Moving to Learn

Screens in Schools – Are ‘tech-centric’ teachers addicted to technology?

 

As the debate rages about the use of cell phones, tablets and computers in schools, one unaddressed question is “Are the teachers that are pushing more and more technology on students, themselves addicted to screens”? To what extent do teacher’s desire to use technology influence their decisions regarding screen use with students? This article intends to highlight what is really going on behind the closed doors of classrooms and poses common sense solutions toward improving education and learning for all students.

Frequently I hear ‘tech-centric’ teachers and principals chastise ‘traditional’ teachers who choose not to use screen-based teaching. The tech-centric teachers cite that traditional teachers are being old-fashioned, non-progressive, or just plain scared of technology. What tech-centric teachers fail to realize is that their colleagues are following tried and true, evidenced-based methods of instructing their students designed to achieve literacy and academic success. Traditional teachers are continuing to teach, and their students are continuing to learn, whereas in the tech-centric classroom, teaching and learning have stopped dead in their tracks. Without any evidence that technology does anything more than entertain students, whole districts have moved to essentially replace teachers and books with devices. Unsupervised and largely unrestricted, students are spending inordinate amounts of time playing videogames, watching porn and movies, and using social media (including cyberbullying) when they could have been learning. While students actively oppose using screens for teaching and learning, with one study showing 92% of students preferring books, paper, and pen, no one appears to be listening. Against all common sense, parent protests, and student refusals, schools march forward with escalating technology use, apparently blind to the catastrophic damage they are wreaking on students across the globe.

Numerous observations and conversations with these tech-centric teachers yield interesting data. Many teachers who are new to the field, report that when they attended university, they did not receive instruction regarding how to teach basic literacy (printing, reading and math), nor were they taught how to manage problematic behaviors, but instead were guided to employ the use of screens. Not knowing HOW to teach literacy or manage classrooms, grossly limits a teacher’s confidence and skill, resulting in teachers defaulting to the much easier and more pacifying screen, whether to teach or just for entertainment. The number of classrooms who daily watch a movie or cartoons not just during lunch, but during class, is mind numbing. While screens do keep students quiet, are they learning information or skills that are transferable and useful is a salient question. Best practice teaching and learning is interactive, requires critical thinking, is unpredictable, and requires student’s imagination and creativity be challenged…none of which are found when passively watching screens. Another trait noticed in tech-centric teachers is what appears to be screen addiction, where the teacher is unable to control their own use of screen devices. Constantly checking emails, texting, Facebooking, and even playing videogames have been observed, frequently. What appears obvious, yet never spoken about in schools, is that while the teacher is on their cell phone, student’s own screen content and durations of use are unsupervised, resulting in the student switching from active learning to entertainment. This unrestricted use of porn, videogames, social media, and cyberbullying is far more common in students who themselves have screen addictions.

Another reason for high screen use in schools touted by ‘tech-centric’ teachers is that students need their phones to text with parents during the day. Really? Parents texting their children during school time disrupts precious learning opportunities, as well as creates a dependent and insecure child.  School provision of online books and online assignments to students have created havoc in many homes who are striving to manage their child’s screen use, as the student says they are doing their homework, but are really using screens for entertainment. While kids need ‘down’ time and activity choice, they don’t need 9 hours per day of passive entertainment. As children and teens use cell phones 97% of the time for entertainment purposes, switching to educational content on the same device becomes problematic. If students were actively learning while at school, homework should consist of applying this learned information, which should not require time online.  Numerous studies have shown, and teachers report, that use of computers for learning is fraught with frustrations including online textbooks repeatedly going offline, and online homework being a waste of time for both students and teachers due to non-operational or too hard to understand computer systems.

As schools continue to incorporate more screen teaching, learning, and entertainment into student’s daily schedules, both students and teachers are demonstrating increased incidence of screen addictions. In 2018, The World Health Organization classified Gaming Disorder as a mental illness. Schools don’t give cocaine to drug addicts, or alcohol to alcoholics, yet schools readily give out screens to gaming, porn and social media addicts, and let them do these activities at school. Isn’t this wrong?  Knowing that 50% of children and teens self-identify as being screen addicted should at the very least warrant teachers judicious and selective use of these devices. With 35% of adults reporting they spend too much time on their phones, do we want to trust ‘tech-centric’ teacher’s choices about their rising and unsupervised use of screens with students? If adults are having a hard time managing their own screen use, how can we expect children to do any better.

Other considerations regarding consequences of screen overuse are increased learning difficulties from multitasking and attention deficit from use of fast paced screen media content. When students spend a large amount of their school day distracted by screens, this is wasted time that could have been spent learning. Teachers have such a small amount of time to teach to children; using mindless screen content in place of potential learning almost seems criminal. Additional concerns are rising depression and suicide in teens attributed to overuse of screens.  Do schools really want to contribute to the escalation of these problematic issues by continuing to overuse screens in schools?

What can schools do now to stop overusing screens? The following technology management initiatives can be easily implemented to ensure teachers get back to doing what they do best – teaching, and students can begin to learn.

