We have falsely equated tech in schools with progress. Yet it is the children who are able to dive into books for an extended period of time, put pen to paper to capture their thoughts, and keep eye contact while conversing with others that will be the ones who set themselves apart from a distracted generation.
Excellent summary of why we need to dispell the myth of "tech equals progress" and change course in our educational system. Thanks for your work!
Thank you for addressing this. In my opinion there is no need for any personal screen access for K-3 (at least). My daughter is in first grade and this year her teacher has them reading on iPads. I have yet to see one actual book come home. This is unacceptable!
I’m an older millennial who didn’t have any computer skills until college and guess what, I know how to work apps. Especially since the best apps are designed to be intuitive. Why are kids reading on iPads. Infuriating
Great post and much appreciated. I taught secondary school through the technology adoption era. I remember when iPads were all the rave and my school was on the threshold of adoption. They did, of course. No one wants to be the odd ball out. Nonetheless, I voiced my concern (ca 2008) - my unwelcome concern - and the principal was hesitant as well but caved under the pressure from the IT people who just had to act quickly to snag the latest Apple promotion enticing pervasive tech integration (that is, disruption). It failed due to cost and the overwhelming pressure it put on the very people who promoted it - the IT people who ended up servicing hundreds of iPads. So, we went to a BYOD policy and what happened then pretty much aligns with the research.
What worked well prior to the tech craze were computer labs. We had a couple classrooms with 20 or so advanced, desktop computers where we could take students to work on projects using excellent presentation and video software. Students could work together and consult one another as needed. It helped that they were all using the same model computer and software. That all ended with personal devices and the labs were repurposed. I would hope that schools would ban personal devices and return to computer labs.
I also taught secondary school through this era, and I have recently returned to teaching. What do you think about laptop carts/cabinets? These are essentially "mobile computer labs" that can be brought to different classrooms for use. Would that be a way to get back what worked for computer labs?
Yes, laptop carts also worked. I used them too as tech evolved but at the time laptops couldn’t handle complex processes as video designing which slowed down or froze the laptop. They were fine for PowerPoint or Keynote presentations and word processing. I think the ideal is to have both really. Computer labs with state of the art desktop computers will always accommodate the best available software.
I wish you well as you return to the classroom and hope that your school or district is wisely implementing tech restrictions and solutions.
It's worth noting that Mark Bauerlein makes essentially the same case as your article here does and did so some 16+ years ago in his book The Dumbest Generation. Even before the advent of social media his book addresses the false promises and catastrophic failures of electronic-device centric education. Perhaps in no arena than the digitized educational complex has McLuhan's axiom "the medium is the message" been proven more true. It is hard to think of a medium more destructive to learning than digital media. As a former educator whose career spanned roughly the las two-thirds of the advent of the digitized classroom, I have witnessed first-hand its negative impact on education, not just in the primary and secondary levels but at the college level as well. And while I am happy to see more and more parents/educators around the country beginning to take this problem seriously it has come far too late and at far too high a cost.
Excellent work, Amy. Thank you for confronting so many myths about EdTech. There is a way to teach kids how to learn without excessive screen time, we just have to get back to it.
Let's bring back computer labs and non-internet computer use. Most families I talk to have students that are constantly on devices at school but have never been taught how to type properly. Skills like typing, word processing, using databases, and simple coding should be a part of high school curriculum. Those things will prepare students for the workforce.
My son graduated high school in 2019. Almost a dozen years before that, when he was just starting school, I asked the teachers at what grade he would get typing lessons. Never got a committed answer. When he reached middle school, I asked the same. "Yeah, he'll get typing," I was assured, but he never did. High school? Same dodge. Never taught typing from 1 through 12.
Fortunately, we did get him some typing instruction, but the schools could not be bothered.
So, they killed cursive, then they won't teach typing. How can any educator think that's not detrimental?
This is a fantastic article. Thank you for the time and energy the author put into it! I'm so frustrated with the overuse of non-purposeful tech at our public elementary and middle schools. It's all too much too soon. K-3 was really great but the shift at 4th grade is disappointing. No writing assignments on paper ("because our state tests are all online now, so we have to practice typing!") All notes taken on Notability - my kid doesnt know how to take notes yet... Teachers telling my kid to "read the ELA book on the iPad, because that's just how people read now..."
