The theme of those articles is familiar, of course. They follow the template of the articles that have talked about the impacts of video games, heavy metal, excessive television, rock and roll and so on back through time. I give the litany not to diminish the validity of the current articles about the cell phone exposure. The one article I actually read said that kids were getting into less trouble because they were content to stay in their room texting or Snapchatting rather than getting into mischief. Actually, the barrage of headlines left me thinking that my son was not getting that much screen time. I suspect though it will escalate. A recent conversation about initiatives aimed at showing families how to eat together and converse enough to develop their children's language skills suggest that the articles are not as alarmist as I might think.
One thing I am conscious of with technology overall though is that kids are, essentially, getting nudged down the digital path at the expense of any other. There is a clamour to teach kids to code and while I'm not opposed to that I would like to see at least a bit of balance. In his 1979 book Teaching As a Conserving Activity, Neil Postman suggests school take, what he calls a thermostatic approach. In theory it would be a scenario where educators, conscious and equipped with the barometers to see where society is trending at a certain time, act and educate in a way to strike a balance and avoid overemphasizing what society or the market is pushing for. In this digital age, more exposure to the analog would be welcome... (he tapped away on his keyboard.)
I'm conscious of my son's development of skills that I have taken for granted from my schooling. Cursive writing is no longer emphasized in schools and after a generation of velcro, I may be among the last to remember learning to tie shoes as a part of my primary education. In the fall of 1972 everybody in my class put in the time to work on the task. I remember in later years one of my aunts, a primary school teacher, telling us how she had made it clear to the parents of the kids in a particularly large class that the students would need to know how to zip and tie before the start of the year. I doubt she was expecting 100% mastery before Labour Day, but enough to leave her with a manageable few.
I was still conscious of my experience in days of yore and chipped away at his reluctance to do it. There were struggles and frequent bouts of frustration punctuated by, "I can't do it." There was an hour where we got oh so close before he was truly fed up with the task and I relented. A few days ago, with his head clear of the frustration he encountered with the laces 10 days earlier, he nailed it. He got it twice in a row, albeit rather loosely, did a single bow a few times and argued about how those single loops would count toward three successes I had requested and then got it.
Apart from saving my back and being a step toward getting him into the laced runners that he aspires to, there are other benefits. I'm sure the fine work will be a step toward improved motor skills and there are also significant links between knot-tying and mathematics and the sciences. It has quickly become a point of pride for my son, who asked me to watch him tie his shoes when I dropped him off in the morning and boasted to the nearest adult of his new prowess. (She responded with the appropriate expression of surprise and approval.)
Cursive may be on my to do list a few years down the road and that, I assure you will be a long battle. Luring him into it with a stylus for a tablet is not the leverage I'll be seeking though.
