Many parents are quietly feeling that their kid may not be performing as well as expected. After all, there are a plethora of distractions. While grades may look okay, when you engage in conversations you can sometimes feel a lack of depth. If we are honest, sometimes our conversations mirror an online feed — with us continuously probing to elicit thinking in depth.

While this may be true, it is not just our conversations. Grades may seem okay, yet we suspect there is a lack of critical thinking, depth, and breadth. While we could blame it on COVID, it has been almost six years. We cannot continue to blame COVID.

As an educational leader working with teachers alongside kids — I co-teach from time to time to stay fresh and in sync with the lived experience in the classroom. Having passed quite a bit of time in classrooms, I have suspected that all the technology may not be as healthy or even as useful as we have been sold.

It is not just me either. Many of my colleagues feel the same. Silently, we have all been suspecting that EdTech’s promises weren’t quite what they claimed: personalized learning tailored to your child’s every need, kids more engaged and learning even faster. I’ll be the first to admit there was a season when I believed this too. After all, the perceived engagement was present. Kids were more interested in subjects they felt were lackluster — at least for a period of time.

However, I couldn’t deny that even prior to COVID I saw struggles emerging in kids’ ability to analyze deeply after engaging with text in written form versus online conversations. Then The Anxious Generation came along, confirming what we had all been seeing, yet giving us a clean framework to see it and analyze it in a way that the science of learning began to jump out at all of us. The Anxious Generation revealed that a culture of consuming short-form information had rewired kids’ brains around engaging with and responding to text — with real consequences for how they socialize and interact with the art of learning.

This has had the most profound impact on children ages 10–12, moving from childhood into adolescence — those I call “tweens.” They’re at the beginning of developing the social and psychological complexities of becoming adolescents. What does that mean? They are learning the art of communicating effectively, working in groups effectively, and playing with peers in complex situations that require them to negotiate differences into consensus, get hurt sometimes, and bounce back. These are important academic as well as life-learning skills.

We’ve since learned that kids who grew up on virtual interactions with peers — staying indoors, playing online — lost exposure to the kinds of challenging physical and social experiences that all young people need to develop basic competencies, like overcoming fears and becoming less reliant on parents. What is more, we know rates of anxiety and depression have increased since 2010, and not just from tweens’ and teens’ self-reports. Documented harm has jumped in numbers as well.

We know rates of self-harm tripled from 2010 to 2020, as documented in The Anxious Generation. These numbers have caused us all to sit up and start re-examining how our kids engage with social media and other technologies that make these platforms so easy to use. I’ve seen many schools move from allowing phones in schools to complete bans. Last issue, I shared the number of countries taking big strides toward banning phones in schools. I applaud them, and if your school isn’t doing so yet, you may need to take the lead in this conversation — because if you think about it, your child spends more time in school than they do with you in a given week. This is a measure to protect the sacred space of learning and to instill habits that support a healthy lifestyle. While this is an important piece of the puzzle, it’s not the only piece.

With the emergence of technologies to improve our lives and how we work, we never questioned much when they began to take a normalized place in the classroom. We’ve seen some schools go to almost all-online learning, meaning every class completing some work online. What does this mean for them? While technology shapes the world we live in and our kids must learn to use it intelligently, many schools have completely allowed AI tutors to replace the role of teachers. You can hardly find a platform willing to tell this side of the story. While I admit there’s evidence AI tutors may support rote learning, the downside may outweigh this small good.

In my latest read, The Digital Delusion, Dr. Horvath invites us to look at the second area where our kids spend the most time — school — and rethink our use of technology in the classroom.

Tech companies have been selling schools the line that:

Is this really true? Sadly, no.

While there are some technologies that support learning, there has been a trick played that is as old as time: show bells and whistles and hide the data.

Sound familiar? It should scare you a bit too. This is the most important time in history that we need kids to intentionally exercise deep thought and all of their cognitive skills. AI requires smart, human critical thinkers who can make moral decisions and evaluate ideas methodically on their own. We are in the time when this is disappearing from our kids without our knowledge.

I will start with the most disruptive unveiling of digital delusion.

#1 The OECD has buried data showing that PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment) from 2012, 2015, and 2018 on student performance showed that students surveyed who used tech tools in school versus those who did not consistently scored 66 points less. This is a two-grade-level drop. This is not a mistype.

This data debunks the idea that more technology leads to academic success. What is more, the survey from those who took this test reveals more tech at home is often associated with kids who have parents with more financial means — tutors, healthy meals, stable support at home — which is the environment contributing, not the technology.

#2 Research shows in The Digital Delusion that students who use no computers at all score higher across countries, subjects, and testing cycles.

#3 Paper versus screen tests matter. Digital tests are the norm and it is certainly having an impact on your kid’s performance.

As a lover of the IB, I had to bow my head a bit as the MYP eAssessment is online and the DP is scheduled to move completely online by 2030.

Research shows that students retain more of what they read when reading on paper than reading online. This is where the science of learning comes in. Listen closely. When you read a book, words are fixed on a page. The hippocampus, our brain’s memory center, builds a mental map of the world around us. Each time we learn something new it looks for a place to hang the new information. Digital books move the words depending on the device they are on. This works counterintuitively to the way we learn as human beings. This means when you are reading to understand, it is best to read a paper book versus an online digital book.

Let that sink in for a moment. This means when your kid reads a book online there is no spatial scaffold to support memory formation. Over time, you can imagine this could have a huge impact on retained knowledge and overall reading comprehension.

These three reasons alone should ignite us all to take action today. There is more. However, I will share more in my next post.

For now, let’s talk about what you should think about and do as parents.

Buy books. Co-read books with your kid. Keep a shared journal where you write to each other about the book you are co-reading.

Share this data with your child’s school. Find out how many classes require all the work to be completed online versus using any paper/pencil/pen tools. You now know it matters.

Your kid was wonderfully made in the image of God with talents and creative powers that have not completely formed. If they are never allowed to develop — if they are never supported to develop — how will your child become his or her greatest version of themselves?

Start with those first steps I have given you.

Continue this journey with me. Next week we will continue.

Their ability to think and thrive in a complex world depends on you.

Pray, watch. Then pray some more for our adversary is coming for our children.

Let’s protect the integrity of our kids’ rights to allow their brains to develop to their full potential for they are wonderfully made in His image.

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well." (Psalm 139:14, KJV

Be blessed,

Margo

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