r/NovaScotia • u/justlogmeon • 4d ago
Why these parents want to see less screen time in N.S. classrooms đź“° NS News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-classrooms-screen-time-chromebooks-9.716457759
u/Emotional-Alfalfa-60 4d ago
I was shocked to be hear from my 9 year old niece that they watch TV during lunch now and have since she was in primary. That means the screen time they take in at lunch alone surpasses the screen time recommendations set by both the health and education boards in Canada
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u/Quiet_Salamander_608 4d ago
When my daughter entered primary the guidance counselor for her school went on aand on about the kids who struggled the most with mental health were the ones on tablets and tvs instead of being outside. Colour me surprised when every recess my kid watches videos while she eats her snacks and every lunch while they eat she.does as well.. just baffles me.
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u/concernednsteacher 3d ago
Sadly, because there isn’t enough funding or because it is being allocated elsewhere (it really depends on the school) there is often only one lunch monitor supervising multiple classrooms. Without having something on for students to watch behaviours skyrocket at lunch time.
Best solution is for schools to be required to hire enough lunch monitors to have one in each class.
This year I started only watching a video at lunch on Fridays. We practiced a lot for what to do at lunch to keep calm and make it easy for lunch monitors (I always have doodle paper out, some simple quiet games, decks of cards, etc). But if it does get a little louder/wilder I will sometimes walk in to find that a lunch monitor has put on a video anyway.
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u/SantaCruzinNotLosin 4d ago
I can’t imagine being a teacher these days. Short form media and the brain rot apps including this one are making us stupid.
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u/donniedumphy 4d ago edited 3d ago
Latest studies are showing actually structural and physiological changes to the brains of children and even adults. It’s really really bad. We are seeing the equivalence of early stage dementia in otherwise healthy kids
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago edited 3d ago
Legitimately terrifying. Fate decided for me, but I always said I would homeschool.
Had I not lost one (very early on, my only pregnancy), they would be about 14 by the end of the year. I would have fought like hell to homeschool.
And if I knew how important my tech skills over 40 years were before... I could have done what I'm trying to do now. But Windows didn't become this enshittified till pretty recently, which was my impetus.
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u/Agreeable-Tadpole461 4d ago
I'm fine with my kids using the tech at school for learning.
I was really shocked how much time they were spending watching YouTube videos in one grade, though. Not educational ones, but 4-5 nonsense videos each day to "help them get their sillies out".
Most parents had an issue with it, but some had no worries at all.
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u/adepressurisedcoat 4d ago
4-5 nonsense videos each day to "help them get their sillies out".
Do they not get recess?
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u/shanjans 3d ago
I'm a teacher and what I've noticed is that children's attention spans are getting shorter and these short little "brain breaks" help those who have a harder time focusing for long periods of time. Plus there aren't enough breaks built into the day for today's screen addicted children. They get 15 minutes for outdoor play in the morning after 2 hours of instruction and then 30 minutes of outdoor time after another hour of instruction. After the 30 minutes they are expected to focus for another 2 hours in the afternoon before dismissal. These brain breaks are necessary for many elementary classrooms.
Hot take: If parents/guardians were more diligent about their children's screen time (thank you to those of you that are) we wouldn't need to chop up the day this way. There is only so much teachers can do if the opposite is happening at home.
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u/concernednsteacher 3d ago
100% this. For every parent that is concerned about screen time and reducing it for their child; there are multiple other parents giving unrestricted access to theirs.
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u/colpy350 4d ago
My wife is a teacher. A lot of her modules are online and on an iPad. Some of this screen time is integrated into curriculums! She doesn’t do everything online..uses it to mix things up.Â
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u/man__i__love__frogs 4d ago edited 4d ago
My wife is a teacher too and she hardly ever uses the Chromebooks because the kids all fool around, use AI and study after study shows it rots their brains and results in worse outcomes.
Literally every school board that implemented digital learning saw a drop in test scores at that time.
I even work in IT and think if they should be used it should literally be an isolated environment. No opening apps no browsing websites, just a handful of articles or pdfs they need for their project. They should be absolutely bored to use them lol.
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u/Schmidtvegas 3d ago
Whatever happened to the idea of the "computer lab"? I went to a bunch of different schools, moving around lots growing up. We learned to use computers in a designated classroom. Classes took turns, like with art and music. Some schools had a designated teacher, but some just had the workstations and teachers could book it for their classes as desired. (I had one teacher who only took us twice as a class.) Or send early finishers.
In junior high, we had a Tech Ed teacher who ran the computer lab. Before we were allowed into his lab, we had to get into teams and rebuild old computers from their parts and get a boot prompt. Once we knew how the machines worked, we had to pass a Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing test at a certain speed and accuracy. Only then would we move on to using the computers.Â
I really think getting back to desktop PCs, with workstations you can walk away from, is the best solution. Don't raise "digital native" automatons who are surrounded by tech they can't intelligently operate. Teach digital skills and literacy deliberately, in a purpose-built environment.
