There is no denying the potential distraction posed by cell phones and social media in classrooms. Current students that I have observed through the Link2Practice program, and in various other educational settings have all had to (or try to) resist the temptation that cell phones and social media possess. A disproportionate amount of cellphone distraction that I have observed has been scrolling through social media; a practice that I myself am guilty of. The consequence of the high volume of inappropriate cell phone use in BC schools is the new cell phone policy, effectively banning student cell phone use on school property. While it is ultimately up to individual districts how the policy is to be realized (and up to teachers to implement and enforce it), the consensus in the BC ministry of education is that students should not use or have access to their cell phones during the school day.
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While a cell phone ban is a simple solution, at least on paper, I feel it precludes the tangible learning benefits that cell phones can offer students. Students are more likely to own a cell phone than they are to own a laptop, and barring the use of school-issued laptop computers many students won’t have access to the internet and the wealth of information that it holds.
Even without social media, cell phones are a powerful tool for socialization and connection. When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I owned a Motorola flip phone so that I could communicate with my parents when I had to bus to and from sports and home. School can feel incredibly isolating, and even having access to friends, family, and a community over the phone is enough to help students feel more comfortable. Cell phones are not only a potential boon for education, they are a lifeline and a safety net for students. There is greater value to be found in devising clear guidelines for healthy and productive cell phone use than there is in pretending that they aren’t the greatest tool in students’ tool-kits.
The education system most of us grew up with represents what has been agreed upon as valuable for students and the public. The prescriptive nature of content-driven education supports this belief system of educating about what is valuable and representative of the system that created it. As such, content-driven education serves to create informed citizens with a common knowledge base and set of values. Jeff Hopkins and the Pacific School for Innovation and Inquiry on the other hand represent education that serves students’ interest and provides students with the skills and processes that are necessary for self-direction and greater independence and self-efficacy.
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Both systems have merit; one seeks to create community and a public identity around what is deemed important, and the other aims to create a degree of independence, individual identity, and self-efficacy. Not every student will see themselves represented in either system; as is often the case, the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. The most common concerns levied against inquiry in schools are a lack of curricular breadth, and student motivation. Students will struggle to learn about as broad a range of topics in an inquiry-driven school as they would in a more traditional educational setting, but the conceptual breadth is supplanted by educational depth; the only way more traditional schools are able to cover such a wide range of topics is to remain fairly superficial in their examination. Inquiry enables and encourages students to engage with their chosen topic with in as much depth and with as much vigor as they can muster. The motivational concern is assuaged by students’ investment in their chosen area of inquiry – since they hold the reins to their education they are more likely to investigate areas they are passionate about, and their motivation follows.
It is easier for students to have their education prescribed to them; I am more likely to read a news article that is presented to me by whichever algorithm governs it, than I am to seek out an article I have not seen represented elsewhere. That is not to say that it is easy to get student on board with learning anything you put in front of them; that relies on the presentation method and other means of fostering student buy-in. Presenting students with the material they are to learn for their entire education opens the door to a manner of learned helplessness; if a population never learns to take their learning into their own hands, they are significantly less likely to investigate things for themselves or challenge material that they are presented with.
Photo by WillSantt
As educators we need to be mindful of what our education systems and methods privilege. As our position in the school hierarchy afford us relational power, we mustn’t forget that many kids don’t know what to think and will look to us for guidance. I am partial to a system that nurtures childlike wonder and allows kids to investigate their ideas, and to learn for themselves.
While I was not present for this class due to illness, I was in attendance online via zoom. That said, my illness and the means through which I was engaging with the material inhibited my ability to glean as much as I would have liked from the presentation. The concept of honouring student agency and autonomy however stuck with me.
I have never done well with doing what I’m been told simply because I’m told to. I have no manner of demand avoidance or anything of that ilk, rather; “because I said so” doesn’t really speak to the value of the exercise. In every situation where “doing what you are told” has been done with enthusiasm, the value of the exercise has been made clear independent of the action. In employment or other hierarchical structures, to “do as you are told” is lent credence by the nature of the hierarchy and the steps that led to the respective positions of those in the hierarchy. A master has authority over an apprentice not because they are above the apprentice in the master-apprentice hierarchy, but because the role of master is earned through experience and because the master has knowledge and skills to pass along – it is this uneven distribution of knowledge and skill that establishes a master as an authority; not the title.