My kid spends more time messing around with the actual device than thinking about what she actually should be writing. It's such a distraction. I hate hate that this is what elementary education has become. I mourn for the things she will not learn because of the iPad. We do a lot at home counter the school screen time, but there are only so many extra hours in the day.
I am a school board member struggling to convince the administrators technology should not be embraced without evidence that it does improve student performance. It's been a trend that everyone is excited to use technology in classroom.
Now even the 4th graders in our school district have their own Chromebooks. Seeing my daughter doing all her homework on her Chromebook always makes me anxious.
On school board, I also see various software subscriptions. When I question whether they are necessary, they would answer with certainty that if we do not approve this, students would have no curriculum to learn from. I never understand why the traditional textbooks cannot be used any more and why the teachers cannot write their own problems any more.
Excellent piece, Amy, but I'm not surprised at all given how thorough you and Blythe have been in your efforts for the past several years. The EdTech Triangle continues to be a resource I recommend to so many people.
I would love to encourage any parent concerned about EdTech-- and these comments indicate there are many-- to also consider opting out entirely. While schools/districts may be resistant, it is a parent's right to refuse these dangerous and ineffective products. I've created an UnPlug EdTech Toolkit that can be accessed for free here: https://thescreentimeconsultant.com/unplug-edtech-toolkit.
And if parents are met with resistance or refusal from their schools in this effort, I encourage you to have the EdTech Law Center on your radar. They offer free consultations to help you navigate this and they can be found at edtech.law.
Great article. Thank you. I’m curious to know what method of schooling the author did choose for her children if not the shiny school across the street? Homeschool? A low-tech private school?
My kids were in a very low-tech Christian classical school for years, the eldest attending until high school, and the others getting a little less time there. When the pandemic hit, the school did not have a great plan for moving through the uncertainty during summer 2020, and because they were so low tech, the virtual learning options were extremely limited. (I do think technology can have a place in school, and this was probably best seen during the pandemic when we needed it for about eight weeks to finish out the school year.)
My kids have now been at a private secular school for four years. Of course, my middle & high schooler were issued Chromebooks the second they arrived. While the school has offered some positives for our family, we have spent a lot of time voicing our concern over the heavy use of electronics there.
Thankfully, this year, they eliminated cell phones with Virginia’s Bell to Bell policy, but we still think their reliance on computers is too heavy. And now, there seems to be a significant push to incorporate AI. I could not be more staunchly opposed. Where does the author stand on the utilization of AI in the classroom? Seems to me it’s just one more reason to have the laptop sitting on your desk.
Not sure about the author, but I started my kids in public school, became super involved in advocating for no-screen time and was making some headway. Then the pandemic hit. I chose to homeschool instead of computer school and ultimately ended up at a classical Christian school. I continue to do a lot of advocating (in Virginia) on removing 1:1 devices in public school classrooms and was proud to support the new cell phone policy. Please message me if you'd like to connect with some resources. There are a lot of us in Virginia working on this initiative. I don't see why the same game plan couldn't be used for private schools.
Yes, thank you for your comment. AI is the next big export from big tech to enter the education system and it's unclear what effect it will have (though its current usage is not promising). It's already being used by both students and administrations, with AI providing a clear advantage in terms of saving times for educators on prep work (much of which is already done outside working hours), but I don't think many parents would be eager to hand over their child's educational prospects to a black box LLM. The worry is that given how slow on the uptake the education system, and society as a whole, has been in evaluating previous tech, that they'll make the same mistakes again, to much worse consequences.
Thanks for such a comprehensive overview of the many pitfalls of an unfocused approach to screens in schools.
On "gamifying" education, you're definitely right that even pedagogically it makes little sense. Teaching students by tying learning to dopamine rewards systems isn't make going to students seek out learning on their own, rather it makes them want to seek out those activities that reward dopamine, many of which give greater releases than those from educational games. More so, learning is so much more than just getting the right answer. It's a process that yields results, so these results-oriented approaches via EdTech are kneecapping the ability for kids to develop skills they can apply to different scenarios in the future.
