Best school in Northern VA for traditional, non-screen-based education

[Anonymous]

Lutheran Immanuel in Alexandria

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like more traditional education for our daughter, one in which she won't be on an iPad or a Chromebook, but will work with good, old-fashioned books, papers and pencils. Suggestions? Thanks

Me too but we're into non-book education and want a school that works with stone tablets or scrolls.

I’ve heard stone tablets are pretty addictive. We prefer teaching using smoke signals.

More of a monosyllabic grunt household ourselves. Muh.

[Anonymous]

OP - our children went to Catholic K-8 school. They had textbooks and minimal technology until MS.

[Anonymous]

Montessori schools

[Anonymous]

Maybe APS’ Arlington Traditional School, which is hard to get into ? Parents of students there seem very happy with outcomes. Some tech, but tech is not front and center as at some schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We like more traditional education for our daughter, one in which she won't be on an iPad or a Chromebook, but will work with good, old-fashioned books, papers and pencils. Suggestions? Thanks

Why? Don’t you want her to be prepared for the real, working world?

What a peculiar thing to want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like more traditional education for our daughter, one in which she won't be on an iPad or a Chromebook, but will work with good, old-fashioned books, papers and pencils. Suggestions? Thanks

Why? Don’t you want her to be prepared for the real, working world?

What a peculiar thing to want.

So there have been not a small number of projects where computers and internet access were passed out to students. It's not just that students who receive computers do worse, they even become less likely to major in *computer science*, probably because of their decline in math skills vis-a-vis the ones lucky enough not to be given free computers.

PISA is less hard core on the subject then I am, perhaps you'll listen to them:

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/9789264239555-en.pdf?expires=1667592471&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=3230E9C944D16147522C833F648DBBBE


'[O]verall, even mesures of [Instructional Computer Technology] use in classrooms and schools show often
negative associations with student performance. Average reading proficiency, for instance, is not
higher in countries where studentsmore frequently browse the Internet for schoolwork at school. Figure
6.4 shows that in countries where it is more common for students to use the Internet at school for schoolwork,
students’ performance in reading declined, on average. Similarly, mathematics proficiency tends to be
lower in countries/economies where the share of students who use computers in mathematics
lessons is larger (Figure 6.2).
An alternative possibility is that resources invested in equipping schools with digital technology
may have benefitted other learning outcomes, such as “digital” skills, transitions into the labour
market, or other skills different from reading, mathematics and science.
However, the associations with ICT access/use are weak, and sometimes negative, even when
results in digital reading or computer-based mathematics are examined, rather than results in
paper-based tests (Figure 6.2). In addition, even specific digital reading competencies do not
appear to be higher in countries where browsing the Internet for schoolwork is more frequent."

[Anonymous]

Dominion Christian is no-tech at least at the elementary level. I believe the rest of the Classical Christian schools in the local area -- Ad Fontes, Immanuel Lutheran, & Oak Hill -- are also very minimal in terms of computer use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe APS’ Arlington Traditional School, which is hard to get into ? Parents of students there seem very happy with outcomes. Some tech, but tech is not front and center as at some schools.

My upper elementary ATS student used a ton of tech last year. Slightly less this year but I think it’s teacher dependent

[Anonymous]

My child did not end up attending, but we visited Trinity at Meadowview in Falls Church and it was definitely deliberately low tech. I loved the school, child did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what are you going to do when your kid goes to college? All colleges use technology. All of them. You want to train your kid to use tech safely and correctly now rather than hope all works out later.

But you don't need to do that training over thirteen years for multiple hours a day. And in any case they're getting very little training in their highly equipped computer classrooms of the future -- maybe if you're lucky the teacher has the kids spending some time on a free website with learn-how-to-type games?

I work in educational technology and can say with some confidence that nearly all tech used at the basic level is a distraction. Hence my kids are at an entirely tech-free private elementary school.

+1 I am a teacher in an ES and see the same thing. The teachers love all the tech because it gives them data and keeps kids busy while they meet with small groups, but the kids are always doing off-task things on their devices. Typing takes a while, so they all use dictation now--even to type search terms. Their fine motor skills are the pits because they write so infrequently and briefly. I am constantly being introduced to this or that new technology tool that will "make learning so fun!" but neglects basic skills that students need to develop before they go to MS.

[Anonymous]

My kid would rush thru classwork and tests so he could play games on his device.

[Anonymous]

It is primarily for this reason that we send to a fancy $40k private elementary school. DH and I both majored in computer science and work in the tech industry. We conscientiously keep our kids low-tech (not no-tech, they do some things on iPads in school). There is no connection between playing games on an iPad and developing logic and critical thinking skills.

[Anonymous]

^ To add, I wish parents didn’t fall into this fallacy of “iPad games will help my child succeed in the world!” Maybe then there would be more parent advocacy for limiting tech in public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what are you going to do when your kid goes to college? All colleges use technology. All of them. You want to train your kid to use tech safely and correctly now rather than hope all works out later.

Children retain information better when in print. We can raise technologically literate children without teaching them to be hopelessly dependent on it. Not OP.

My kindle white has lovely print quality!