Technology in Education: A Breaking Point, not a Turning Point

By Caitlin Lucas

Pizza Fridays. A family tradition. What started as merely a survival mechanism to wrap up the end of a work and school week has become an anticipated ritual. Once the kids got old enough, we added a movie. Our youngest, somehow now 5, has just officially joined the Friday family movie night for the full duration of the film, and my heart has never been fuller.

Every Friday, in my kindergarten classroom, we also have a tradition. During our morning meeting, I ask my students to talk about one thing they plan to do or want to do over the weekend. While I have cut out “the fat” parts of my day, so to speak, morning meetings are sacred—a highlight for both my students and me. It is brief, less than 5 minutes, once we get really efficient, but this is a chance for us to build that strong classroom community where voices are heard and connections are made. We start with a greeting on my super fancy pink microphone, practicing eye-contact and the simple act of saying hello. Then, I ask a question. On Fridays, it is always that: “what do you plan to do or want to do this weekend?”

On Mondays, we follow up on what they actually did. The trick? They have to speak in full sentences, and everyone else has to fully engage (eyes on the speaker, body turned toward them).

At the beginning of this year, I had seven students that spoke zero English. They were encouraged to participate in their native language. Now, just a few months later, we all speak English and learn more about each other together—bridging the gap one word at a time.

The frightening part? How much the answers to this simple question have changed over the past decade. Whether it is 90 degrees outside or -9, 90% of my students in the last two years will give me the same cycle of responses: “I want to play Roblox,” “I want to play on my tablet,” “I want to watch YouTube on my iPad,” “I want to watch Netflix on my mom’s phone.” I always joke and say, “Go play outside!” But I know deep down, a lot of them will not.

The co-dependence on technology has gotten more and more ingrained in their routines, almost like a default setting. As both a mom and a teacher, I see it. I don’t pat myself on the back with many things in the mom world—we all have it hard—but I have kids from 11 to 5, my youngest having autism, and we do not have a single tablet (not even for the grown-ups) in the house. I do not know if this would be the case without my experiences in both behavioral health and as a teacher of the nation’s youngest school-age students.

A few years ago, I spent the first few days of school practicing walking in lines, switching writing names from all uppercase to the proper format (preschool teachers, I beg you to just start with the latter), and learning how to be a kid in school. Now, I spend a majority of those first few days managing behaviors that look a lot like withdrawal—anger, irritability, difficulty concentrating, restlessness, etc. And I truly have to show kids that they have more fingers that “work” other than just their pointer fingers and their thumbs. We rip paper, cut straws, play with Play-Doh, and use tiny crayons. For many of them, this is the first time they have had any of these tactile experiences.

I spend a solid three months, yes months, weaning students away from independent technology use in the classroom. After this time, I see their social confidence take flight. Organic to my room, my students play as soon as they arrive in the morning. We do not do morning work. They play for the first 15 minutes—Barbies, Legos, blocks, magnets, construction paper, you name it. At first, this feels and looks like more of a task than learning to read. A lot of this free play is foreign to them. Most of them do not know how to play without a device or a technology game guiding them. But by the end of October though, they burst through the doors each morning, eager to rebuild an army wall, make a card for a friend, or construct a tower bigger than the day before. Then, the air gets a little crisper, and I know the dreaded time has come—I have to teach them how to log into their Chromebooks.

At the start of COVID, one-to-one devices were a blessing. If you taught in March 2020, you know the realities of teaching online without consistent devices for students and what that looked like. Teaching through the beginning of the pandemic is something that is very hard to explain. There is a layer of trauma that feels like someone stitched up a wound with a thread too thin to hold a layer of skin that has now been grown over by time, new initiatives, pain, resentment, grief, and a quiet but persistent exhaustion. The pain has dulled, but if you push hard enough, it’s still there.

We are somehow five years past the shutdown, and the devices appear to be here for good, especially with the majority of states shifting to an online model for standardized testing by 2026. This decision is handcuffing district administrators and school boards to one-to-one models for even the earliest grade levels, even if they aren’t taking tests.

Before you keep reading and think I am an anti-technology extremist, I am on the brink of 34. I really am the era of technology. My first iPhone was unable to take pictures. I had computer labs, PowerPoints, and typing classes. I rode the technology wave as both a student and a consumer. I have multiple education degrees, one in STEAM education. I know the good in technology; however, I also live and breathe the bad.

At some point, we switched from using one-to-one technology as a means to supplement student education during a crisis to delivering education to students. As kindergarten teachers, we work so hard to detach them from their personal devices, only to then reintegrate them back so soon—and for what? Does the data really show they’re useful or necessary?

The simple answer is no. Research has continued to show the connection between handwritten work and cognitive retention, yet kids as young as third grade are typing assignments. I had to substitute in an upper elementary classroom (an issue for another blog), and I went to write the teacher a note–and asked a student where the lined paper was. The answer? There wasn’t any. There was no lined paper in an ELA classroom because everything was now typed. Why? What gains are we making regarding learning outcomes? These are genuine questions. What was purchased by districts as a learning tool is rapidly turning into a pacifier for students, a crutch, and yet another distraction.

I know that technology has a place for students. I just do not see how or why it should be introduced before fifth grade. Why are we just ignoring the research? Even up to the state legislature level? Students are already spending so much of their at-home time on devices. School should be a sacred time, a space where they engage with the physical world, develop patience, and build real-life problem-solving skills.

Eventually, personal technology should be introduced when appropriate, when the educational benefits of technology outweigh the risks. Or when students are spending less time actually navigating the technology than they are learning from it. Right now, too much time is wasted on simple tech logistics—logging in, resetting passwords, navigating endless platforms—before any learning even begins.

As an example, my own daughter, a fifth grader, has spent countless hours making “Google Slide presentations” the last few years with information that includes bullet points (not full sentences), grammatical and spelling errors (fixed automatically by Google), with fancy fonts, pictures, and random information. When I asked her what she was writing about, she couldn’t tell me. She had spent more time choosing a background theme than understanding the content.

Could technology have been used to research information for these projects? Of course. But that’s not what it’s being used for. In her case, it is being used as a faster way to get information to students, and also retrieve it back, to grade, to check a box on a district report, and to streamline education to the point of detachment. And again, at what cost?

How can we blame students for clinging to their Chromebooks like a pet when we, as adults, have fallen into the same cycle too? My inbox as an educator is filled daily with new AI ads: “Make lesson plans easier,” “ChatGPT updates,” etc. A reason that I got into education was because I loved writing, collaborating, and using my brain. Now, every technology company is spamming me daily with “Here’s an easier way! Use this website! Let us do the thinking for you.” And even worse? Districts are encouraging it. If we, the professionals, are outsourcing our thinking, how are we supposed to encourage students that a pencil, paper, and their brain are more than sufficient for the six hours a day they are here?

As I finish writing this, somehow, it’s Friday again. Tonight, we decided to eat our pizza on the restaurant patio as spring is finally in the air. I open up my bookbag full of kids' toys. My older two are coloring; my youngest is building with Magnatiles. My husband and I can barely get a word in, but we’re both happy amongst the chaos. A family sits next to us—another family of five, kids similar in age. The oldest is screaming for his mom’s phone, the youngest two are whining, and then, almost like clockwork, everyone is handed a device, and the table goes silent other than the conversations between the parents. I look at my husband, then our table of scattered art materials, magnets, dolls, etc. He smiles and says, “What’s best isn’t always easiest.”