One of the biggest issues I felt was sufficiently absent here is the recent advent of AI, something that is becoming increasingly popular amongst educators and students. One of the clear downsides of digitizing every assignment is that it opens up many new avenues for cheating and many schools are poorly equipped to deal with AI. Like with big tech buying their way into education with iPads and Chromebooks, AI companies are likely to do the same under the pretense of EdTech, in fact they already are (see ChatGPT Edu). Luckily this ship hasn't fully sailed yet, but it's left the docks and needs to be stopped before it exits the harbor. Given how much work needs to be done to combat the current negative outcomes from tech, I don't think students can afford society to miss another boat.
This is such a clear explanation of the problem and solution! Amy (and Blythe), from the beginning, I've loved the simple clarity of your EdTech Triangle. I continue to share it widely. You captured the solution years before society started waking up to the harms caused by the reckless race to tech in the classroom. Not everything digital is an "advance." In fact, these "advances" almost always harm our children first and fast.
Almost zero technology is needed in elementary school classrooms. And little is needed to advance educational goals until high school. This doesn't mean we don't teach our children how to be savvy, smart, and responsible in digital spaces. Teaching our children how to be wise and kind online might be more important than STEM. But humans still learn best in analog.
Smartphone censorship is not enough to teach smart use of phone. The development of conscience in children has been neglected and must be reversed. Conscience is a mental health issue.
Thank you for your further exploration of conscience. It is a challenging concept to define as it addresses the very core of humanity’s capacity for awareness. What seems to be a critical focus of a healthy and ongoing conscience formation is relationships. This seems implicit in the 13 points you offer yet not made explicit. All healthy development depends relationships, voluntary or involuntary. What happens to us in our relationships and what we do to other beings, animate and inanimate, shapes who we are and impacts conscience formation. This is why the advent of smartphones is so troubling as it negatively impacts relationships and conscience formation.
Agreed that smartphone censorship is not sufficient to guarantee development of conscientiousness, but this doesn't change the proposition that some of the more negative aspects of EdTech need curtailing; it's not like they were doing much in that department either.
I am researching a book about the functions of conscience, particularly the functions that atheists and theists can agree on. I believe in conscience that respects the honest moral opinions and dignity of everyone. Consider some theorems.
One: Conscience uses emotional, rational, and moral intelligence to avoid temptation (unreasonable risk of harm) and evil (harm to self and others) so love and right choices can be freely chosen.
Two: Conscience disciplines mistakes and rejection with guilt, remorse, anxiety, and worse (branded or seared).
Three: Conscience rewards compliance with courage, joy, self-control, success, and confidence.
Four: Conscience is diverse, nimble, and develops with maturity, letting each person decide for themselves what is right, harmful, and too risky.
Five: An adult conscience may consent or reject external rewards and punishments (operant conditioning) to minimize social control and manipulation and maximize inner liberty, control, and freedom of choice.
Six: An adult conscience replaces the childlike whisper of right and wrong with pro-active abilities to investigate the facts, consider the applicable rules, narrow the scope, negotiate the best terms, list acceptable options, and helps select the best option(s).
Seven: An adult conscience may choose to partner with the Holy Spirit to be born again from above. Secular partnerships may also be loving, sacred, natural, or stand in awe of the universe. Those who belong to the truth, can partner with the truth as best they know it.
Eight: Conscience is honest and must avoid evil, but we each have many choices.
Nine: A branded or seared conscience is essentially beyond repair without forgiveness of others.
Ten: Conscience is the pinnacle of human evolution with obvious health an survival value.
Eleven: A healthy and effective conscience is necessary for mental health.
Twelve: Good social, sexual, educational, religious, legal, political, family, safety, recreational, and economic choices depend on healthy conscience for all citizens.
Thirteen: Development of healthy conscience and transition from childhood to adult conscience after puberty can and should be encouraged in government schools without promoting nonreproductive sex and other belief systems contrary to family values.
Great article, Amy! This is such an important and relevant topic. As a school based SLP for over 25 years, I have witnessed the decline in social skill development go hand in hand with the increase in tech in schools, 1:1 devices are social skill development "blockers".
