Instead Of Fearing & Banning Tech, Why Aren’t We Teaching Kids How To Use It Properly?
from the luddism-isn't-helping dept
I recognize why some parents are worried about screen time and the use of technology in the classroom. But isn’t the better idea to teach kids how to use it properly, rather than banning it altogether?
Lately, there have been a bunch of stories about banning mobile phones in schools. Both California and New York have been pushing to make it mandatory. Lots of people are ignoring that (1) this has been tried and failed, including in New York before, and (2) researchers studying various places where it has been implemented have found that the bans aren’t very much useful.
This is not to say that phones belong in schools. There are plenty of reasons why schools or teachers might decide that phones need to be out of kids’ hands during class time. But blanket mandatory bans just seem like overkill and prone to problematic enforcement.
Even worse, the push to ban phones is already morphing into other kinds of technological bans. The Wall Street Journal is reporting on new efforts to ban other kinds of technology, including Chromebooks or other kinds of laptops.
Cellphone bans are taking effect in big districts across the country, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The next logical question, at least for some, is: What about the other screens? These concerned parents argue that the Covid-era shift that put Chromebooks and tablets in more students’ hands is fueling distraction more than learning.
I know that my kids use Chromebooks as part of their schooling, and they are pretty useful tools. Yes, there is a concern about kids spending too much time staring at screens, but the idea that banning these devices entirely in schools seems backwards.
Once kids graduate, they’re going to need to use computers or other devices in a very large number of jobs out there. We’re doing our kids an incredible disservice in thinking that the way to train them for the modern world is to ban the tools of the modern world from their instruction.
No one is saying to just let them go crazy on these devices, but, at the very least, it’s important to train them in the proper use of these modern technologies, which includes how and when to put them down and do something else.
Otherwise, we’re guaranteeing that kids will graduate and have to take jobs where they have to use computers and other devices where they simply haven’t been trained to use them properly. This means that all the things that parents now seem afraid will happen will instead happen on the job.
That doesn’t seem smart.
All of this is beginning to feel quite like the freak-out parents had about calculators four decades ago. Teaching kids how to use modern technology well should be a job for schools and educators. It seems like a real disservice to kids and their future for politicians and parents to step in and try to stick everyone’s head in the sand and make sure that no kids are prepared for the modern world.
The article is full of parents opting their kids out of any technologies, which again seems unlikely to be healthy for those kids either. It notes that schools are struggling with parents demanding that all technology be taken out of class, noting that plenty of teaching tools today involve technology.
As it should.
Avoiding technology entirely for kids until they graduate seems like a recipe for disaster. They’re going to be dropped into a world where technology is a necessity, and they will not have any sense of how to use it, let alone use it properly.
There’s a way for schools to teach kids how to properly use technology, and it isn’t by telling them it is bad and must be banned.
Filed Under: chromebooks, education, mobile phone bans, mobile phones, schools, technology
Comments on “Instead Of Fearing & Banning Tech, Why Aren’t We Teaching Kids How To Use It Properly?”
I’ve been reading/commenting on TD nearly as long as it’s been around. So I know for a fact you and I have both been watching these things for a very long time.
When has teaching kids to navigate the world ever been our species’ response to $PanicThing?
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Various “scouting” groups did (and do) teach navigation and other survival skills, in response to fears of kids dying in the woods.
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That not enough are properly educated in reality is why we have $PanicThing in the first place.
But we can only keep trying to educate adults and children.
The WSJ link gives me “404 Page Not Found”—though, in my experience, even a correct WSJ link would just give me a paywall.
Is what you describe not what’s actually happening? When I was in school, we had daily computer classes; by high school (in the last half of the 1990s), that included access to online services for research.
We didn’t tend to use computers in other classes, but is there much evidence that it’s actually useful for learning? We did get to use calculators in high school. In retrospect, I’m not sure that was a good idea, despite them being useful in everyday life. They simplified only the repetitive aspects of math—which we just as well could’ve skipped after learning, as I saw in a university class where calculators were not allowed but answers like 1.07×14.99 or 7π/2 were.
