports to art, from medical information to historical facts. Human minds tend to wither and ossify if intellectual curiosity goes unnurtured. Life-long learning is a way for the rest of us to do what good teachers have always done - remain open to new ideas and explore the new worlds that those ideas reveal.
Life-long learning is also important for citizenship. We live in a rapidly changing world in which the public sector plays an increasingly complex role and protecting the public interest has become more difficult. Preserving our democracy requires sophisticated citizen oversight, in which telecommunications can play a key role. Online discussions are a radically new method of many-to-many communication. While much online traffic is trivial (or even annoying) with a high noise-to-signal ratio, much of it is focused and useful. Electronic networks allow people to overcome the barriers of time and distance, so they can talk with each other, learn from each other, come to know and trust each other, and begin working together in the type of voluntary groups that are the basis of civil society.
At a minimum, networks can help strengthen geographic neighborhoods, letting people connect with each other even if they can't always be in the same place at the same time. At best, networks may lead to the creation of "virtual communities" where people's online connection is the primary focus of the relationship.
Our society is in the process of dismantling many of the institutions and policies that bring us together, that create "common space." The new telecommunications deregulation law recently passed by Congress explicitly ignores the demand by public interest advocates that we create a "public right of way" in cyberspace for non-commercial communication.
The schools are one of the key remaining institutional spaces where we come together around a general set of common issues - children and adults, rich and poor, business and social service, government and private citizens. We need to take advantage of this strategic placement and make sure that the advancing information superhighway runs through our educational system.
Steven E. Miller is the author of Civilizing Cyberspace: Policy, Power, and the Information Superhighway (Addison-Wesley, Nov. 1996), and serves on the Board of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. smiller@mecn.mass.edu