Let me paint a picture that we’ve all seen before. You’re at a 5-star restaurant, enjoying a meal with the family, not a care in the world besides when the food and drinks are going to arrive. A much-needed pause in time, so to speak. Next thing you know, you look to your left, and there’s a child, no older than three, with an iPad the size of themselves positioned in their hand. Flanking them to the right and left, their teenage siblings are immersed in the latest “streamer’s” Youtube video, not missing a beat to look up from their screen to join in a conversation shared by their parents. You shake your head, condemning the careless negligence of the teens along with reluctant amazement at the fact that a toddler can handle an iPad. After all, kids will be kids? That’s where we’re wrong. It has never been, and never will be the kid’s fault. I wholeheartedly believe that children are the bright spot in society, giving us hope and radiating unending positivity. The continuation of the aforementioned fallacy only plunges us deeper into a state of conformational biases, shifting the blame from the actual cause of this situation to the kids themselves, leading us to chalk it up to kids being immature. Sometimes we don’t even think about it. Views on technology differ from person to person, but seeing this increasingly common phenomenon of “iPad kids” presents a situation that diminishes our hope in humanity little by little with every obnoxious sound effect from their screen. But how do we fix it?
The answer is a little more complex than just blaming the parents, although that is a major issue within itself. Instead, analyzing this problem through the eyes of a teacher places some of the antecedents right in the very building where kids are supposed to learn, and eventually become productive members of society. The truth is, schools unfortunately embrace the adoption of technology at young ages as a positive, when it should be anything but. While learning the ins and outs of technology can prove to be beneficial, the age where this adoption begins has been getting younger and more lenient year by year, to the point where kindergarteners are loading up their school-provided Chrome Books to look up the newest Youtube video. As I said earlier, it’s not their fault. A child can’t discern what’s good for their brain and what’s not, and if they were able to, the increasingly persuasive appeals of the bright colors and eccentricities of short form content will reel them in anyways. Schools are only making the issue worse by furthering this de facto “addiction” and embracing it.
Before I get into the real effect that school tech policies have on formative minds, I’d like to share my experience, as I do, with technology when I was a kid. My parents were strong believers in learning being the driving force behind success, and phones/ipods/younameit only mitigated the power of that desire to learn. I was constantly batting with them over their refusal to buy me an iPod touch in second grade, and could never wrap my head around why I had to miss out on the fun that my friends could not stop “bonding” over at the lunch table. I pleaded my case, day in and day out, until my seven-year old self realized that my efforts were futile. Even then, I still refused to understand. After all, my friends all had one, raving over it any chance they could get. When my parents felt that I was ready, I eventually did receive that iPod for my eighth or ninth birthday (I forget). When I tell you that it was like crack, I would be understating it. I was genuinely obsessed over this palm-sized device until it consumed my world, and I didn’t know it at the time as a little kid, but my desire to socialize or even play outside bottomed out. It quickly became evident that I needed a time limit badly, and quickly. So my parents made the logical choice - 30 minutes a day on weekdays and up to 45 on weekends. There was a bit of pushback, but eventually, I got used to that rule and proceeded with caution, becoming disillusioned to the sinister effect these devices have on young minds. Still, another shift was happening simultaneously. iPods turned to phones and social media was popping up on all of our radars, even as fifth graders. Thank God I never had the desire to hop on IG or Snapchat until the appropriate age. With all of this technology as a mainstay in our lives, we were oblivious to the fact that schools were also making that shift. I still remember the moment that the first Chromebook cart was rolled into my classroom, all of the students enamored by the fact that we could play games in school on these mini computers. Even I was captivated by this new opportunity, combing through Youtube to watch baseball highlights or listen to any song ever made, fading my class lessons in the meantime. The school had the right intention in mind, streamlining assignments and modules by placing them fully online, but it was the students and the lenience of faculty that abused it. The reality is, technology provides too much of the neurotransmitter dopamine, or the “feel good” chemical, for kids. Realistically, any child with no understanding of the predatory ways that these tech companies keep kids hooked on their product easily falls into this trap 9 times out of 10. It’s evident that attention spans are decreasing, and there’s no cause more major than what I’ve mentioned. So if phones and computers had that much of a negative impact back then, before short-form content platforms like Tiktok and IG reels (nobody watches Youtube Shorts so it’s not even worth adding to this list), how much more amplified is it today?
I wanted to figure it out and provide an alternative channel of what “fun” is to students while making sure they learn what they need to (I’ll get into that later), so I became a sub teacher. Quick and easy. When I say that it’s a worse issue than we perceive, I’d be understanding it. The effect that Tiktok and “brain rot” has on these students is sadly immense, and I don’t see it changing any time soon. The overstimulation issues along with exponentially decreasing attention spans weigh on schools country-wide, and they continue to let their students backslide. Are they oblivious, or do they not care? I’m not admitting defeat, and there’s still hope always. Teachers still hold the second most impact on a kid’s life, only preceded by parents, and there are so many bright and ambitious teachers that prioritize student engagement over handing the lesson over to a computer. This is what we need more of - educators that look at learning holistically and realizing that learning can be fun. This segues into my next point, reinforced by a second personal anecdote (sorry not sorry).
Sixth grade, 2016 was the year. I had tested into the “TAG” class, which was an enrichment class where students furthered their learning outside of regular class periods. I expected it to be more lecture and material that my young, arrogant self had felt that I’d already outgrown, but let me tell you, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Mr. Haight, the teacher, had a real way of making us feel like we were having fun and goofing off rather than learning. We didn’t know it at that age, but we were learning the entire time, realistically more than I’d ever learned in class. From more formal (although not formal at all, just fun) personal research projects to alternative endeavors such as creating our own board game, Mr. Haight was the type of teacher who had us exhibiting Socratic seminars and framing it as just a conversation between a group of friends. No doubt the epitome of my middle-school tenure. Actually, it was Mr. Haight who encouraged me to continue studying and writing about baseball. He would give me books that he had on the sport and would chop it up with me on a regular basis about the new top prospect that I couldn’t get enough of (Lucas Giolito at the time, did he really pan out?). If that didn’t happen, I do wonder if I’d have created this newsletter. The point is, kids will want to learn if we can just make learning without computers fun. It’s that easy, just put yourself in a middle schooler’s shoes.
Flash forward ten years later, and I’m sitting in Mr. Haight’s classroom one more time. Not as an eager student, but as a substitute teacher with one goal in mind - get these students engaged and make them love learning. So you can probably guess whose playbook I took a page out of. When the class was over, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I had as good of a time (if not better) as the students I taught did. We played a heated trivia game on a topic of each student’s choosing, had a conversation about the merits of homework which segued into the topic in which this paper is on (how’s that for a Socratic seminar?), and they enjoyed the fact that they “weren’t learning.” In reality, these students, as I did, learned more in that class than they ever will in an online Chromebook module. It’s the little things that matter.
We all need that Mr. Haight in our lives. That one teacher that can prove to you that learning really is and can be fun, and you don’t need a screen to enjoy school. This radiating positivity permeates into students' lives, and they leave the classroom a little more ready to learn than they were before. Not substantially, but finally open to the idea. Mr. Haight and I still talk consistently today, and I believe that he’s been one of the most influential people in my life from TAG class to now. I just want to continue to harbor that influence and pay it forward to students who need structure in a failing education system. The solution to the technology issue, while seemingly complex, isn’t rocket science. Instead, all we have to do is look at what made us love learning at a young age and put those tenets into the game. To any aspiring teacher, a screen doesn’t have to control your students’ lives. You can be that change. Ain’t that something?