As for the computer classes, I’m also not sure how much they helped most students. I was already using and programming computers before taking those, and probably most students who learned programming never did it after graduating. General word processing and such has changed so much that, really, touch-typing is probably the only thing from that class that people are still using, and I wonder whether today’s kids would even need to be taught it. Certainly they’ll know how to use the internet before “learning” it in school.
There’s always been disagreement about whether school is meant to prepare children to be useful and obedient workers, or to impart knowledge in a more abstract sense. Partially as a result of that, we don’t really know how to measure success, which makes it difficult to know which technologies are useful. We’re pretty much agreed that reading and writing are. I say that note-taking should be taught; in my day, it wasn’t, which resulted in students trying to copy the blackboards verbatim, falling behind because they couldn’t write fast enough, and then doing poorly because they were missing half the information. (I used to think having a computer in class would’ve been useful, just because I could type much faster than I could write; but I’d have been solving the wrong problem.) We learned research, which seems like it should’ve been useful; though I feel like modern research is basically paywall-bypassing, which we did not learn (because the schools, very “unrealistically”, had subscriptions). Teamwork was mostly considered “cheating”, unlike the real world—where we sometimes have to teach our new hires to not try to do everything on their own.
Re: Being picky
To be picky for a moment, an answer like 7π/2 is actually more accurate than giving a decimal approximation to the answer (by substituting a value for π).
And even 1.07×14.99 is subject to ambiguity because the evaluation of that statement needs 4 decimal places to be accurate, but the parameters only have 2 each – how (from the statement given) is a mathematician to be sure that 1.07 and 14.99 are not already approximations, therefore rendering 16.0393 an inaccurate answer despite being the result of 1.0700×14.9900?
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That’s kind of the point. When we were using calculators, we’d blindly give the answer “10.99”, and whom did that help? But, at the time, we hadn’t learned significant digits, and math classes had given us the expectation that every answer was a single number.
As for the digits, well, that’s the reason for the qualified statement “could’ve skipped after learning”. People need to learn how to do those additions, multiplications, and such by hand, to know what’s going on. And especially once science classes come along, we need to have some idea about significant digits, and teachers will need numeric answers to make sure people understand. A calculator would be reasonable there, but maybe not so much in math classes.
In other words, don’t use the newest technology just to be cool; think about whether it might help the learning objectives, and if so, keep evaluating whether it actually is helping.
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If you can do that, yes. But that’s a big if. Same reason we ban things like gambling or whatever. If we could teach kids how to use it properly, there’d be no need.
But there are at least two big issues:
a) What to do about the ones who will (inevitably) fall through the cracks. (This is especially true because they’re kids. Kids are fundamentally learning and are going to make mistakes).
b) Usually this relies on parents, and fundamentally, as a society we’ve kind of given up on parents being tech literate enough to do this sort of thing. Society seems to have largely given up on parent’s being tech literate presumably because it ‘changes too fast’, and thrown up their hands. This goes way beyond just social media/texting, too.
Bans have downsides, but not having bans also have issues. You can compare it to things like say, sex ed, trying drugs, etc. Yes, sex ed is important. Yes, some amount of kids are going to try it anyway regardless of how good your education is.
Banning personal devices doesn’t mean not exposing kids to them at all, ever. There are things like computer courses. Which is probably fine?
The concern is, if you don’t limit them in some way, that is effectively exactly what you’re doing.
There’s a big difference. For instance, there are plenty of studies showing that computers in a classroom negatively impact learning (and not just of the user, but people around them). (A good summary here. There isn’t evidence that this can be cured simply by more training/education, earlier.
You can do both. Indeed, restricting things while teaching kids about them is common for lots of things we teach kids about.
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ignore this user as they constantly lie and bullshit so please flag this user for anyone that sees this
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First, let’s start by completely rejecting the premise that tech is equivalent to drugs, gambling, etc. Thas a dumb argument for a number of reasons, but mostly because none of those are necessary in life. The other is that banning them hasn’t really worked either.
You almost get there in your post, but you fall just short. Which I guess is better than your usual MO.
Abstinence only, or even worse no sex ed at all, has always been and always will be a abject failure.
