It is exhausting.
Today, towards the end of the hour for one of my senior level classes, I did some kid-watching. I noticed that most of my students were on their cell phones. I observed a pair of my students watch a series of videos on Instagram, another student bought a pair of Chuck Taylors online, several students quietly compared Snapstreaks, and two more students played Flow Free.
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| Flow Free (as modeled by my son) |
To be fair, I gave students work time to work on a project (due next week), and some of them were already finished. Yet, some of them have not started the project and have missing work. Still, they were more interested in their cell phones than getting their work done.
After the bell rang, I could not expunge this image out of my head - my students glued to their screens, so when I had a few moments of quiet (sans students), I wrote this Senryu poem:
After the bell rang, I could not expunge this image out of my head - my students glued to their screens, so when I had a few moments of quiet (sans students), I wrote this Senryu poem:
Video games, Snaps
Instagram steals attention
From change-seeking youth.
I know, part of my problem is that I need to figure out a better way to engage my students, including layers of social, emotional, and cognitively engagement. (I need to revisit the work of Cris Tovani or Sam Bennett again.) It is my first year teaching this course, I am limited because of the curriculum, yet I am painfully aware that I need to do more work with strategic planning using Understanding by Design and create more opportunities for my students to engage in meaningful work. After all, one thing I do know about my high school students is that they are vocal and act on issues they feel deeply about.
Today leaves me with a few questions:
Today leaves me with a few questions:
- How can I harness technology in a more meaningful way?
- How can I increase student engagement (even for my seniors as we move into 4th quarter)?
- Could The School of Life's Phone Detox help me help my students? (I am kind of serious about ordering this book...)
The phone issue is tough. We have a district cell phone rule, and I enforce it. Phones go in backpacks at the beginning of the period. One year I created a cell phone Socratic seminar based on an article about cell phone addiction. The research on that is exceptionally strong. Cal Newport has excellent work on this issue, including the way social media causes addiction. Since I teach speech, I can tie phone use into grades, and in English I’ve also created controlled research in tech addiction.
ReplyDeleteYou are lucky! We have a pretty vague cell phone policy. It is mostly teacher discretion, but I think that it is inconsistent from classroom to classroom.
DeleteThat article sounds great! I need to find that article!
I'll see if I can find the article, but there's a lot of info on the problem. One of the early books on the ways tech effects the brain is Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains." Another excellent book is "Alone Together" by Sherry Turkle.
DeleteThese are some great resources. Maybe this is how I will begin next year (or end this year) with my seniors?
DeleteI don't envy teachers these days. They have so much to compete with. At the risk of sounding like my mother, I really think the excessive use of cellphones is causing a multitude of problems with today's youth, including a mental health crisis not previously seen.
ReplyDeleteI would agree, although I think that many adults have similar issues as our youth!
DeleteIt's really tough, isn't it? I'm a college professor and have generally let students do as they will with their phones, but this semester, I'm finding my patience running a bit thin in one of my classes. I am intrigued by the possibilities of the Phone Detox book and will definitely be looking for the research Glenda references.
ReplyDeleteIt is. SO tough. It doesn't help that parents also text their kids during classes and call during classes. I know that part of the problem is that phones are just not going away and we need to help kids figure out the correct situations to use them...
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