The Liberated Learner — Column by Suzanne Kearney
I saw a strange sight the other day: a young teen sitting in a chair reading a book. Not a phone, Kindle, or tablet – a book, with real pages, paper and ink. I paused at the novelty. When was the last time I saw that in public?
Last spring, a young public-school teacher named Hannah went viral with a video explaining why she was leaving her profession. The several-minute reel is captioned with the banner, “Technology is ruining your child’s education.” She begins by stating that many in her position have tried to address the problem, but “school boards and superintendents and people who actually can make this true difference in their school districts aren’t listening.”
So, how exactly is technology ruining education? Do we really need to eliminate it completely from the K-12 system, as she recommends?
First, let’s list some of the issues she addresses, beginning with the sheer temptation of having the internet on constant standby. “They don’t want to use technology for education, they want to use it for entertainment,” she laments, assumedly referring to things like chat rooms, podcasts, videos, games, social media, “influencers,” and infinite, endless “content.”
But there is more to the problem than the mere idle squandering of precious time during these impressionable years. She further explains: “Technology is directly contributing to the literacy decrease we are seeing in this country… A lot of these kids don’t know how to read, because they have had things read to them, or they can click a button and have something read out loud to them in seconds… Their attention spans are waning because everything is high stimulation… They can just scroll, watch less than a minute. They can’t sit still for very long…”
In other words, a logical student may reason: “Why should I bother to learn something that can be done for me? Why put forth effort when ease is literally at my fingertips? Why memorize grammar rules or work math drills, when a computer has all the answers?” And in their defense, what young person wouldn’t rather be entertained around the clock?
Hannah continues, “I ask a child to handwrite something, even just a paragraph, 5 sentences… they roll their eyes, they throw tantrums, they (I’m talking about high schoolers)… they get really, really unruly… they want to argue with me about it, and they want to say, ‘Why can’t we just type it…?’ Well, it’s because you’ll go on another website, or you’ll copy it, or use AI, you’ll use Chat GPT.” Honestly, in a superficial sense, the kids are right. Why should they learn to write when AI Assist can do it for them?
But there is something even more destabilizing going on here, something that the older generation has failed to pass on to the younger: the value not only of the things we learn, but also the struggle of the learning process itself.
First, the “what” of each school subject has importance, as Hannah explains: “I grew up in a time when history was still important, learning what the Declaration of Independence (said) was still important, knowing how to understand the Amendments… If you can’t read, and if you don’t care to read… you’re never going to understand it, and therefore it’s never going to mean anything to you, and you’re never going to have real opinions, and be able understand and formulate why laws and certain governing structures make sense…” Simply put, dependence on technology causes the minds of the youth to atrophy, making them apathetic, ignorant, and easily controllable.
Next, the effort expended in the learning process is, in itself, valuable. A child who strives toward a goal, engaging in some level of discomfort and self-denial to reach it, then is rewarded with a positive outcome learns the dignity of work and earns the priceless asset of self-worth.
On the other hand, a child denied that opportunity will languish. “These kids just have these devices in their hands that they think will get them through the rest of their life, and they are failing in life…” It is like an able-bodied child being lulled into a motorized wheelchair, forsaking the healthy use of his legs for the ease of being transported. Instead of exercising his mind, he staves off boredom and self-medicates with continual dopamine hits via TikTok. Intellectually weak, unmotivated, oblivious to the patterns of history, and easily programmed by whatever his screen puts out, he will soon become a useful idiot for the next tyrannical regime. And it’s not just the kids that are casualties; we’re losing the good teachers like Hannah, too.
So, what is to be done? While technology is, of course, not the only contributing factor to the decline in American education, it is certainly something to be examined. If you have the ambition to take up this fight with your local school, most assuredly, do so.
But in my opinion, the simplest solution is to remove your child from the situation completely. Bring him home, and inspire him with great works. Last week my teens begged me to continue reading aloud from Uncle Tom’s Cabin – a 500+-page tome nearly 200 years old – because good writing is naturally engaging.
Take control of the “what” as well as the “struggle” – sit alongside them as they work through a difficult math problem, a grammar issue, a controversial debate. Help them learn to labor and think, ask them tough questions, set growth-inducing expectations, and model the value of education to them through your own actions (personal reading, learning, and interest in the good, true, and beautiful).
Finally, use technology, but do it wisely, not as a substitute for learning, but as a bolster. Use AI as a partner in learning a new language, a research assistant in backing up both sides of an argument, a quick reference for scientific facts. Fill your house with real books, with real pages and ink. Make your home an environment rich in things that feed the mind as well as the body. You do have a choice in the matter. The more you nurture the natural curiosity innate in every child, the greater he will stand out from this stunted AI generation.
And, perhaps, someday he will be the next young teen sitting in a chair with a book, inspiring someone else to do the same.
