Technology Has No Place In Education

People who multitask all the time can’t filter out irrelevancy. They need parents who are willing to roll up their sleeves and be honest with them, despite protests. He says the difference between people who multitask and those who do not are remarkable. They can’t manage a working memory too. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand. They’re even terrible at multitasking. When we ask them to multitask, they’re actually worse at it. So they’re pretty much mental wrecks. What can parents do with this information? Cultivate deep thought and sustained focus in your kids. Say no to frenetic, rapid toggling. Earlier access to electronics best equips kids for the future in our digital world Katie claims her son Aiden is a computer genius, because he will use the iPad for three consecutive hours. To pretend that a child who loves his iPad is necessarily computer savvy is like saying your child has a chef’s palate because he likes eating potato chips.

Deep Deep Feeling

Otherwise, they rely on the tools instead of their skills, becoming enslaved to their digital devices. Think about the technology that was around when you were five. If I told you I took a course on How to be proficient in America Online in 1996, we would all laugh about that having been a huge waste of time. The hard truth is that earlier access to electronics simply trains our kids to be entertained nonstop. Young people only spend about 3 percent of their digital time on content creation. When a young life is spent being digitally entertained for hours each week, for years, what happens when that child reaches adulthood? Men in their twenties used to be the most reliably employed of all demographic groups. Parents and teachers should keep kids entertained to engage their learning abilities Do we really want to condition our kids to be entertained in order for them to pay attention to an activity? Do we want them to expect the real world to be a cruise ship? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that we didn’t mind entertaining our kids if it was an effective method of teaching. Unfortunately, studies have shown information learned through gaming is not retained effectively. This is because our kids’ motivation in gaming is not learning but scoring points. How do teachers feel about this? They’re having to dumb down everything in order to step down into the kids’ simplified digital existence. My daughter enjoys computer coding and even takes special classes. Isn’t that a good use of technology? This can be a great use of technology.

Just Like Strange Rain

My kids have also enjoyed coding and programming classes. Take a moment to clarify what you want the purpose to be. If your child is using the coding program mostly to play games other people have created, that’s probably not a great use of time. If she’s spending all her free time in front of a computer, you’ll likely want to adjust that. How much of your child’s life do you want tech to consume? Then create daily parameters and habits that further your plan, and stick to it. Many have been grateful for the option to learn online when physical learning was not an option. Digital tools can enhance our kids’ learning. But technology should only be used when it’s the best option available. It should also be used sparingly. If we honestly pursue the former, the latter inevitably follows. Parents can fix what’s broken, and it starts in the home. So what can parents do now to best help their kids succeed, in spite of tech overuse in schools? Clarify as parents what you want your kids to value.

Goodbye To Innocence

She told me her students are more anxious than ever before. Everything hinges on their ability to get into an Ivy league school. It’s the social currency of their world. In the absence of a thoughtful answer to this question, have parents decided that their own success hinges on the ranking of their kids’ colleges? Absolutely, she replied. Kids are stressed out, and they can’t think critically. Parents are combative about grades. Where’s the sense of duty? Where’s ethical and moral principles? I don’t see it. Parents are humans. Humans like metrics. If we don’t clarify our metrics, culture will autofill for us. And yet many of us fall into the rat race anyway. In the absence of clearly defined purpose, we get autofilled parenting. Clarify your purpose and guiding principles as parents. Sift your parenting decisions through this. Cultivate impulse control, deep thinking, and sustained attention in your kids. Parents today must work harder than previous generations of parents to cultivate the same attention skills that kids have always needed. We must start when they are tiny. Teach them the art of paying attention, even when the content is boring. How can our kids learn difficult concepts if they cannot focus long enough to process them? Dad and Mom are the best people to help build their children’s focus, little by little. Excessive screen use will undermine these efforts. Teach kids how to converse respectfully and how to disagree well. Can your kids respectfully maintain eye contact and resist the urge to check out? We live in a world where loving your neighbor is often as simple as putting your phone away and giving them your full attention. Sax’s point is a good one. Car rides are the perfect time to hone the art of conversation. If you are going to use drive time to listen to music instead of chat, listen together. Technology that is used to connect is technology used well. As your kids grow older, they’ll begin sharing their favorites with you. I will never forget showing my dad the cool songs of my day. Stop texting your kids when they are in school. Don’t let your child’s phone become a mechanism for you to helicopter parent. We don’t want to pull them away from that now.