'Screen Schooled': Kids Should Learn to Use Brains, Not iPads

You don't always have to 'meet kids where they are.' Instead, help them get someplace better.

I finally got around to reading a book that has been on my shelf for a year, and whose name has been mentioned by several readers of this newsletter. Screen Schooled was written by two American teachers, Joe Clement and Matt Miles, to “expose how technology overuse is making our kids dumber.”

It came out in 2018, which may seem a million years ago when it comes to the pace of digital media developments, but their book felt as fresh and relevant as any on this topic. Indeed, their arguments against tech takeover in the classroom may be even more important now than six years ago, and it is helpful to hear directly from teachers, rather than the policy makers, administrators, and parents who tend to dominate this debate.

The authors paint an alarming picture of tech-centric education, where the frenzy to adopt all manner of screen-based learning and “meet kids where they’re at” has resulted in the loss of critical knowledge and many useful skills. This is unfortunate, because kids are already proficient with devices; their classroom time should be spent learning skills that they do not already possess—and that will not be out of date by the time they reach professional age.

Clement and Miles point out that, if digital learning were truly the effective and efficient tool that it is claimed to be, then students’ test scores should be skyrocketing; but the opposite appears to be true. “An increased availability of technology has not only done nothing to close the achievement gap, [but] it seems to be making it wider, and at an accelerated pace.”

Digital Mania

In one of the chapters, titled “The Myth of the Technology-Enhanced Superkid,” the authors give three reasons for why the new digital classroom is “a toxic environment for the developing minds of young people.”

First, sheer prevalence means that “teens are spending more time on screens than they spend on any other activity in their lives.” I already knew that the teenage daily average for entertainment-based screen time is around 9 hours, but to put that into perspective and realize that nothing else comes close (not even sleep!) is mind-boggling.

Contrary to what many adults would like to believe, that time is not used constructively. A mere 3% of online time is spent in “content creation,” while 97% is spent “consuming”, aka passively watching. In the authors’ typical dry tone:

“I can honestly say I’ve never taken a phone from a kid who was in the middle of exploring a cyber art museum. I’ve never had a parent complain that she walked in on her son having a late-night FaceTime session with a group of school children in Nigeria. Pretty much all I ever see kids do on their technology is text and Snapchat friends, play games, take pictures of themselves, check Instagram for likes, watch silly videos, and play more games.”

Second, the authors identify a concerning shift in attitudes toward technology, and an air of resignation that “this is just how kids are today” and “this battle isn’t worth fighting.” Many adults want to believe tech is beneficial, and so they ignore inconvenient evidence to the contrary, which ends up depriving kids of a decent education.

Clement and Miles point out that basic psychology has not changed in a single generation; children will always want to play more than they’ll want to put in hard work to learn. We lie to ourselves when we say that these powerful devices have somehow tricked children into overcoming their primal instincts.

“It defies logic to assume that laptops and iPads have somehow transformed children’s predisposition to play into a new desire to learn and work hard… Hand a kid an [iPad], and now it’s reasonable to expect him or her to use it primarily for educational purposes? Only someone who has spent almost no time with children could possibly believe that.”

Third, technology is replacing important fundamental skills that kids still need, but aren’t being taught. Learning is sequential; it must build upon other knowledge, and without a solid base, more advanced lessons will not make sense. Technology can be effective, but only when it’s enhancing knowledge that already exists.

By giving kids devices that let them access facts on demand, they become good at Googling facts, but they don’t actually know anything. There is no context, no retention, no expansion beyond that point. Students must stop outsourcing knowledge acquisition because this results in a “foundation built on sand.” Children need to be learning how to “use their brains, not their iPads,” the authors write.

Students as Customers

I was intrigued by the book’s exploration of the “educational-industrial complex” (which, admittedly, I don’t know much about), and the enormous amounts of money that certain tech companies have made (and stand to make) from the widespread classroom adoption of educational technologies, including Chromebooks, iPads, digital textbooks, and more.

For example, the Gates Foundation spent $170 million pushing states to sign on to Common Core standards around 2010. Why? Not because Bill Gates really wants all K-12 students to be learning the same things, but because “Common Core standards come preloaded on the Microsoft tablets marketed to school systems.” What a lucrative deal. Familiarizing students with interfaces from a young age is a great way for tech companies to win customers for life.

Worth the Read

Screen Schooled is full of interesting and relatable anecdotes about classroom life, as well abundant academic research that is lightened up by the writers’ evident senses of humour. I appreciated the book’s common-sense approach and its willingness to state the sometimes-unpopular view that simple (and even old-fashioned) teaching methods can be more effective than fancy new digital-centric approaches.

This is the techno-selectionism that we all need more of in our lives—a willingness to assess and reject new technologies if they do not serve us, rather than blindly assuming anything new is an improvement.

From the Archives:

• ‘The Anxious Generation’: Things Are Worse Than We Realized

• What Happened to Conversation? (Book Review)

• Give Them Books

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A Reminder:

I am able to write this newsletter twice a week, thanks to generous readers who enjoy my words enough to sign up for a paid subscription! Substack is not exactly a money-maker, if I’m honest, but every bit helps—perhaps most of all by validating my belief that I’m on the right track with this quest to reclaim childhood from digital devices. And maybe someday I’ll be able to quit my other two jobs and do this full-time, which would be absolutely lovely…

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