'Alternative' School Sits Out Computer Craze

By Mary Ann Zehr

Golden, Colo.

Most schools would love to have more technology in their classrooms, if only they could afford it. But not here in the foothills of the Rockies, at David S. D'Evelyn Junior/Senior High School.

Though all of D'Evelyn's classrooms have been wired to the Internet, only a couple actually have computers. That's because educators at this "alternative" magnet school prefer a different instructional tool: the textbook.

The school's teaching style may also seem somehow out of date. Teachers here don't think of themselves as facilitators of student-centered learning, as is now in vogue, but as people who know more than their students and are convinced the best way to communicate that...