One of the main challenges is the excessive profit behind the edtech push. Many districts are required to choose high quality curriculum materials (HQCM's) that are approved by organizations such as edreports.org. More and more of the curriculum comes in a digital format and is then tied to progress monitoring testing completed and pushed by other organizations such as NWEA. Student performance on these online testing platforms is then tied to teacher evaluations. Not surprisingly, edreports.org and NWEA have significant funding from tech giants such as Bill Gates. Plus, these online programs reinforce a message to kids that if you don't know an answer, the computer will tell you it. This impedes critical thinking and problem solving! Sadly it seems as if there is little research into what our common sense as educators tell us, kids need in person hands on learning through traditional methods, not tech. The NSF has 2 grants totaling $19 million each into to the use of AI and education alone. Let's bring back books, paper, pencils and and stick those devices back in computer carts!
There is so much I could say in agreement with this post. My Gen Z children are in university now, where they’re encouraged to hand write their lecture notes. But in their school years I felt that their quality of education declined in direct conjunction with the introduction of personal laptops. I often wished the school would return to the its original practice of having a designated computer classroom and IT teachers. They had regular computer technology classes, rather than laptops being at the centre of every subject. When our state (Victoria, Australia) implemented a statewide mobile phone ban for public school students, I saw definite improvements. But I did wish that they could have gone further to screen time in school hours.
It's anecdotal but I was working in a middle school when we got an unusually large number of children with poor literacy skills and dyslexia. They were the cohort who were given iPads in the primary department right from the start of school. I changed schools and found that this cohort in general has a lot of students with reading difficulties. I think there's something to the hypothesis that introducing screens has harmed attainment.
I am so encouraged by this article and have been an occupational therapist in a variety of public and private schools over the past 15 years where I have witnessed decline in motor and visual motor functioning essential for reading/writing, decline in foundations of behavior and attention affecting classroom learning, decline in sensory based functioning, and an increase in autism/adhd/dysgraphia/dyslexia. Something has dramatically changed in the past years with referrals. Teachers are having to teach much more than academic skills - they are teaching now foundations that would have been automatic. I have also witnessed terrible things on kids you tube access in the school day where students were on ipads 7 hours straight with no classroom regulations. Thank you for the work! I'd love to join the team in any way on the motor, visual, sensory medical sides of things!
We have falsely equated tech in schools with progress. Yet it is the children who are able to dive into books for an extended period of time, put pen to paper to capture their thoughts, and keep eye contact while conversing with others that will be the ones who set themselves apart from a distracted generation.
Excellent summary of why we need to dispell the myth of "tech equals progress" and change course in our educational system. Thanks for your work!
Thank you for addressing this. In my opinion there is no need for any personal screen access for K-3 (at least). My daughter is in first grade and this year her teacher has them reading on iPads. I have yet to see one actual book come home. This is unacceptable!
I’m an older millennial who didn’t have any computer skills until college and guess what, I know how to work apps. Especially since the best apps are designed to be intuitive. Why are kids reading on iPads. Infuriating
Great post and much appreciated. I taught secondary school through the technology adoption era. I remember when iPads were all the rave and my school was on the threshold of adoption. They did, of course. No one wants to be the odd ball out. Nonetheless, I voiced my concern (ca 2008) - my unwelcome concern - and the principal was hesitant as well but caved under the pressure from the IT people who just had to act quickly to snag the latest Apple promotion enticing pervasive tech integration (that is, disruption). It failed due to cost and the overwhelming pressure it put on the very people who promoted it - the IT people who ended up servicing hundreds of iPads. So, we went to a BYOD policy and what happened then pretty much aligns with the research.
What worked well prior to the tech craze were computer labs. We had a couple classrooms with 20 or so advanced, desktop computers where we could take students to work on projects using excellent presentation and video software. Students could work together and consult one another as needed. It helped that they were all using the same model computer and software. That all ended with personal devices and the labs were repurposed. I would hope that schools would ban personal devices and return to computer labs.
I also taught secondary school through this era, and I have recently returned to teaching. What do you think about laptop carts/cabinets? These are essentially "mobile computer labs" that can be brought to different classrooms for use. Would that be a way to get back what worked for computer labs?
Yes, laptop carts also worked. I used them too as tech evolved but at the time laptops couldn’t handle complex processes as video designing which slowed down or froze the laptop. They were fine for PowerPoint or Keynote presentations and word processing. I think the ideal is to have both really. Computer labs with state of the art desktop computers will always accommodate the best available software.
