Mud And Sticks And Real Paint

I've written a couple times here about young children and screens. The post about television remains one of my most read pieces here of all time, probably because I included links to things like research and data and other science-y stuff to support my assertion that TV use by young children should be strictly limited. Still, despite the support of nearly every pediatrician in the world, lots of people got mad at me. In fact, even though I wrote it over a year and a half ago, I still receive irate comments from people who really, really support putting their kids in front of the TV.

The more recent post was a visceral reaction to a currently running TV/web commercial that makes it almost seem like you'd be a bad parent to not hand your kid the latest screen-based technology. Fewer folks got mad at me, but of course it wasn't as widely read as the TV post, and didn't link to any research or data or other science-y stuff.

That's because there isn't really any research or data or other science-y stuff other than the statistic that "(t)hirty-nine percent of children ages 2- to 4-years-old and 52% of kids ages 5 to 8 have used an iPad, iPhone or similar touch-screen device to play games, watch videos or use other apps, according to a survey last year by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group," a number that has likely increased dramatically in the intervening 12 months. Another study by a marketing agency called Kids Industries found that 77 percent of parents believe that using tablets is beneficial for children and the same number believe the gadgets help develop creativity.

And that's what makes me nervous: the iPad was only introduced in 2010 and there hasn't been time to study the effects on young children. There are some researchers out there warning that use of this technology will lead to developmental and social problems. Others are more sanguine. But no one really has anything other than dribs and drabs and anecdotes upon which to base their opinion. And parents are sort of in the same boat, comparing their previously held opinions and knowledge with their own child's experience. What we can all agree upon, however, is that a child's brain develops quickest during the first few years of life, forming thousands of synapses during those first 3 years. So this is not something to be taken lightly.

I hope we can also agree that whatever one's belief about these technologies, and that's what we have to go on right now, this generation of children is being used by the rest of society as guinea pigs because we just don't know what is happening to their brains, let alone their social skills or ability to function in a 3-dimentional world.

Almost every day a parent asks me about my opinion on this topic. Almost every day I receive a pitch asking Teacher Tom to support this or that new "educational" app. Almost every day I read something about how someone's child learned the alphabet or how to identify their colors or something from their touch-screen game.

Of course, every child who has ever come to Woodland Park over the past decade has arrived as a 2-year-old already knowing most of that stuff without the benefit of special technology, so it really doesn't follow, as some are advocating, that every child in America should have her own iPad. After all, these machines are still primarily limited to teaching tools of the worksheet and testing variety like correctly identifying numbers or mooing at a picture of a cow. I've not seen much that convinces me that these apps and games do anything by way of giving children the opportunity to learn how to learn, which, you know, is the essence of education. The "education" delivered looks a lot to me like a fancy version of flash cards.

But this is just one man's opinion, one formed from anecdote, incomplete experience, and guessing, just like everyone else does. I own an iPhone which I use for phone calls, texting, email, navigating around unfamiliar areas, taking pictures, and reading things on the internet. I like it, although I can't honestly say I've ever considered my experiences particularly educational. My wife owns both an iPad and an iPad Mini, both of which I've used a couple of times, but I don't currently have a desire to have one of my own. The most advanced "technology" we use in our classroom are things like hot plates, electric race cars, and, rarely, a CD player . . . Yes, a CD player.

Of course, I know that many of the kids I teach are swiping and drilling on their parent's devices because this is the technology hub of Seattle and they sometimes talk about them, or I overhear parents enthusing about some children's app or other. Like I wrote in my last post on technology, I'm sure the kids are learning something, but by no means are they learning everything, or even close to everything. In the meantime, my advice is to be conservative when it comes to this new technology. I like this article's suggestion that parents play these games with their children, instead of using it as a "shut up" toy. Remember that the most popular preschools in Silicon Valley, where these things are being made, are ones that focus on mud and sticks and real paint. Know that when you hand your baby your smartphone, you are taking part in a grand society-wide experiment, the findings of which are entirely unknown: you could be doing extreme good or extreme harm and anyone who tells you they know which are wrong. I know we won't stop this technology, nor do I even think we should try, so we all need to make some sort of peace with it because it will become an increasingly central part of our lives for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, as long as I'm the teacher, Woodland Park will continue to be a touchscreen free oasis, because while the actual data on this new technology and children is still decades away from being in, the evidence is clear and irrefutable about what we do in our play-based, hands-on, child-directed preschool, and it has been for centuries. I will not judge what people chose to do with their own children in their own homes, but here we'll continue working with mud and sticks and real paint. The children will experiment, but they will not be experimented upon.

I put a lot of time and effort into this blog. If you'd like to support me please consider a small contribution to the cause. Thank you!

-->