Linking to an op ed, that uses 10 year old (and older) data that also supports a different conclusion (note taking during a lecture on a computer is bad, not that computers are bad in a classroom) is incredibly deceitful. Recent meta analysis shows that computers are useful in classrooms, but you have to look at actual studies and meta analysis:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0735633120952063?journalCode=jeca
Your comparison to gambling is asinine considering that most people can get through life without being required to gamble, where as nobody can get through modern life without using tech. At this point you can’t provide an adequate education while banning tech, it’s too intertwined in everything.
Finally, arguing that because education won’t be 100% successful we shouldn’t do it.
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Who ever proposed such a premise? Drugs and gambling are technologies, just like reading, writing, smartphones, and schools themselves. No human has ever proposed banning all technology; after all, they’d have to use the technology of language to do so.
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Gambling isn’t technology, it’s a behavior.
Drugs are biology.
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That is not a premise that I made, so sure. It’s a comparison/analogy, not an equivalence. The point being we do restrict some things, particularly for kids, when they aren’t mature enough to handle them safely. That does not mean they are equivalent, but it does mean they’re comparable in that one aspect.
What are those reasons, exactly? Preferably reasons actually related to the argument I’m making.
But as far as that one reason, the fact that they’re necessary in life does not imply they can’t ever be limited, ever. We restrict access for kids that they’ll use later in life all the time, as they mature and grow into being able to handle it. We do this all the time, even for basic skills like time management (we tend to structure little kids lives more).
Depends on how you define “worked”. Do they reduce those activities? Generally speaking, yes. Do they stop every kid from doing them? No. But that’s still a net benefit.
And speaking of equivalence, banning gambling is a lot harder than banning something like a laptop in a controlled environment like a school. (Phones are harder but not impossible)
Do bans on say, gum (or handwritten notes, or whatever) in class stop kids from chewing gum? No, not entirely. Do they chew less gum in class compared to no ban? Yeah.
Speaking of comparisons, we restrict things like notes/talking to classmates all the time. Despite this being a very relevant useful skills in life. But we still develop those skills in particular lessons like group work.
I was not arguing for abstinence only (and generally speaking, neither are these bans). I specifically talked about things like computer classes.
And banning computers in a classroom (outside of specific classes/lessons with them) does not mean that these kids will never have exposure to those topics. That’s a massive strawman.
I don’t see the issue with this, unless the data is inaccurate (which I notice you haven’t given any argument for by the data is wrong). As far as I’m aware, the consensus hasn’t changed. I’ll take a look at your link.
As far as the op ed itself, you’re free to look at the actual studies. I linked the Op ed because it’s a good summary, but they are “actual studies” to back it up.
Speaking of, they’re not all 10 years old. One of them cited in the article is from 2017, for instance. (There is also more recent research. See for instance 1 , from 2022 )
That seems extremely related? It’s clear evidence that computers can be harmful to learning, at least in some situations.
Why would this meta analysis be more convincing than something like the diff in diff of those other studies?
And again with equivalence and deceitful, how is integrating computers in the lesson related to bans on personal phones/computers? You seem like you’re mixing two very different topics.
These bans aren’t to make sure you can’t use a computer in a lesson as an instructor. They’re aimed at kids having a personal phone/laptop on them during a generic lesson, when they can be distracting.
Sure? The comparison doesn’t rely on that. The reason for that comparison is that we do restrict kids from doing things (and this isn’t unique to gambling, either). That seems like a largely irrelevant thing to get hung up on. But if it bugs you that much, replace it with a different example.
And again, the argument is not to never let the kids use tech. That’s a blatant strawman.
I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t do the education. But rather that it won’t solve the problem by itself. Therefore we can, and should, do both, since that will have a better overall outcome. They are complementary, not replacements for each other.
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why do you keep lying?
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What do you think is a lie, exactly? Happy to explain why it’s not actually a lie once you bother to make a substantive point (you can’t).
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“What do you think is a lie, exactly? Happy to explain why it’s not actually a lie once you bother to make a substantive point (you can’t).”
cuase you’re literally trolling i have seen your post history and you’re literally a definition of a troll
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Again, why exactly do you think I’m trolling? Be specific now.
Yeah, and you’ve lied about what it actually says, too. And you run away every time you get called out on not being able to actually back anything up, either.
Disagreeing with something is not trolling. There’s a reason you’re deflecting instead of just simply staying where I’m supposedly lying/trolling. Because I’m not doing either of those things. You just don’t like the argument I’m making, but you don’t actually have an argument for why it’s wrong, so the next best thing you can do is pretend it’s lying/trolling. As usual.