I wish you well as you return to the classroom and hope that your school or district is wisely implementing tech restrictions and solutions.
It's worth noting that Mark Bauerlein makes essentially the same case as your article here does and did so some 16+ years ago in his book The Dumbest Generation. Even before the advent of social media his book addresses the false promises and catastrophic failures of electronic-device centric education. Perhaps in no arena than the digitized educational complex has McLuhan's axiom "the medium is the message" been proven more true. It is hard to think of a medium more destructive to learning than digital media. As a former educator whose career spanned roughly the las two-thirds of the advent of the digitized classroom, I have witnessed first-hand its negative impact on education, not just in the primary and secondary levels but at the college level as well. And while I am happy to see more and more parents/educators around the country beginning to take this problem seriously it has come far too late and at far too high a cost.
Excellent work, Amy. Thank you for confronting so many myths about EdTech. There is a way to teach kids how to learn without excessive screen time, we just have to get back to it.
Let's bring back computer labs and non-internet computer use. Most families I talk to have students that are constantly on devices at school but have never been taught how to type properly. Skills like typing, word processing, using databases, and simple coding should be a part of high school curriculum. Those things will prepare students for the workforce.
My son graduated high school in 2019. Almost a dozen years before that, when he was just starting school, I asked the teachers at what grade he would get typing lessons. Never got a committed answer. When he reached middle school, I asked the same. "Yeah, he'll get typing," I was assured, but he never did. High school? Same dodge. Never taught typing from 1 through 12.
Fortunately, we did get him some typing instruction, but the schools could not be bothered.
So, they killed cursive, then they won't teach typing. How can any educator think that's not detrimental?
This is a fantastic article. Thank you for the time and energy the author put into it! I'm so frustrated with the overuse of non-purposeful tech at our public elementary and middle schools. It's all too much too soon. K-3 was really great but the shift at 4th grade is disappointing. No writing assignments on paper ("because our state tests are all online now, so we have to practice typing!") All notes taken on Notability - my kid doesnt know how to take notes yet... Teachers telling my kid to "read the ELA book on the iPad, because that's just how people read now..."
My kid spends more time messing around with the actual device than thinking about what she actually should be writing. It's such a distraction. I hate hate that this is what elementary education has become. I mourn for the things she will not learn because of the iPad. We do a lot at home counter the school screen time, but there are only so many extra hours in the day.
Thank you for the article!
I am a school board member struggling to convince the administrators technology should not be embraced without evidence that it does improve student performance. It's been a trend that everyone is excited to use technology in classroom.
Now even the 4th graders in our school district have their own Chromebooks. Seeing my daughter doing all her homework on her Chromebook always makes me anxious.
On school board, I also see various software subscriptions. When I question whether they are necessary, they would answer with certainty that if we do not approve this, students would have no curriculum to learn from. I never understand why the traditional textbooks cannot be used any more and why the teachers cannot write their own problems any more.
Excellent piece, Amy, but I'm not surprised at all given how thorough you and Blythe have been in your efforts for the past several years. The EdTech Triangle continues to be a resource I recommend to so many people.
I would love to encourage any parent concerned about EdTech-- and these comments indicate there are many-- to also consider opting out entirely. While schools/districts may be resistant, it is a parent's right to refuse these dangerous and ineffective products. I've created an UnPlug EdTech Toolkit that can be accessed for free here: https://thescreentimeconsultant.com/unplug-edtech-toolkit.
And if parents are met with resistance or refusal from their schools in this effort, I encourage you to have the EdTech Law Center on your radar. They offer free consultations to help you navigate this and they can be found at edtech.law.
Thanks again, Amy-- fantastic piece.
Great article. Thank you. I’m curious to know what method of schooling the author did choose for her children if not the shiny school across the street? Homeschool? A low-tech private school?
My kids were in a very low-tech Christian classical school for years, the eldest attending until high school, and the others getting a little less time there. When the pandemic hit, the school did not have a great plan for moving through the uncertainty during summer 2020, and because they were so low tech, the virtual learning options were extremely limited. (I do think technology can have a place in school, and this was probably best seen during the pandemic when we needed it for about eight weeks to finish out the school year.)
