Two recent New York Times articles discussed the ways in which addiction to electronic communication is altering how children and parents interact. [See here and also here.] The general press has not covered these ideas in any great depth so I was heartened to see these articles.

Certainly there is a very good argument to be made that children are getting shorted by parents who are consumed with their electronic gadgets. Another good argument can be made that children are missing opportunities to develop the habits and means of thinking and communicating in depth and with clarity when they are, themselves, consumed with texting and similar forms of electronic communication. What disturbs me even more, though, is the reaction of educators to these recent trends.

We’ve seen this all before, of course, when, for example, television became the norm in American households and educators claimed that they could not compete for attention with this exciting media. Now, with distractions of high-end video games, internet, cell phones, and various hand-held electronics, educators again say that they cannot compete. The answer, they claim, is to fortify schools with the same technology and to use it to replace the former means of learning that now bore students to tears.

I think that is a cop-out for educators and a damned shame for students. While I have nothing against using tools of technology to enhance learning where it truly does that, I find that many educators are simply flailing about with little direction when it comes to technology. You want to use student-written blog entries to encourage stronger writing through public dissemination and peer review? Great. The focus is on the writing and the internet based blog is merely a means to that end. However, when schools are installing tablet computers, Smartboards, Ipods, and anything else they can get their hands on without any forethought as to integration into the learning process, they are putting the cart before the horse.

Educators are more often than not so anxious about being left behind, so concerned about competing with other school districts and so insecure in their own competence that they forget their professional purpose. Instead of planning how to teach students how to read dense material for meaning, or how to orchestrate comprehensive research, or how to write in a manner that is persuasive and factual, educators panic and flit about wondering how they will hold the attention of students distracted by modern life. They convince themselves that the only way to compete for student attention is to jump on the same bandwagon and fill the classroom with the electronics and shallow, short-term processes, as if somehow it will magically work itself out.

If educators would put aside their insecurities they might recognize that learning in depth and communicating with meaning still holds intrinsic promise and reward. Students can still be interested and even entertained in work and learning that includes quality, profundity and longer term challenge. The whole point of a professional educator is to instill these sorts of habits in young students. Yet, many educators today seem bent on ignoring that promise and challenge in favor of a string of sugar-highs in their classrooms.