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[quote=Anonymous]I’m the lawyer who was considering a career change to teaching and went to work with kids at the Y to get a taste of the current climate.

There are lots of lovely kids. Honestly they are all lovely in their own way, but many of them struggle with behavioral issues apart from any diagnosis and they all struggle with attention span.

They are thoughtful when you can get a chance to see what’s going on in their heads - but there is so much disruptive behavior that is not a frequent occurrence.

Some of them do love to be read to from an actual book, but I rarely get the opportunity because there is so much acting out and screaming it is hard to get 15 quiet minutes to read a story aloud.

These are kindergartners and first graders, fyi. But I’ve worked some of the rooms with older kids and it’s worse, they are much nastier which is why I refuse to work those ages anymore - they’re bullying each other AND the teachers.

We use iPads to track attendance, fill out our daily classroom management survey, and in my case to find and download coloring pages for the kids. The iPad is in the room but we don’t look at it often - nevertheless the kids constantly ask if we can look up videos and play music for them. Our policy is no screens, and this is a struggle for them. It’s obvious to me that they are being parented by screens at home the majority of the time and they struggle with being cut off for 3 hours daily while in our program.

I recently read this article about new research showing how detrimental screens and tech are as teaching tools in the classroom and out: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/kids-reading-better-paper-vs-screen

I believe screens are damaging kids abilities in terms of focus and language processing. In my own life I’ve seen the damage - I used to be a constant reader of books and then I got a smartphone in 2010 and my reading rate dropped dramatically. I read a ton of news and forum posts on my phone and do a fair amount of writing, I’m not a person who does games or Tik tok or Instagram and I’ve largely kicked my Facebook habit, spend maybe 20 minutes there every day, post a few inspiring photos and funny cartoons for my friends and then get off - but I used to spend a lot of time there arguing with morons. I’ll never get that time back.

My current strategy is to let my phone become so outdated that it barely functions beyond text and calls, so I’m spending much less time online and more time reading real books.

As for the kids - I’m pretty sure I won’t pursue the teaching after all, which is sad because I’m a good teacher (have four years experience before and just after law school to attest to my effectiveness in a classroom) and I’m the kind of person who would spend a serious slice of pay on the classroom and the kids - but spending so much time just trying to settle down screen addicted overstimulated kids and having almost no time spent in the rewarding work of reading is just too disheartening, never mind all the administrative crap I haven’t even had to cope with at the Y.

I’m so very grateful that I grew up in a time when the phone was mounted to the wall and had a rotary dial, we only had 5 channels on the one television in the house and children were the remote control. I feel so sorry for today’s kids - I don’t believe all this tech is actually enhancing their lives.

I’m glad I’m not still teaching at the college level - many of my friends who are report very negative experiences with tech addicted students and a much higher rate of plagiarism than in the past as kids refuse to learn to write and let AI do it for them.

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