My kids have now been at a private secular school for four years. Of course, my middle & high schooler were issued Chromebooks the second they arrived. While the school has offered some positives for our family, we have spent a lot of time voicing our concern over the heavy use of electronics there.
Thankfully, this year, they eliminated cell phones with Virginia’s Bell to Bell policy, but we still think their reliance on computers is too heavy. And now, there seems to be a significant push to incorporate AI. I could not be more staunchly opposed. Where does the author stand on the utilization of AI in the classroom? Seems to me it’s just one more reason to have the laptop sitting on your desk.
Not sure about the author, but I started my kids in public school, became super involved in advocating for no-screen time and was making some headway. Then the pandemic hit. I chose to homeschool instead of computer school and ultimately ended up at a classical Christian school. I continue to do a lot of advocating (in Virginia) on removing 1:1 devices in public school classrooms and was proud to support the new cell phone policy. Please message me if you'd like to connect with some resources. There are a lot of us in Virginia working on this initiative. I don't see why the same game plan couldn't be used for private schools.
Yes, thank you for your comment. AI is the next big export from big tech to enter the education system and it's unclear what effect it will have (though its current usage is not promising). It's already being used by both students and administrations, with AI providing a clear advantage in terms of saving times for educators on prep work (much of which is already done outside working hours), but I don't think many parents would be eager to hand over their child's educational prospects to a black box LLM. The worry is that given how slow on the uptake the education system, and society as a whole, has been in evaluating previous tech, that they'll make the same mistakes again, to much worse consequences.
Thanks for such a comprehensive overview of the many pitfalls of an unfocused approach to screens in schools.
On "gamifying" education, you're definitely right that even pedagogically it makes little sense. Teaching students by tying learning to dopamine rewards systems isn't make going to students seek out learning on their own, rather it makes them want to seek out those activities that reward dopamine, many of which give greater releases than those from educational games. More so, learning is so much more than just getting the right answer. It's a process that yields results, so these results-oriented approaches via EdTech are kneecapping the ability for kids to develop skills they can apply to different scenarios in the future.
One of the biggest issues I felt was sufficiently absent here is the recent advent of AI, something that is becoming increasingly popular amongst educators and students. One of the clear downsides of digitizing every assignment is that it opens up many new avenues for cheating and many schools are poorly equipped to deal with AI. Like with big tech buying their way into education with iPads and Chromebooks, AI companies are likely to do the same under the pretense of EdTech, in fact they already are (see ChatGPT Edu). Luckily this ship hasn't fully sailed yet, but it's left the docks and needs to be stopped before it exits the harbor. Given how much work needs to be done to combat the current negative outcomes from tech, I don't think students can afford society to miss another boat.
This is such a clear explanation of the problem and solution! Amy (and Blythe), from the beginning, I've loved the simple clarity of your EdTech Triangle. I continue to share it widely. You captured the solution years before society started waking up to the harms caused by the reckless race to tech in the classroom. Not everything digital is an "advance." In fact, these "advances" almost always harm our children first and fast.
Almost zero technology is needed in elementary school classrooms. And little is needed to advance educational goals until high school. This doesn't mean we don't teach our children how to be savvy, smart, and responsible in digital spaces. Teaching our children how to be wise and kind online might be more important than STEM. But humans still learn best in analog.
Smartphone censorship is not enough to teach smart use of phone. The development of conscience in children has been neglected and must be reversed. Conscience is a mental health issue.
Thank you for your further exploration of conscience. It is a challenging concept to define as it addresses the very core of humanity’s capacity for awareness. What seems to be a critical focus of a healthy and ongoing conscience formation is relationships. This seems implicit in the 13 points you offer yet not made explicit. All healthy development depends relationships, voluntary or involuntary. What happens to us in our relationships and what we do to other beings, animate and inanimate, shapes who we are and impacts conscience formation. This is why the advent of smartphones is so troubling as it negatively impacts relationships and conscience formation.
Agreed that smartphone censorship is not sufficient to guarantee development of conscientiousness, but this doesn't change the proposition that some of the more negative aspects of EdTech need curtailing; it's not like they were doing much in that department either.
I tend to agree with this assessment but would like to know more about how you understand conscience formation.
I am researching a book about the functions of conscience, particularly the functions that atheists and theists can agree on. I believe in conscience that respects the honest moral opinions and dignity of everyone. Consider some theorems.