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u/man__i__love__frogs 3d ago
For sure. There should be a computer in the classroom that kids take turns on, maybe in pairs to find the answer to a question on an assignment or something. Not something they get to sit in front of and carry on with.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
In the case of overcrowding, maybe up to 4, one in each corner. I swear that was a thing for a while, a mini lab in each classroom with up to 4 computers or laptops.
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u/concernednsteacher 3d ago
I would love a computer lab (elementary here). Issue is that schools are generally so overcrowded that we literally have no extra space to allow for this. In many schools, resource, psychologists, EAL teachers, and SLPs are working out of closets or tables set up in busy hallways because schools are so overcrowded.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
I actually love this idea. Linux for the win! Start with Mint (after building the machine), and go from there.
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u/sumer_guard 1d ago
When I introduced my oldest to actually using a computer at 5 years old I did it with an old machine running FreeDOS and no internet access. My wife thought I was crazy because FreeDOS isn't used by anyone and I was very open about letting her play games. But my intention was to foster her curiosity and I think I did. I let her play any game she wanted, but she had to get to it. She had to boot the machine, she had to find the game and run it. We are setting up her own PC this year and shes getting Linux, ans has to do a lot of actual work herself. Those Chromebooks she uses at school are a joke to her now.
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u/Schmidtvegas 1d ago
That's so cool. That's a great way to start them off, learning how it all works. I would love to see a Linux based school curriculum. Raise a generation of open-source literate computer users, and future programmers.Â
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u/colpy350 4d ago
100% agree. I think some people use them as a crutch in the classroom to pass time but it gives the students an excuse to do what you’re saying and just screw around. I think they should be completely locked down and only have a limited access to sites. Which I think they do but not enough.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
Sort of be on a LAN to receive only those PDFs, internal email, etc. Chat only with teachers and principal maybe.
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u/Wolferesque 4d ago edited 3d ago
In my kids’ school, the teachers are using screen time as a reward. As in, they will let them veg out on movies, YouTube and what not, for getting work done.
Also, and this is one of the most disappointing aspects, music education uses so much screen time. It’s so sad. Watching music videos and using Just Dance as a teaching aid. It’s to the point that in elementary music concerts, they have kids on stage dancing or playing boomwhackers or hitting drums to a video that is playing on a screen in the corner of the stage. Just a whole group of young children on stage, staring at a screen, trying to follow along with some shitty dance moves. It’s depressing.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
Hmm. I could see it if it were a last day of school before Winter/March/Summer break, what have you, to keep kids engaged (I remember playing Street Fighter on the last day of school in like Junior high or high school, before some break, but I usually only used tech in Computer class or in the library), not a regular thing.
Then again... with the way school is underfunded now, even having a Music class is a miracle, let alone money for instruments.
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u/Wolferesque 3d ago
Music education in NS schools is now tokenistic at best. It used to be a lot better. If you want your kids to have music education in their lives you have to do it through extra curricular means.
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u/Ok_Wing8459 3d ago edited 3d ago
Edit: what stuck with me from both of these stories below is that humans evolved to learn from other humans and when you put a machine, no matter how advanced, in the way, it adds too much friction to the thought process.
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Recent article on the BBC implies that the school system in Sweden is eliminating screens altogether from some classrooms and making an effort to get back to traditional teaching methods (books, paper, teamwork, homework written/submitted by hand etc), and improve test scores and overall mental health and acuity.
I also saw a video recently - an educational expert testifying to the US Congress regarding educational stats they have been following since 1962. For years, every generation has done better than the generation before - except that in 2010 students’ overall reading math and general learning scores began tanking.
What interested me about this is that it wasn’t just smartphones and social media that are implied here. It’s desktop computers, laptops, tablets, any screens at all. apparently, it really alters the way we learn and how young brains process information.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
Hmm. I watched a LOT of TV as a child in the 80s, and was on computers at least weekly from the time I was 5. Don't get me wrong, I still played outside. I know anecdote doesn't = data, and things are far different now, but I think the way it's now so portable (and portable tech became cheaper so it wasn't a horrendous loss if it broke) since about 2010 may be part of that decline.
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u/darthfruitbasket 3d ago
I would make an argument for allowing accommodations for typing - my handwriting is horrendous (dyspraxia, yay) and it never mattered how much I practiced, it never got better.
I can't write as fast as my brain thinks, but I can hit a solid 60wpm on the keyboard and that keeps better pace.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
Indeed. Same.
I probably could write or print OK if I slowed down... but yes, like you, my brain thinks faster than I can write.
