Comparison chart, legal ramifications and 5-step action plan to improve health and learning
Mounting research shows extensive harm to children from screen-based technologies, as well as evidence of declining literacy and learning since the onset of education technology (edtech) and artificial intelligence (AI) in schools. While school teachers and clinicians are regulated, certified professionals utilizing research-evidenced ‘best practices’, the lucrative edtech/AI industry is unregulated, uncertified and non-evidence based focused solely on profit. Cheating is not learning, yet schools brazenly allow student use of ChatGPT. Brain science follows the developmental principle “Use it or you lose it” and hard work yields best results, yet schools carry on with their misguided belief that easy learning is best. Despite these known facts, many schools actively ignore health profession warnings and continue their escalation of edtech and/or AI unchecked. Prolific research data shows improved attention, learning and literacy using healthy education strategies e.g. outdoor schools, more student movement in classroom, gym and recess, better playgrounds, more human connection initiatives etc., as opposed to unhealthy screen use. This article compares teachers/clinicians with edtech/AI to highlight immense and dangerous discrepancies in a variety of categories, exposes legal ramifications that schools face should they continue down this dangerous path of using technology to replace qualified education and health professionals, and finally offers schools a 5-step action plan to reverse this trajectory toward illiteracy and school failure from overuse of screens in schools.
Teachers and clinicians (including counsellors, psychologists, social workers, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, registered nurses etc.) who work in schools are highly trained professionals who have achieved a minimum 4-year BSc or BA degree, with many also holding MSc, MA or PhD degrees. Federal law mandates that teachers and clinicians who work in schools be active members in their respective regulatory bodies which are designed not only to ensure high quality teaching and clinical skills but also serve to protect the public from harm. Should a school-based teacher or clinician breach their regulatory body’s code of conduct in any way, this person would immediately undergo an extensive investigation and if found to be at fault, could permanently lose their licence to practice. Teachers and clinicians are also required by their respective regulatory bodies to employ a “best practice” approach (which includes a “do no harm” clause) and requires they use only proven strategies and techniques which assure effective and efficient results in their respective fields of practice. Clinicians (but not teachers) are required to use only research evidenced interventions which meet specific research criteria e.g. that the research findings show program efficacy, that the research was performed by an independent organization (usually a university), that the research was replicated at least once with similar results, and that the research was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Along comes edtech and AI…
Legal Ramifications
Litigation toward edtech and AI is growing…and it’s only going to get worse. EdTech Law reports school districts use on average about 2600 edtech products and nearly all edtech apps share student data. Schools are knowingly “doing harm” to student’s bodies and brains through gross overuse of edtech/AI negatively impacting 5 key developmental domains: physical, social, emotional, mental and cognitive.
Screen Impact
In addition to lawsuits regarding AI content copyright, data privacy, censorship and market dominance, regarding children there presently exists multiple lawsuits in the following areas:
- Schools suing the tech industry (US) and in Canada for harms to students caused by social media.
- Parents suing the tech industry for harms to children caused by video games and social media.
- Parents suing the tech industry for data privacy infringement.
- States suing the tech industry for harms to children from technology’s addictive design.
- Students suing schools for failure to learn and achieve literacy.
What is likely down the pipes regarding tech industry litigation is parents suing schools for failure to achieve literacy and schools suing education governments for non-involvement in enacting laws to protect children. The bottom line is use of edtech/AI in schools is harming children and preventing learning and needs to stop.
Healthy Education Strategies – 5 Step Plan
- Prohibit use of all edtech and AI unless programs meet strict research criteria as outlined in above Comparison Chart – Research Evidence section.
- Prohibit all screen use in schools: add encyclopedias to each classroom and create computer labs with ethernet plug-ins where students have no more than 30 min. per day supervised computer use.
- Prohibit use of AI by students and staff, including OpenAI, ChatGPT etc. for all student homework completion as well as all teacher grading of homework.
- Teacher training: you can’t do what you don’t know. Many teachers are inadequately trained to teach literacy foundations for printing, reading and math. Check out Reconnect Webinars – Balanced Technology Management section for 3-day certification course for teachers (individual 2 hour courses are also offered).
- Increase access to movement and nature to enhance attention and learning through use of standing tables with wobble boards in classrooms, obstacle course in gyms and challenging risk-based playgrounds at recess. Check out Reconnect Webinars – Child Development section for 3-hour course for teachers on the use of movement and nature to enhance attention and learning.
In conclusion, the quicker schools admit they’ve made a huge mistake with unregulated use of edtech, a mistake which is amplified with use of unregulated AI, the sooner we can begin to repair the damage and strive to create sustainable futures for all students.
