this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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We had computers in elementary school. Around 3 or 4, they were standing in a corner of the classroom. I think my teachers husband just brought them in after his workplace decommissioned them. When you finished a task early, you were sometimes allowed to play around on them. I remember Paint, playing Pinball and Solitaire, and just clicking around/discovering the Windows UI. This was around the year 2000, we had no Internet, the computers were running Windows 95/98. I am not sure if we used them for any class-related activities. WordPad was installed, but no other Office stuff, I believe.
I am glad that I grew up when computers were still understandable. Nowadays, kids get iPads, which teach them to be obedient consumers, but they will learn nothing about computers themselves. Too many layers of abstractions, all intended to obscure the underlying technology, and lock down the devices.
Children have a natural desire to explore, which is completely wasted with modern devices. Let them open Paint.exe with Notepad and see what happens!
Similar case for me but I am a little younger (early to mid 00s for me). Around that age we had a Windows XP computer to mess around with in kindergarten sometimes but very rarely. We really started using computers a lot in the lab around 2nd or 3rd grade but only to teach us typing and to take tests. Ironically most of our tests were for reading quizzes called AR tests and we would earn points which would allow us to win some sort of reward if we acquired enough points by getting good scores on the quizzes. They should bring that shit back because it worked for me.