One: Conscience uses emotional, rational, and moral intelligence to avoid temptation (unreasonable risk of harm) and evil (harm to self and others) so love and right choices can be freely chosen.
Two: Conscience disciplines mistakes and rejection with guilt, remorse, anxiety, and worse (branded or seared).
Three: Conscience rewards compliance with courage, joy, self-control, success, and confidence.
Four: Conscience is diverse, nimble, and develops with maturity, letting each person decide for themselves what is right, harmful, and too risky.
Five: An adult conscience may consent or reject external rewards and punishments (operant conditioning) to minimize social control and manipulation and maximize inner liberty, control, and freedom of choice.
Six: An adult conscience replaces the childlike whisper of right and wrong with pro-active abilities to investigate the facts, consider the applicable rules, narrow the scope, negotiate the best terms, list acceptable options, and helps select the best option(s).
Seven: An adult conscience may choose to partner with the Holy Spirit to be born again from above. Secular partnerships may also be loving, sacred, natural, or stand in awe of the universe. Those who belong to the truth, can partner with the truth as best they know it.
Eight: Conscience is honest and must avoid evil, but we each have many choices.
Nine: A branded or seared conscience is essentially beyond repair without forgiveness of others.
Ten: Conscience is the pinnacle of human evolution with obvious health an survival value.
Eleven: A healthy and effective conscience is necessary for mental health.
Twelve: Good social, sexual, educational, religious, legal, political, family, safety, recreational, and economic choices depend on healthy conscience for all citizens.
Thirteen: Development of healthy conscience and transition from childhood to adult conscience after puberty can and should be encouraged in government schools without promoting nonreproductive sex and other belief systems contrary to family values.
Great article, Amy! This is such an important and relevant topic. As a school based SLP for over 25 years, I have witnessed the decline in social skill development go hand in hand with the increase in tech in schools, 1:1 devices are social skill development "blockers".
One of the main challenges is the excessive profit behind the edtech push. Many districts are required to choose high quality curriculum materials (HQCM's) that are approved by organizations such as edreports.org. More and more of the curriculum comes in a digital format and is then tied to progress monitoring testing completed and pushed by other organizations such as NWEA. Student performance on these online testing platforms is then tied to teacher evaluations. Not surprisingly, edreports.org and NWEA have significant funding from tech giants such as Bill Gates. Plus, these online programs reinforce a message to kids that if you don't know an answer, the computer will tell you it. This impedes critical thinking and problem solving! Sadly it seems as if there is little research into what our common sense as educators tell us, kids need in person hands on learning through traditional methods, not tech. The NSF has 2 grants totaling $19 million each into to the use of AI and education alone. Let's bring back books, paper, pencils and and stick those devices back in computer carts!
There is so much I could say in agreement with this post. My Gen Z children are in university now, where they’re encouraged to hand write their lecture notes. But in their school years I felt that their quality of education declined in direct conjunction with the introduction of personal laptops. I often wished the school would return to the its original practice of having a designated computer classroom and IT teachers. They had regular computer technology classes, rather than laptops being at the centre of every subject. When our state (Victoria, Australia) implemented a statewide mobile phone ban for public school students, I saw definite improvements. But I did wish that they could have gone further to screen time in school hours.
It's anecdotal but I was working in a middle school when we got an unusually large number of children with poor literacy skills and dyslexia. They were the cohort who were given iPads in the primary department right from the start of school. I changed schools and found that this cohort in general has a lot of students with reading difficulties. I think there's something to the hypothesis that introducing screens has harmed attainment.
I am so encouraged by this article and have been an occupational therapist in a variety of public and private schools over the past 15 years where I have witnessed decline in motor and visual motor functioning essential for reading/writing, decline in foundations of behavior and attention affecting classroom learning, decline in sensory based functioning, and an increase in autism/adhd/dysgraphia/dyslexia. Something has dramatically changed in the past years with referrals. Teachers are having to teach much more than academic skills - they are teaching now foundations that would have been automatic. I have also witnessed terrible things on kids you tube access in the school day where students were on ipads 7 hours straight with no classroom regulations. Thank you for the work! I'd love to join the team in any way on the motor, visual, sensory medical sides of things!