Government schools in Florida should be leading an effort to buck a global fad that is falling out of favor.
In one Tennessee school district, a new school board policy is cutting back on screen time in schools: Limits have been placed o the total amount of school-related screen time the children can have each day, including both classroom learning and homework.
Read more at: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article316798413.html#storylink=cpy
This is notable because it may signal a change in the total devotion to computers and AI learning.
One reason for the shift: Research has indicated that it isn’t good for kids to have their eyes locked on computer screens all day long.
Maureen Steele, writing in American Greatness, said multiple meta-analyses have found a measurable advantage to reading on paper. A 2019 systematic review by Virginia Clinton examined 33 experimental studies involving 2,799 participants and found that reading from screens negatively affected comprehension compared with reading on paper, particularly for informational texts. Readers also judged their own understanding more accurately when reading from paper.
A 2018 meta-analysis examining 17 studies similarly concluded that reading comprehension was better on paper than on screens according to Steele.
The information is persuasive enough that Sweden is backing off digital use and making a definite commitment to return to books, pencils and paper.
Sweden has made a very public national shift toward more printed textbooks, handwriting, and reduced screen use, especially in the early grades. The Swedish government has invested heavily in physical textbooks and explicitly stated that reading, writing by hand, and basic skills should be emphasized before extensive use of digital devices.
Other European nations are following suit.
Florida – a leader in education reform for the past 25 years — is beginning to move in the right direction, expanding support for classical education programs and even has created a state-issued Classical Education Teaching Certificate. The state’s definition of classical education emphasizes moral character, civic virtue, liberal arts, and grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
As someone said in a Facebook post. “There’s no tech in classical education.” Classical literature read cover to cover, she said, using phonics. There is cursive handwriting. Classical education celebrates western civilization and American exceptionalism. It is how our founders were educated.
Thus, there is increasing interest in classical education and traditional teaching methods, but as yet there is no statewide retreat from computers comparable to Sweden’s policy.
It is essential that America keeps pace with beneficial change.
Chinese children are learning calculus while ours are learning … nothing. It is chilling to watch YouTubers go on college campuses and ask students questions fifth graders should be able to answer and getting completely wrong answers.
It is equally alarming to go back in time and see what children were learning in school in the 19th century.
Can your child answer these questions?
- How great is the earth’s annual motion?
- What is essential in every syllable?
- Which are the five largest islands in the world?
- What do the words per cent mean?
- What nations explored the country now known as the United States?
And those are the easy ones.
How about this: If 3 gallons of brandy, at $3 a gallon, and 5 quarts of alcohol, at 40 cents a gallon, are mixed with 1/2 gallon of water, for what must the mixture be sold a gallon to gain 37 per cent?
Yes, an AI bot can likely give an answer. But then how long until we live in a dystopian world where machines are our masters instead of our servants?
Smart phones are great but smart children are greater.