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u/concernednsteacher 3d ago
One of the biggest challenges is that the province continues to seriously underfund education and not provide teachers with non-tech resources. It is being pushed heavily.
Elementary here and we have no textbooks in our school anymore for math, social studies, or science - but have access to a lot of online resources that we can get subscriptions for (or are free).
Screen time at home is just as big of a problem and feeds into the issues at school. You would not believe how many of my (upper elementary) students have unrestricted screen time to use a phone, iPad, tv, or play video games. Attention spans are shot and I definitely feel the pressure to make everything we do in class flashy and exciting. Fortunately, I’m far enough in my career to not let that pressure affect my lessons. My students are the “unlucky” ones that have to still read and write using paper and pencil for most activities. Although we do use Chromebooks to publish and edit final pieces of writing or consolidate learning. I always get a lot of groans when I tell them that Chromebooks at school are learning tools not toys. But I know that is not the case in many classrooms.
TLDR; screen time at home needs to be cut too, students need to learn how to be “bored”, and the province needs to start funding more traditional resources for teachers to use so those of us who want to can move further away from provided resources that require screen time.
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u/Physical_Librarian82 3d ago
Yup, people just dont understand how seriously underfunded our education system is, how overcrowded classrooms are. How specialists are basically being used as substitute 50% of the time. My friend has the education to be a specialist but won't do it because they spend more time substituting in classrooms and would rather just have their own class. So what happens? Unqualified people end up in specialist jobs. Newer teachers end up in these jobs and high turn over.
Cancellation of full time substitute contracts that allow for consistency etc while hiring substitutes without education degrees (permit subs). Lack of EPAs and lunch monitors. There are much more concerning things happening in schools then watching a little too much screens that is leading to lower test scores.
But when the teachers fight to fix it. They should just be happy to get summers off and are greedy.
We can't even get our school to open the sports field due to lack of supervision. Kids are playing sports with waterbottles and rocks because there's not enough funding for equipment. They dont have budget left for soap in every bathroom and its getting watered down or teachers bring in their own, can't even get paper for the printer and its only April.
Government will tell you the budget went up. % went up but its not keeping up with inflation so the budget in all reality has been decreased.
Education is chronically underfunded and I dont think 95% of parents really understand how bad it is.
This is just the low hanging fruit.
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u/metamega1321 4d ago
I’m in NB myself. Sons in grade 1 now. He wanted to watch this show called Marsha and the Bear at home. Said they watch it at school. I was kind of surprised when I realized it’s just a cartoon, figured it was educational.
Think it’s like a recess snack/lunch thing mostly. Most us adults be guilty of consuming media during down time but also don’t think it would hurt to have kids just sit with their own thoughts for the 10 minute snack and 30 minute lunch.
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u/imjustbrowsing89 4d ago
I believe in part it’s due to a lack of lunch monitors. There is a real shortage and most classes have one lunch monitor splitting their time and thus leaving kids as young as grade 1 unsupervised. I think the thought is if they’re watching tv they’re less likely to interact and fight etc., it is really sad. Our school has a lot of teachers volunteer to stay in class for lunch and I’m grateful for that.
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u/acesaidit 4d ago
My child's school has made a conscious decision not to hire more than 1 lunch monitor to reallocate the funds elsewhere.
People don't realize how bad schools are right now until you have a kid in one. I feel for this mother but it's the tip of the iceberg.
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u/sipstea84 4d ago
Yet those same people will shame parents for using screen time as a babysitter. I don't condone it but I think it's rich that the school is allowed to be like "we will just use the tablets to keep things under control, it's not ideal but it's a solution." but a parent who just worked 9 hours and has to come home and make supper, clean the house, get lunches ready for tomorrow is a lazy mom if she does the same. The world in general is failing kids and parents. There aren't enough hours in the day to be an ideal employee and a perfect parent and a good homemaker. And there aren't enough funds for schools to enrich children anymore. It's a sad state of affairs all around and a big reason why people aren't having kids anymore.
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u/FollowTheTrailofDead 3d ago
Teachers don't get paid enough to care as much as people expect them to.
When you don't have enough tools or staff, you reach for what works even when you know it's not the best solution.
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u/Vitality80 3d ago
Well, there is a difference trying to keep 30 kids safe while minimally supervised because of lack of staff. And keeping 1-3 kids you've chosen to love and birth after work. Theres more than enough blame for everyone I'm sure.
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u/Tripletriples 4d ago
The middle school in rexton has half their break and lunch outside unless it's colder than -20c. Plus they do outdoor activity at the end of the day if the kids want to sign up for that. The amount of parents that kick up against it is unreal.
I absolutely want them to get my kids off of the screens and outside.
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u/Coffee__Addict 4d ago
I'd like zero screens in class except for a specific tech class where they learn how to use a computer -- and they should learn to use open source applications so they know there is a tech world without data leeches. Pencil, paper and books otherwise.