You still didn’t mention what part is supposedly a lie, by the way. Still waiting. Take your time.
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Bruh, I’m not reading that bullshit past the first sentence.
You used a basic rhetorical tool that explicitly requires a comparison of equivalents, otherwise you’re just using two random things that you can draw no conclusions for comparing.
Considering looking to cut your posts by 65-80% in length and you might get more traction.
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…is all you needed to say. If note taking is problematic, then it’s the note taking that’s problematic, not the particular method.
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Disgusting that the dull-witted TD commentariat flagged and hid this interesting, insightful comment.
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so your confessing that you troll too
There are many important reasons to not teach children to use tech properly.
It’s easier to ban technology.
Banning makes technology cool.
Teaching about technology might require teaching media literacy, which would be bad for most politicians, corporations, and scammers.
Also, the children might teach their parents, and then what boogeyman will we be able to use?
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Once Upon A Time
Computers are certainly a useful tool. Social media is a path to toxic degeneracy, and there is no safe exposure level.
For awhile, about 20 years, computers in schools existed, but social media did not. So it was benign. So noone had to worry about a computer, even if it was connected online.
School administrators today are not primarily attempting to ban computers. Rather, they are trying to sever the internet connectivity inherent in smartphones. Those that have banned cellphones have experienced wonderful results so far, but I’m sure kids can still take computer classes, or type up a report on a PC.
The happy medium is to have devices, but restrict the internet access.
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ok troll
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So you’re a degenerate, then?
I mean, we all know that.
But really, what an absurdly ignorant statement to make.
Claiming that schools that bann phones are seeing success is an outright lie. There are NO studies to support that, and there are virtually no studies at all about phones in classrooms. The few that have been done are all crap.
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It can’t be a lie, because the statement is meaningless without a definition of “success”; likewise, “wonderful results” is far too vague. Of course, if we did have a set of objective criteria, Goodhart’s law would become a complicating factor (cf. “No Child Left Behind”).
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A statement can be both a lie and meaningless.
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“For awhile, about 20 years, computers in schools existed”
We had a computer, for student use, in high school and that was in the early 70s. That was almost 50 years ago.
Computers are very useful, doubtful society could survive without today.
Nothing wrong with social media, other than those who use it. Like anything else, things are what you make them.
It's a great idea...but not a workable one
Here in the US, the Republican party has spent the last half-century systematically attacking education at all levels. They’ve under/defunded public education, they’ve gutted libraries, they’ve demonized universities for being “too liberal” (i.e. they’re full of literate, educated, smart people), they’ve pushed school vouchers, they’ve done everything they possibly can to ensure that each successive generation is less educated than its predecessor.
They’ve done this for an obvious reason: the more educated people are, the less likely they are to vote for Republicans. And one of the side effects of the deliberate destruction is that we now find ourselves in a place where we CAN’T mount a nationwide education campaign…about anything. Just a few decades ago scientists were telling the public about putting a probe on Mars and cloning sheep, and now they have to tell the public that vaccines work and the earth is round.
So my argument is that while I support what you’re suggesting, the educational system as a whole is so badly broken that there’s no way to make it happen.
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ok defeatist
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The United States is one of the top 10 spenders on education in the world, and gets terrible results for it. Some of the most urban school districts spend the most money per pupil, and yet perform the worst on standardized tests.
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Government funding of education in the US, at both the federal and state levels, has declined significantly since the 60s.
Some people expect to squeeze blood out of turnips.
The end of ww2 saw a large investment in education, which resulted in a large number of highly educated people to work in expanding modern tech stuff. Without this investment we would probably not have many of the cool gadgets of today.
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btw koby is a revenge porn enjoyer
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Oh, by what metric? Leaving that out makes your number totally worthless.
If we for example examine the expenditure as a percentage of GDP, the US ranks somewhere between position 32-36.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s because throwing money at a symptom instead of the actual problems doesn’t work very well. Since 1980, funding for schools have almost tripled but the students performance has barely budged regardless if they attend a well funded school or not.
