Dear Bernie,

After digesting the information and comments that were made during the tenth grade curriculum meeting March 13, I am very concerned that we only heard from two Middle School history teachers who had experience using laptops in their classrooms. The department heads of the Upper School, moreover, were conspicuously silent on this proposed monumental change. Additionally, previous communiques from the administration regarding the laptop program have been notably brief and unspecific. Nor did these communiques include endorsements for the laptop program from either the Upper School department heads or the teaching faculty. In short, the administration and faculty strangely have not made a persuasive case that this dramatic change is necessary or desirable. From a parent's perspective, all of this is troubling, if not frightening.

The students of the tenth grade class who will bear the brunt, educationally and financially, of this mandate, get to be juniors in high school only once in their lives. Let me repeat: Our children get to be juniors in high school only once in their lives. Next year must be exhilarating and inspiring so that they can continue to flourish academically and intellectually. They need to explore the depths of their minds, broaden their creative instincts, appreciate the talents of their peers and revel in the knowledge of their teachers. Next year must be as close to perfect as their previous years at Lakeside have been.

In your bulletin dated March 5, you stated..."The Middle School teachers have been sharing lessons learned from the pilot program with the Upper School teachers to help avoid some of the rough spots experienced in the pilot. We expect this to be a time of discovery and learning for teachers and students...." Please elaborate on these "rough spots" and explain specifically how your staff intends to correct them. What exactly is this process of "discovery" going to yield?

By rapidly introducing laptops in grades nine through twelve, all four of these grades will share the uneven experience of a pilot program with its inevitable "rough spots." The Upper School students must also endure the $2,200.00 fee for this experiment plus the glitches, down time, and pedagogical confusion that will deduct value and time from their classroom experience and distract their teachers from doing what they do best: teach to eager, capable, engaged faces.

Being swept away by this technology has kept you and the Board of Trustees from appreciating and acknowledging the most powerful, albeit heavy, learning machine the students carry to Lakeside everyday: Their curious minds. Laptops are quick. Minds are contemplative. Laptops can produce vast amounts of information. Minds can discriminate between the useless and the valuable. Laptops are new and subject to quick obsolescence. Minds are ancient, ageless, and infinitely agile.

I am a volunteer literacy tutor at Fall City Elementary School. My two tutees most likely could be helped by some new, improved, reading program available for the school's desktops. But nothing, except the love and attention of their parents and the dedication of their teacher, can replace me and the time we spend reading together. The words on the page become part of our lives as we share reading with its full range of facial expressions, exclamations, laughter and amazement. Their thrill at decoding words and having someone with whom to share this triumph is what gives value to their efforts and elation to their spirits. Machines can't replicate the exquisite uniqueness of personal attention. And, most likely, they never will.

My son goes to Lakeside to soak up the unique qualities that his teachers offer naturally: Their kindness, their consideration, their attention, their knowledge and their wisdom. I want every moment to count next school year and to achieve this, his classrooms must continue to have abundant personal interactions led by teachers who stretch their studentsU minds, without the distraction and deception of laptops on every desk.

Sincerely,

Jill Hammond
Madison Hammond's '03 mother