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Trust in the teaching and wisdom of those above us in a hierarchy is key for enthusiastic acceptance of instruction – in buy-in. Trust is built in relationship, and so instruction is best received in collaboration with the educator. Students are far more likely to buy in to their lessons if they believe in them; and what better way is there to get students invested in their learning than involving them in its construction?
The “new curriculum” that centers students’ acquisition of competencies rather than concepts demands a higher degree of involvement; teaching them to fish rather than giving them a fish. If the student learning outcomes are to reflect competency over content, then the medium through which they learn should also support competency. High involvement of students in the creation and construction of their curriculum teaches students not only the content and desired competencies outlined in the desired learning outcomes, but how to learn and create a positive learning environment for themselves.
Jesse Miller’s presentation on social media and mobile technology articulated a good many points and positions regarding the role that technology is playing in our lives and the lives of students. It is easy to view technology both with rose tinted glasses for all of the convenience it affords us, as well as with great apprehension for the waves that it makes in day-to-day life. The collective cries in opposition of AI echo those against the early internet, and the proliferation of newspapers before it. Jesse maintains a sense of stalwart optimism for technology and its integration into ever more aspects of our lives; which is a productive outlook for how to “go with the tide” rather than attempting to “stop the tide with a broom”.
Photo by Creathrive
Kids will use social media. Its allure is carefully and meticulously cultivated, through algorithms and targeted advertisement, to grab and maintain attention. Educating students on how best to navigate social media and the internet more broadly (with its own artful and evil algorithms) is a pragmatic outlook that recognizes the challenges with trying to deny kids access to anything that is so easily within reach. The problem arises however, in trying to determine and articulate “appropriateness” by degree. If kids are permitted (and in Jesse’s perspective) encouraged to engage with the internet and social media, how are we as educators and as parents going to be able to determine for our kids in advance what is appropriate, and how can we articulate that to our kids without exposing them to material that breaches that boundary?
While there are measures in place in many parts of the internet to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content, it is most often a pop-up window that asks “are you eighteen?”. I need not articulate the frailty of methods like these in keeping the internet child-friendly. Whether its age-restricted video games on a platform like Steam requiring you to input your birthdate before browsing, or Adult Films, all that stands between kids and material that has been deemed inappropriate for them is a few keystrokes and mouse clicks. And social media is no better.
Following Jesse’s challenge to the class of “if instagram cost $1/day to use, who would use it?”, I deleted the platform. At the time of writing this entry, I have been “off the sauce” for three weeks. My previous efforts to make social media a more productive space were hindered by SM’s “recommended accounts”, or suggested reels. While my culling of accounts I was following was productive in thinning the herd of crap content in favor of the feeds of my friends and those I wanted to keep up with, the “crap content” was replaced with similarly banal and vapid content – a good deal of which was promotional accounts for OnlyFans accounts. I had gone from being unable to see the posts of my social media friends through all of the “meme” accounts, to being inundated with “thirst traps”. My cultivated social media presence was no healthier than my uncultivated presence.
While Jesse’s cautioning of what is appropriate and sensible to post online is cogent, I myself have fallen prey to vicious cyberbullying my social media. While the content that I allowed to be immortalized online was unfavourable and inadvisable, it would have been prevented entirely if I hadn’t had a presence on social media. The main argument in defense of children having a social media presence is for them to participate “in the real world”, a world that has social media, and for them to be able to socialize with their peers and with folks they otherwise would not be able to engage with. My experience that I articulated above illustrates the problem with this position; that even a carefully cultivated social media presence is subject to the whims of its platform – and the people that become accessible are not always themselves. There is a degree of unkindness and disingenuousness that can come with the degree of separation offered by a keyboard and screen. If the value of social media and an online presence is the socialization that it can offer, then I would argue that the same socialization can be found in other sources of community, like music or sports; or even in individually created text chains, group-chats, and invite-only forums.
Photo by MYKOLA OSMACHKO
The internet is not evil, in the same way that a knife is not evil; both are tools that seek to improve the quality of life of the user. The problem with social media however, is that you are so seldom the one holding the hilt.