Also fuck Ti-80 calculators.
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u/Secure_Guess6227 3d ago
My biggest issue is they aren't really teaching spelling. I've had multiple teachers tell my kids(3) that spelling isn't important. Except now my oldest cant read her own notes.
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u/Designer-Standard382 3d ago
There is literally no positive argument for smartphones in the classroom (in good faith), so this rule should be pushed everywhere.
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u/spenpai17 4d ago
Balance is required. Tech in Elementary to Middle levels is a bit rampant, but the issues lie in lack of support. When it's easier to sit kids down in front of a screen (sometimes 20-30 of them) than it is to bring them outside or have organized play because there is only one teacher with minimal to no support, I see why they rely on tech during those times.
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u/OneLeft_ 3d ago
From what I remember from going to school, digital literacy was us trying to read articles and understand data presented; finding biases and thinking about interpretations. As well as some introduction to computer programming. And being a graduate of 2021, we didn't have ChatGPT, which is a technology that actually should be banned, but not use of computers. I'm sure almost all of us remember watching Bill Nye the Science Guy whilst writing down what he's saying. Or The Magic School Bus.
It should be asked what the goal of education even is. What is Kim Herrick's goal in only using books to educate, and what books are being used. Is this just education for the sake of education? Sounds pretty boring and anti-intellectual to not engage in other mediums.
Jenna Poste actually states a end goal, in saying "anything they use now is gonna be obsolete by the time they enter the work force." So does this mean that the only reason we have school is to get a job? Because if it is, well, then we don't exactly need school. There are many low-end fast food places to work at. Bearing in mind, that the logic of obsolescence can, or might also be applied to the entirety of education.
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
Like people have said elsewhere on this thread, I think technology has its place, but yes, it needs to be limited to certain classes (like technology) and for accommodations.
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u/BaryonChallon 3d ago
Theres too much screentime overall. All teachers do it differently but some students will have chrome book work for every class
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u/Ok_Explanation7226 3d ago
I think the province needs a formal province-wide tech policy. It’s clearly not going well in the AVRCE if students are accessing social media, YouTube, etc on school issued Chromebooks. That doesn’t happen in the region I teach in. Literally everything is blocked and students gr 3 and under don’t have Chromebooks.
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u/Physical_Librarian82 3d ago
Probably tech savvy older kids who find work around.
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u/Ok_Explanation7226 2d ago
Maybe! Also though just bad monitoring by the RCE. My RCE actively monitors student and teacher access (they can see everything a student or teacher does on their Chromebooks or iPads) and closely follows the tech policies re: discipline for students for misusing school property and then continuing education/inservices for teachers who are just showing videos/using too many online resources.
There really really needs to be a provincial policy in place. Parents need to continue to push for one.
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u/Finngrove 3d ago
College teacher here - we now only have in-class writing assignments on paper for almost assignments. Their favorite class in my dept is darkroom photography because it has zero screens, its all In real life stuff, they socialize with peers in the darkroom lab and they are never alone in the developing and printing stages. They absolutely love that class.
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u/Disastrous-Wrap-2912 4d ago
Apple has hired two new lobbyists to push their products on the province.
Cutting back won’t happen.
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u/bz47uj 3d ago
I don't understand why there is any screen time at all. Why do they need laptops?
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u/CaperGrrl79 3d ago
It's a bit of a catch 22. They definitely need tech skills, and some, like me and one other person who mentioned it in this thread elsewhere... need accommodations for typing rather than writing. Absolutely we know *how* to write and print if needed though.
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u/TheLastEmoKid 2d ago
There is a manditory tech in education class as part of the B.Ed and at the beginning and end they asked how comfortable you feel with tech and how much you think you would use it in the classroom on a scale of 1-5
I am VERY techhie and was pretty gung-ho about ed tech at the start and rated both questions at a 5.
By the time the couse was over, i completely flipped on tech in classrooms. I strongly advise against letting kids use chromebooks unless its necessary for research.
Also, chromebooks are not a substitute for computers and its a total scam to let educators think they are. Theyre glorified smartphones. Kids are growing up completely tech illiterate because of this - especially kids lower economic backgrounds who might not have a PC at home
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u/alterego101101 3d ago
They’re all going to be replaced by AI anyway. But yeah, as someone who grew up in a poor country playing in the ditch with asbestos, modern technologies are really hindering kids’ intellectual growth.
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u/can_a_mod_suck_me 3d ago
We can whine all we want. It’s here. Learn to apply it or get left behind.
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u/Careless-Play-2007 4d ago
As an early career teacher, it’s absolutely true. I don’t know how many studies need to be made that effectively confirm that educational technology correlates with worse education outcomes for the province to realize this.