The Problem of Tech in Schools.

Next month will mark a year since I quit teaching public school. I miss it, I miss the teachers and the routine and the extracurriculars and moms and dads who come to every event tired on their feet because they’ve worked all day, but filled with love to see their kid do their thing.

I miss talking to kids everyday as a job. I miss how much fun it is to see them learn and feel proud of what they accomplish. I miss making music with them and for them.

Our family has done so much this year apart from school: music camps, youth orchestra, children’s chorale, private lessons, sports, theater, church youth programs, contests, academic events, festivals… Our time has been filled with great alternatives to public school education—especially enriched by our choice to move cross-country and integrate into a community of other home-educators.

Still I miss the bustle of public school and the cross section of folks who make a perfect microcosmic world for our kids to practice people skills at the intersection of education. I miss math teachers. And science teachers.

Some of my dearest friends still vehemently disagree with me in my attempts to re-enter the public school scene. I am more comfortable than ever with their discomfort, probably because every situation is still pretty far from perfect. I guess I’ve learned it’s just the way it’s going to be—my people are homeschool-minded; my school preference is public.

But let me tell you what I don’t miss: let me tell you why I almost register my kids for school down the road and then still talk myself out of it, even though we desperately need a better routine and homeschool is not my jam.

What I don’t miss in public school was reinforced to me when I listened to a recent Pantsuit Politics podcast. The hosts visited with a reporter about technology in schools these days and the Pandora’s box of issues it presents to kids, teachers, and parents.
When I talk to homeschooling friends, I can’t adequately articulate the issues of technology—how the era of Covid sent kids home, equipped them with “necessary” tech for at-home education, then crippled them forever with an addictive habit cleverly rebranded as “asynchronous learning.”

I (and millions of other parents) had a front row seat to the nonsense of kindergarten, second, and fourth grade students and their teachers trying to figure out new responsibilities and expectations with all the overreaching, complicating issues that came with it.
My own kids had never been handed a device in my home before without strict time limits earned from doing chores or practicing music. But now we were in a battle where my six year old was required to check inane tasks off (play this game, draw letters, circle puppies, Zoom!) hourly so his teacher could check off her own respective boxes.

Instead of taking time to play outside in the sunshine, I spent hours going from room to room, trying to redirect my eight and ten year olds to make a Google slides on apples and research renewable resources instead of sneaking over to poki.com to play whatever games their little brains desired.

The world was fighting a germ; we were inside fighting burgeoning addictions to technology.

And with the return to class and Covid monies being tossed at our schools, we saddled the kids with one-to-one devices and unmanageable behaviors and shortened attention spans.

No one did any research on the effects of this learning style before applying it to children. No one questioned the addictive screen time pull on kids or mental health and attention span ramifications. No one asked for parental consent before requiring kids to join google classrooms and other apps (and let these businesses gather kids’ information); it was blindly assumed this was the next step.

As a post-Covid public school teacher, I sat through many professional meetings where the administration instituted new testing, new curriculum, new methodology. Teachers (an adaptable bunch) tried to take on the new tech, but there was no allowance or accommodations offered. It was “we do it this way now” with the understanding that the greedy grab for Covid money was paving the way for a “better” future.

I regularly caught kids in the hallways on their way to reading and math intervention, cracking open their chromebooks to sneak a YouTube video or play games on a free website.
During reading time, or inside recess, or “free time”—kids, hunched over laptops, drinking up the internet. Schools where cell phones were banned now welcomed a new device to accompany students 24/7.
“Send them home!” the principal announced when we asked what to do with the laptops after school. “This is why we have them; to use them. They should be going home with the kids every night!”

Teachers who hadn’t asked for the tech, now responsible as a parent to try and monitor thirty kids all day long with a laptop sitting on each desk, but it didn’t stop there. They were responsible for having them charged and keeping them clean (and we all know the filthiest place in the world is a child’s backpack) all while the principal had ordered them sent home with the kids (I refused to let my own elementary kids bring their laptops/iPads home.)

Now, I don’t think every school is like this; at least I really hope not. And back to the homeschool crowd—certainly I know many that hand their child a device and don’t blink twice. No one these days is above the lure of technology, social media and the answer to every question at our fingertips.

But…what are we doing?

How do we responsibly integrate tech and still preserve our children and academics? How do we reach into the darkness and shine a light?

Listen to Pantsuit Politics’ most recent podcast, Tech in Schools with Jessica Grose. I’m so glad I’m not the only one thinking about this…Time for parents to speak up!