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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ 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.

Many iPad games benefited my kids early on, especially in teaching mathematics. In later elementary sites like Beast & Khan Academy were helpful. Currently, they're really into interactive learning from brilliant.org. These are all excellent resources that are adaptive and make learning fun and interactive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ 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.

Many iPad games benefited my kids early on, especially in teaching mathematics. In later elementary sites like Beast & Khan Academy were helpful. Currently, they're really into interactive learning from brilliant.org. These are all excellent resources that are adaptive and make learning fun and interactive.

That’s fine for occasional use but shouldn’t be the main way to teach the kids.

[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.

This OP

This is a ridiculous rationalization for the previous PPs’ own educational neglect. Handwriting and reading from books are shown in research to yield superior results in comprehension and memory. There is no child in today’s world who will “be behind” in college because their K-12 education emphasizes traditional resources. But there are lots of kids who cannot spell or write in a sophisticated way, cannot read historical documents and have little interest in reading anything longer than a couple of paragraphs - not to mention concentration problems, all due to an over reliance on tech in education.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and OP, this is not N. VA, but check out WES in Bethesda. They occasionally used iPads for paper research in middle school, but my kids got a strong traditional education and continued on to St. Alban’s, which has the same low-tech emphasis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parochial school

One of our biggest disappointments was going private only to find just as many screens. It's not Catholic, though.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is so dumb. I was born in 1981. As a child, most of my classmates were not good at using a computer. We didn't have cell phones or wifi internet until college. Yet all of us function fine in the technological world now. You don't need to turn kindergarteners into screen zombies for them to learn technology by the time they are adults.

[Anonymous]

I keep hearing again and again that public schools are using screens to control kids- rowdy at lunch, put on a video. Laptops can access PBS kids- work out teachers let kids access games as much as they want.

The companies selling the laptops and software are getting rich having lobbied the school boards.

Some screen time is fine- but most schools are over doing it! I think we are doing our kids a dis service

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parochial school

One of our biggest disappointments was going private only to find just as many screens. It's not Catholic, though.

Which private?

[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.

This is so dumb. I was born in 1981. As a child, most of my classmates were not good at using a computer. We didn't have cell phones or wifi internet until college. Yet all of us function fine in the technological world now. You don't need to turn kindergarteners into screen zombies for them to learn technology by the time they are adults.

+10000 my 69 year old father uses an iPad just fine. He didn’t need k-12 education to learn how to use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
One of our biggest disappointments was going private only to find just as many screens. It's not Catholic, though.

Which private?

DP. Several privates use iPads or ChromeBooks or whatever. Purely as an example, Langley School does this. It is one reason we did not apply there.

[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

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."

Want your kids to do well as computer science majors in college? Teach them formal logic in middle school.
-CS major/current programmer who went to a tiny classical Christian school back in the day

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parochial school

Hahaha, everyone here always recommends Catholic schools, but my friend, they use laptops, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep hearing again and again that public schools are using screens to control kids- rowdy at lunch, put on a video. Laptops can access PBS kids- work out teachers let kids access games as much as they want.

The companies selling the laptops and software are getting rich having lobbied the school boards.

Some screen time is fine- but most schools are over doing it! I think we are doing our kids a dis service

I get my children's light-speed reports (FCPS ES) and they are only on their laptops 2-3 days a week for maybe 20-30. minutes. The parents at the school complained a lot last year about too much computer use, and the admin listened. I suggest that if you're upset about computer use in your child's school, you speak up. So many parents just come on here and whine but don't actually take any action to do something about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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."

Want your kids to do well as computer science majors in college? Teach them formal logic in middle school.
-CS major/current programmer who went to a tiny classical Christian school back in the day

I'm the PP to whom you are responding -- even after so long, I recognize my full-of-quotes style -- and I, myself, am in computers, have a kid that will follow in my footsteps, and am sending him to a Classical Christian school, though one that is no longer as tiny as it was when we started sending him there.

[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

Wow you are stupid and you want your kid to be undeducated?

How sad that people don't understand how bad technology in the classroom is today. I wonder how bad things have to get before society looks back and realizes we made a terrible, terrible mistake by making elementary schoolers be on ipads all day.

OH and I"m not OP, by the way. I applaud OP for looking and I hope she finds something good.