So ask yourself this (because you didn’t when you wrote the above): If throwing money at schools doesn’t help, what is actually causing the problem with poor performance on standardized tests? It requires that you actually possess reasoning skills and an ability to leave your preferred safe zone.
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“Since 1980, funding for schools have almost tripled ”
Citation?
Is that adjusted for inflation?
This is doubtful
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See https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_236.55.asp
Expenditures directly attributed to public schools, inflation adjusted:
1980: $8,751
2021: $18,614
But that doesn’t actually show the real expenditure (see footnote 4) since there are other federal funding that isn’t directly attributed to public schools and are instead attributed to “related activities”, libraries and other supporting institutions and programs.
Note: Navigating ed.gov is a nightmare with dead links here and there and broken ASP-scripts.
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“Top spenders per capita” is a very different measure than “top spenders”, though; and if you’re using Wikipedia’s list, you should note that it’s only government spending and “does not include private expenditure on education”.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the USA was #1 (as they like to be) when it comes to total spending on education, given the crazy prices people pay for post-secondary education there, and the tiny GDPs of many countries at the top of the list. Of course, that’s not a useful measure, and throwing money at something doesn’t necessarily give a good result.
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So what? How do teacher salaries compare to other jobs?
Superintendent salaries are 5x or 10x the average teacher’s salary. That’s the wrong person to get paid that much. Teachers should be paid MORE than admin staff, if you care about quality.
How much is spent on meals? Are they healthy, tasty meals prepared by trained chefs, as in other countries, or are they garbage burgers & pizza supplied by the lowest bidder?
Are the kids taught how to pass standardized, garbage tests, or are they taught how to think critically, solve problems and understand?
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When the going gets tough ..
you walk away?
Instead of running away from the tsunami, why aren’t we giving kids surfboards?
Because $PanicThing. Simples!
Because there might be sex there.
Somehow humans still believe if you mention the thing, the kids will suddenly be driven to do the thing.
We can’t talk about mental health & suicide, it will infect them with wanting to kill themselves.
We can’t teach kids about consent & sex, they will be humping like bunnies!
We can’t explain to kids why we spend millions on active shooter repelling rocks, they might arm themselves to get famous.
What we have shown time & time is that parents can scream & make lawmakers do something! They current idea is that, chuckle, corporations have a greater duty of care than parents do.
From the same brilliant minds telling you D&D will make them turn into witches, video games will make them rob banks & beat hookers to get their cash back, the only reason anything is flavored is to make kids want it (yeah because no adult enjoys the flavored vapes).
Grandma is mortgaging her house to send money to the ‘love of her life’ she met online.
Teens are being sextorted & the kids think killing themselves is better than asking their parents for help.
Seriously, if your kid is so terrified to tell you they took a naked picture & sent it online to someone they are willing to sell everything they own to make the payments, borrow until they can’t borrow anymore, and eventually see suicide as the better solution than talking to you… you are the worst fucking parents EVER.
Some parents find out by spying on their kid online that they are gay, and some beat the gay out of them, send them to be tortured into pretending they are straight, or throw them out like trash.
For a moment can we consider that the internet is a tool.
Tools can be good or bad.
A car can take you to see grandma, it can also kill kids in a crosswalk… you teach them to do A not B.
A hammer can build a bird house, it can also be used to silence the neighbors yapping dog… you want them to do A not B.
While some parents hand their kids ar15s for christmas, some of them actually make sure the kid undersatnds gun safety, its dangerous, and 300 other little things they need to know to safely use the gun… I don’t see states trying to pass laws making Glock come to town and teach every kid proper gun safety.
There is a cottage industry that absolves people of guilt for being idiots.
No your child is a terror because they were given access to a screen to young… not because you have never told them no or taught them how you expect them to be in society.
No your child is fat because toys in happy meals… not because you refuse to consider stuffing mcdonalds in your kids mouth to shut them up is a bad thing.
No your child did the things on the internet because the evil big tech MADE them do it… it has nothing to do with you not teaching your kid that not everything online is true.
If your 10 yr old has an eating disorder, it isn’t the fault of instagram… it is your fault for not explaining filters, photoshop, and how people will take 200 pictures to get 1 that is instaworthy, that the images you see aren’t their real life its an act… also its kinda your job to make sure they eat & if your grocery bill drops, their teeth are acid damaged, and strange bags of puke keep turning up when you clean their room… you are at fault.
