The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am article in the NY Times today (gift article) but here is a summary of why one-to-one devices in schools has been an abject failure and we need to cancel this program as quickly as possible. It is unfair to our children to give them and their classmates these distracting devices that undermine education and make it much, much harder to learn. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/opinion/laptop-classroom-test-scores.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1k8.l-xD.xQrv50czzAPn&smid=url-share

1. Test scores started falling in 2012 (around the time iphones became widely available.) But now that we have banned phones from school, they are just being replaced by school issued Ipads and Chrome books. "Sylvie McNamara, a parent of a ninth grader in Washington, D.C., wrote in Washingtonian magazine that her son was spending every class period watching TV shows and playing games on his school-issued laptop. He often had no idea what topics his classes were covering. When she asked school administrators to restrict her son’s use of the laptop, they resisted, saying the device was integral to the curriculum."

2. School devices don't prevent kids from accessing the entire internet. In a survey of American teenagers by the nonprofit Common Sense Media, one-fourth admitted they had seen pornographic content during the school day. Not your kid watching movies and/or porn during the day? If your kid is sitting behind a child watching naked bodies having sex, it is very hard not to see it too.

3. Laptops are a huge waste of time at school. One study found that students spent nearly 40 percent of class time scrolling social media, checking email or watching videos on their laptops — anything but their classwork.

4. School laptops are distracting at home. The author's daughter watches YouTube and Disney + on her school-issued laptop because the school doesn't block these sites and there are always workarounds.

5. The school says this is a parent-responsibility issue but then undermine all attempts by parents to control how much time the kids spend on school-issued devices.

6. Studies show that laptops are really, extremely bad for learning. One study of nearly 300,000 fourth and eighth graders in the United States found that students who spent more time using digital devices in language arts classes performed worse on reading tests. A 2018 meta-analysis found that reading on paper, compared with reading digitally, led to significantly better comprehension among students, from elementary school to college. Across 24 studies, college students who took handwritten notes were 58 percent more likely to get A’s in their courses than those who typed notes on laptops. In contrast, students who typed notes were 75 percent more likely to fail the course than those who wrote them by hand.

7. In Vermont, there is a bill to allow parents to opt out of school-issued devices - although peer pressure and school pressure might make this hard to implement.

8. Districts can and should eliminate school electronic devices entirely and create completely device-free schools with rare exceptions for students with special needs.

The author concludes that, "Many adults struggle to concentrate on work when social media, shopping and movies are just a click away. Imagine how much more difficult it is for a 16-year-old, much less an 11-year-old, to focus in the same situation. Asking students to drill down on their schoolwork amid an array of digital distractions isn’t just bad for test scores; it is inimical to learning. And it is fundamentally unfair to our children."

People finally realizing what teachers have been saying for 20+ years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My elementary and middle school-aged children all have entirely screen-free educations. They don't have phones or ipads either. It's...amazing.

Where is this and how do I get there?

[Anonymous]

I am fully in favor of banning computers from school unless for a subject that literally needs a computer (ie coding). Computers in school are enabling absolutely horrible instruction especially in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

This.

There were a number of phases btwn slate/chalk and screens. I’d personally like to go back to pen/paper, text books, and physically present teachers who actually teach.

Textbooks are heavy, outdated and dumb. No need for them when we have the internet. Agility is a plus in education.

What’s the point of pen and paper in a digital age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

This.

There were a number of phases btwn slate/chalk and screens. I’d personally like to go back to pen/paper, text books, and physically present teachers who actually teach.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

Boy are you going to be surprised.

At what?

My kids grew up with screens in the classroom, one just graduated UVA Summa Cum Laude and has a professional services job in Manhattan where she is thriving (and working with screens, match). The other is a junior at Virginia Tech and also thriving. She is working toward a career in public health.

The kids will be ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

This is probably number one reason that we chose a charter school with no screens in middle school vs our public school which uses (and bragged about!) apps in every single subject.

My kids are actually learned how to take handwritten notes. I worry for their generation, but not for them.

[Anonymous]

And you are here on electronics or a laptop ranting on social media. It’s the curriculum, teaching style, lack of structure, etc in schools. Laptops are a tool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

Boy are you going to be surprised.

At what?

My kids grew up with screens in the classroom, one just graduated UVA Summa Cum Laude and has a professional services job in Manhattan where she is thriving (and working with screens, match). The other is a junior at Virginia Tech and also thriving. She is working toward a career in public health.

The kids will be ok.

If they are that old, they likely did not actually face what our kids are facing - things like the school completely giving up on math instruction and having the computer do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

Boy are you going to be surprised.

At what?

My kids grew up with screens in the classroom, one just graduated UVA Summa Cum Laude and has a professional services job in Manhattan where she is thriving (and working with screens, match). The other is a junior at Virginia Tech and also thriving. She is working toward a career in public health.

The kids will be ok.

Think how much smarter they’d be otherwise. You’d have a lawyer and doctor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

Boy are you going to be surprised.

At what?

My kids grew up with screens in the classroom, one just graduated UVA Summa Cum Laude and has a professional services job in Manhattan where she is thriving (and working with screens, match). The other is a junior at Virginia Tech and also thriving. She is working toward a career in public health.

The kids will be ok.

If your kids are grown, then they are not the same as the kids that are learning to read on laptops by playing a game where you have to rapidly jump a rabbit to get to the right phonetic sound - or fight another penguin to get to do a math problem. But you definitely will want to do something about it before your grandchildren get to school because they will also not learn if this continues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And you are here on electronics or a laptop ranting on social media. It’s the curriculum, teaching style, lack of structure, etc in schools. Laptops are a tool.

I'm here because DCUM is a distraction from the work I'm meant to be doing. Imagine how distracting laptops are for kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

Boy are you going to be surprised.

At what?

My kids grew up with screens in the classroom, one just graduated UVA Summa Cum Laude and has a professional services job in Manhattan where she is thriving (and working with screens, match). The other is a junior at Virginia Tech and also thriving. She is working toward a career in public health.

The kids will be ok.

Think how much smarter they’d be otherwise. You’d have a lawyer and doctor.

Lawyers and doctors are not inherently smarter than most other professions or trade workers, they are just usually born into wealthier families or got lucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

This.

There were a number of phases btwn slate/chalk and screens. I’d personally like to go back to pen/paper, text books, and physically present teachers who actually teach.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naw. Screens are an integral part of our lives. They belong in schools.

Not going back to slate and chalk. Nope.

This.

There were a number of phases btwn slate/chalk and screens. I’d personally like to go back to pen/paper, text books, and physically present teachers who actually teach.

Textbooks are heavy, outdated and dumb. No need for them when we have the internet. Agility is a plus in education.

What’s the point of pen and paper in a digital age?

The human brain learns better when notes are handwritten rather than typed.