Citing an effort to improve academic, social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes, next quarter McPherson Middle School will require 6-8th graders to hand in the Chromebooks at day’s end, and complete homework assignments the way their grandparents did, with the old standbys of paper and pencil.
The school used grant money to buy charging carts for each Chromebook, and students will be allowed to use them in the classroom, albeit sparingly.
The newsletter the school sent to parents read, in part:
We know this is a significant change, and we expect a few hiccups along the way. However, we believe this decision is developmentally appropriate and ultimately in the best interest of our students. Research and classroom experience continue to show that reducing screen time benefits both learning and mental health- especially for middle school students. When daily device use is limited, students tend to be more attentive and engaged, experience fewer digital distractions, and build stronger social and communication skills. They also often report improved sleep patterns, focus, and overall well-being.
School social worker Carrie Brock referred to a recent article in the American Academy of Pediatrics linking 12-year-olds’ ownership of smartphones to depression, obesity, and lack of sleep:
“We need to be able to be a guardrail and safeguard for our children when it comes to unfettered access.”
McPherson Middle School Principal Inge Esping tells KAKE-TV the new policy is aimed at improving students’ focus and attention in the classroom:
“When they are flooded by so many distractions, It makes it very challenging to stay tuned in to the classroom and to the teacher, but a lot of our students really do seem to engage more and attend better when they’re physically able to feel the materials in their hands.”
Agreeing with the McPherson Approach is neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, author of “The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning—and How to Help Them Thrive Again.” His book was excerpted by The FreePress.
Horvath begins with an attention-grabbing statement:
Our children are less cognitively capable than we were at their age.
He argues that educational achievement and the resulting increases in IQ throughout the 20th century began to decline in the new millennium, and he blames educational technology for the downward spiral.
Horvath writes:
Over the past two decades, educational technology has exploded from a niche supplement into a $400 billion juggernaut woven into nearly every corner of schooling. More than half of all students now use a computer at school for one to four hours each day, and a full quarter spend more than four hours on screens during a typical seven-hour school day. Researchers estimate that less than half of this time is spent actually learning, with students drifting off-task up to 38 minutes of every hour when on classroom devices.
The author illustrates the fallout with research from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest standardized test, focused on test results from 2012, 2015, and 2018, combined with questioning students how long they spent on digital devices during the school day:
Supplemental studies were done in 2019, measuring math and science, and separately, reading.
Horvath blames schools that ignore relevant research:
These standardized test results are echoed across more than 25 years of academic, clinical, and classroom research, the vast majority of which points to the same conclusion: When schools replace traditional learning with digital tools, student performance declines. The evidence is broad, consistent, and difficult to ignore.
His recommendations to parents, teachers, and schools for improvement are:
- Buy a printer. Schoolwork works better on paper.
- Allow students to “opt-out” of educational technology.
- Demand evidence that tech purchases improve learning.
McPherson Middle School puts its new policy into effect in January.