If they see a gay, they will become one!
Not how it works, we are judged first on looks, then on talent, then evening jockstrap.
If they see a transgender, they will become one after they grab them and infect them with it!
Oh Karen you dumb bitch, they aren’t vampires, not how it happens & lets be honest your kid is more likely to get diddled by your pastor.
And if you DARE to have a program/resources for parents to be able to teach their kids you have the deeply held beliefs squad showing up to burn a cross in your yard if you mention anything they do not like… because they spend way more time making sure everyone has to live how the deeply held belief folks demand everyone live than I dunno pulling a pastor off of those kids they asked him to watch while they were getting the gas for the crossburning.
No one is teaching a 5 yr old how oral sex works (eyes the youth pastor) for that age range they wanted to teach them that they can’t be touched without consent or touch others without consent & if it feels icky you can withdraw consent & tell them to stop.
But because Karen saw a thing on facebook, schools can’t teach kids how to not end up being bad touched & who to tell if you are bad touched.
But I am SURE that corporations can raise your kids better… Right here is this nice advertisement talking about how we are a white nation and we should drive the others out before they eat our pets. See letting Elmo & X teach your kids is way better & easier than doing it yourself.
It’s all very well saying “teach kids to use tech properly”, but you do have to give some sort of idea as to what that would involve, and how it would relate to other areas of education.
My school has been forcing ALL teachers to "criminalize" cell phone use in all class time and its flaws are creeping in
Well, unfortunately my school (in California) has followed the same path as the states that not only require a cell phone ban in school but impose a statewide restriction. As a teen, I have been deeply concerned that my rights are being eroded in the name of “keeping children safe”.
My school specified that cell phones aren’t allowed in the classroom in the beginning, and said that it is up to the teacher to decide how to enforce. This would be the ideal policy, since it doesn’t require teachers to ban the use during classroom time that isn’t focused on academics and in the last few minutes of class when it’s time to pack up. However, they caved into the nonsense moral panic that social media harms teens, and the majority of the reasons explained were related to this. In reality, the vast majority of teens, including me, benefit from social media.
As a result, they banned teachers from authorizing student use of cell phones unless it for some academic purposes (such as taking a picture of an assignment or notes), or emergency use and as part of an IEP. One teacher who had a lenient cell phone policy previously told me that if a teacher doesn’t enforce the cell phone ban by confiscating any phones and having it taken to the office until the end of the day, then they would be called up by administration. *This is just like forcing a statewide restriction on all schools.
Even worse, during a PD meeting the administration forced teachers to ban playing computer games and watching non-educational but not inappropriate videos during instructional time, unless free time is specified. As a result, the use of the dreaded GoGuardian software has been far more common than last year, and for no good reason.
While it’s OK to define consequences for cell phone use, requiring every teacher to ban and punish the use the same is just feeling like zero-tolerance policies, just not involving suspension and explusion. It is very concerning that students are still being called on for using cell phones even when the use doesn’t distract the student. This is when a student is all done with their homework, when a teacher designates free time, or when it’s time to pack up.
Balance here
Here is core issue yes we need include them but we have schools teaching X way and controlling dress code then screaming foul for what they created. You have our kids for more their wake hours than we do. Just so sick legislators, school boards, education staff putting pressure down on parents and students for their own self-ceeated problems.
The main technology in classroom should be their phones it will be with them for rest of their lives(I can’t get into my apt complex w/o it 😞).
Education models over use digital content and poor manipulatives. They use these things in classrooms that really should perhaps be homework where lack teacher instead of parent unfamiliar is left unable to support kids. Use that game or content as homework help parents out and get kids excited about homework and focused and concentration development in the classroom. Until at least 5th there should not be smartboard/TV in class standard. It should be rolled in when needed like maybe hour once a week.
Starting in 3rd take them to a lab or cb for about hour at school get them typing. 1st and 2nd they need be focused on writing. Extending cursive in 3rd/4th modulating with typing and education games. Technology engagement is the cursive of the 80s/90s.
In 5th they take ethics in technology and mental health class and with it a more relaxed phone policy. If they have issues phone use goes prohibition and they report to Saturday detention with parents which more education on options to help manage technology use.