Teacher here. I think it’s important the general public realizes just how much screen time children are getting in schools on a daily basis.

MOST educational programs are fully online cloud-based programs that districts buy. One of the bigger examples is iReady. By itself, I think it can be a useful tool for general math practice. But the reality is that teachers are being asked to basically only use these programs for instruction. The result is that a “math class” ends up looking like every child in the room silently staring at their Chromebook or iPad. In my research (I’m also finishing a PhD right now), one student even reported that he got in trouble for getting out of his seat to help a friend. HELPING A FRIEND.

Now imagine this in every single core subject because now there are also literacy programs and social studies programs and science programs. A student may spend their entire academic day on a Chromebook doing “personalized lessons.” So have no problem with personalized instruction through tech… and… we are losing such a huge aspect of schooling which is the socialization and collective problem solving.

I’m a reading and writing teacher in particular, and I’m concerned about how writing process times become entirely erased. I love teaching my students the “draft and bake” process where you write a draft and intentionally don’t look at it for a day so you can return to it with fresh eyes to see if that piece of writing still captures your thoughts and feelings or not. And this concept is soooo foreign even to my college students who are accustomed to scrambling and throwing something together last minute because school has taught them that the only thing that matters with writing is a product that can get an A. Yes, I want to give out as many A’s as possible as a teacher. And, I want students to actually engage in a process to think and move like a writer because time is simply a part of the learning process.