CAMAS, Wash. — Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote, “Truth, a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, through his affections, imagination and reason.”

Of course, Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Oxford University professor and influential commentator on the nature and value of Catholic liberal education, never had to deal with computers or the Internet in the classroom.

Only eight years ago, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were helping to install cable in classrooms. Now, interest in the wired classroom is waning, a victim of the costs involved and a growing skepticism about the value of computers and Internet-based learning.

For parochial and other Catholic schools, as well as producers of home-schooling material, the technology is viewed with caution as they seek to strike a balance between the potential benefits and its capacity to distract from the essential purpose of education.

“The balance will be critical,” said Carolyn Simms, a Catholic school administrator in the suburban Portland, Ore., community of Camas, Wash. “I have a hope that all our students will have an opportunity to use technology but to use it appropriately.”

Where to strike the balance is the question that divides supporters and critics of electronic media, especially computers and the Internet.

Valuable Technology

In 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation produced a generally favorable analysis of the value of computers in education. The report, written by Jeffrey Fouts, a professor of education at Seattle Pacific University, said, “technology can have a positive impact on student achievement if certain factors are present, including extensive teacher training and a clear purpose.”

The same year, the Alliance for Childhood published “Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood.” This report was a litany of complaints about computers in the elementary school classroom, from potential damage to growing bodies to the danger of underdeveloped social skills among children isolated from each other while sitting for hours in front of computer screens.

The report also challenged the generally accepted belief that computers can add value to education.

“Computers, which are supposed to accelerate the pace of children's cognitive development, reflect the same mechanistic approach to education as a narrow focus on raising standardized test scores,” the report said.

“If schools treat the child as an object, a kind of biological computer, then education becomes a matter of calculating how most efficiently to train children to collect, sort, store, analyze and apply information,” it stated.

“What is lost in all this is that children are human beings whose minds are not a public or corporate resource,” the report continued. “The educational imperative of our day is not to cultivate intellectual capital for the economy. It is to bring all the resources of the culture to help them experience meaning, identity, purpose and responsibility in the whole of life.”

Catholic schools, dedicated to the principle of making education serve Christianity, need to be careful to avoid “getting carried away with computers,” said Anthony Gnanarajah, assistant superintendent of schools for the 66 elementary and high schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle. “Catholic education is based on the idea that informed faith is better than uninformed.”

“What we accomplish should allow people to know the word of God, form community and be of service,” Gnanarajah said. “We design our curriculum with the outcome in mind, then look to see if there is a role for computers, videotapes or any other technology. It is appropriate only if it is relevant.”

Far from snubbing the technology, he said, the archdiocese is committed to educating all teachers to be able to be comfortable with computers as a tool.

“We have summer technology courses for all our teachers, from basic to advanced, and teachers are also encouraged to take classes at local community colleges,” he said. “Computers and the Internet have come from society into the schools. They are becoming an integral part of society. So, they have to be seen as an integral part of teaching and learning.”

Home Schooling

Catholic home-school curriculum vendors, most of whom model their syllabi on the “great books” program developed by the Ignatius Institute and based on Cardinal John Henry Newman's commentaries on education, have diverse views on the value of technology for their programs.

A few, such as the Regina Coeli Academy, make extensive use of the Internet. Others are like the Kolbe Academy in Napa, Calif., which emphasizes a classical curriculum.

“We don't feel it's the best way for children to learn,” Proctor Mary Rowles said. “We want to educate Catholics who can defend their faith and live it.”

Steve Bertucci, provost of the Angelicum Academy in Morton and Bainbridge Island, Wash., said the academy has a Web site where parents can order items and participate in discussion groups, “but we make no pretense that the online environment is superior to being in an actual classroom. What we're doing is providing an opportunity for people from all over the world to get together and discuss great ideas.”

In his message for the 36th World Communications Day on May 12, 2002, Pope John Paul II wrote that the Internet and computer information systems are “a means, not an end in itself. In such a context, how are we to cultivate that wisdom which comes not just from information, but from insight, the wisdom which understands the difference between right and wrong, and sustains the scale of values which flows from that difference?”

“For the Church the new world of cyberspace is a summons to the great adventure of using its potential to proclaim the Gospel message,” the Holy Father said. “This challenge is at the heart of what it means at the beginning of the millennium to follow the Lord's command to ‘put out into the deep.’”

Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.