  1. Ban all cell phones from schools. The whole country of France implemented this initiative in Sept. 2018. This will require schools do the following:
  • Get textbooks and homework assignments offline e.g. purchase real books and hand out assignments on paper.
  • Tell parents that if they have a message for their child to leave it with the school secretary.
  • Provide counselling assistance to teachers with cell phone addiction.
  1. Don’t use technology for teaching, learning or entertainment until printing, reading and math literacy has been achieved (at least grade 3).
  1. Don’t use any technology with screen addicted students or teachers. The underlying causal factor for addictions is failure of primary attachment. People with addictions need people, not screens. Don’t use goggle docs in class. Get a standing table and gather students around for interactive discussion and idea creation.
  1. Stop use of all entertainment-based technologies in schools including movies (documentaries are an exception), cartoons, social media, etc. and create a cyberbullying policy for when students are not on school grounds.
  1. Create a Technology Management Policy for your school. Start with surveying students and teachers regarding what type and amount of screen content is currently being used in schools to attain a baseline from which to make technology management decisions (see below).

School Technology Management Policy Survey

Students and school staff: please write in the total amount of minutes you spend in respective box using each of the following technologies while in classroom, on school grounds, or at school events e.g. fieldtrips. 

Click here for Downloadable pdf

If you’re a teacher or parent in support of building foundations for literacy, consider signing the Refuse to Use petition.

Above article and Technology Management Policy Survey was written by Cris Rowan, pediatric occupational therapist, biologist, international speaker and author of “Virtual Child” book. Cris can be reached at info@zonein.ca; website: www.zonein.ca; blog: www.movingtolearn.ca.

© Zone’in Programs Inc. Sept. 2018

Cris Rowen

Cris Rowan, BScOT, BScBi, SIPT

Cris Rowan is a biologist, pediatric occupational therapist and sensory specialist with expertise in the impact of technology on child development, behaviour and learning. Having worked in school settings for over 3 decades, Cris is committed to improving student health while also easing the job of learning for children. Cris is a well-known international speaker and author to teachers, parents and therapists globally on topics of sensory integration, learning, attention, fine motor skills and the impact of media content including video games, social media and pornography on children’s brain and body development. Cris has a BSc’s both in Occupational Therapy and in Biology, is a SIPT certified sensory specialist, and has Approved Provider Status for CEU provision with the American Occupational Therapy Association. Over the past 3 decades, Cris has provided over 350 keynotes and workshops, writes monthly articles for her blog Moving to Learn, publishes the monthly Child Development Series Newsletter, and is designer and creator of Reconnect Webinars which offer research evidenced information for teens, parents, teachers and clinicians to manage balanced between screens and healthy activities. Cris is member of the Screens in Schools committee with Fairplay for Kids, member of the Institute for Digital Media and Child Development and sits on the Board of Directors for the Global Alliance for Brain and Heart Health. Cris has two adult children, Matt and Katie who grew up without screens.

Cris can be reached at crowan@reconnectwebinars.com. Reconnect Webinars offers a free, 5.5-hour CCAP accredited Screenbuster Program training webinar for teens which qualifies them to perform Tech Talks for their peers. The Screenbuster Program requires one counsellor, teacher or principal to complete the 3-day Balanced Technology Management certification CEU provided course in order to adequately supervise the teens.

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4 Responses

  1. Since this is old, I can excuse it, but this aged so badly.
    Fully online learning, as shown by the pandemic, is certainly not the best way to teach, but COMPLETELY removing technology from teachers’ learning environment?
    That won’t work.
    Get with the times. The information age is here.
    And it’s not leaving anytime soon.

    1. I’d suggest you take a look at below publication.

      OECD (2015), Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection, PISA, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264239555-en. The results also show no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in ICT for education.

  2. This is so true. It makes the point that most people miss when they try to address this subject. Thank you very much! Keep up the good work!
    Galilee Carlisle, M.Ed.
    Heads Up! for Public Health

  3. Cris, I just read your article about tech-centric teachers and technology. GREAT ARTICLE! You are spot on! All parents, educators, administrators, and board members should read and heed. I see the same thing whenever I am in the schools. Some of the teachers, usually the younger ones but not always, think that if they project the lesson on the smartboard (straight from the publisher), they have “taught” the skill. More and more new teachers have no idea how to break down a task when a child is struggling. For example, how to teach a child how to hold a pencil, cut with scissors or neatly and efficiently complete a paper/pencil task. They don’t always know how to instruct from the ground up.They want the blackboards and even the whiteboards removed or covered, in lieu of smartboards because that’s where much of whole group instruction is delivered. In addition, I see many teachers on their cell phones all the time, even during class time and always at lunchtime, often in lieu of having conversation and making connections with colleagues. The best part of your article is that it provides a path for providing tangible solutions to the problems that we have “admired” for several years. Let’s do something that will really make a difference in the lives of our children. Perhaps, your chart will help administrators and educators thoughtfully reflect on curriculum and programming and consider what we give our children and when. I constantly pose the question, do students (especially our youngest learners whose brains and gross/fine motor skills are still developing) really need chromebooks/IPADS, sometimes in lieu of recess, music, art, PE, and hands on interaction with 3 D materials? I am sharing this article with anyone and everyone I know!

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