Innocence and childhood
Defending child rights
Usually I write with a point of view that ‘there is no should be’. But today I find myself in a world of ‘should be’s. For example I believe we should be protecting our children’s innocence and for their childhood. It is their basic right as a child. I do believe this is where we can apply ‘should be’ to our thinking.
The article
I was recently reading this article from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/dec/11/swiped-the-school-that-banned-smartphones-review-channel-4
The article was highlighting the overwhelming negative effects that smart phones have on our youth. It highlighted the sense that ‘to be’ was ‘to be on their phone’. Identity is realised online, through their phone. The article describes, “how detrimental an endlessly refreshing feed is to sleep, concentration, inner peace and general happiness.”
Statistics
Frightening statistics were revealed in this article. “The totally ordinary children involved in the experiment reveal some horrifying numbers: one child got her first phone at four, another says she once woke up to 3000 notifications, another spent almost 10 hours a day on his phone during the summer holidays. We learn that a quarter of 11 year olds have seen pornography, while research show first-time users to porn sites tend to be shown violence or nonconsensual sex.”
At the end, the article concluded that the social life, home life and school life of youth was so completely tied in to their functioning and existence through their phone, that it was ultimately impossible to conceive the notion of ever living without their smart phones. Though they did seem to manage for the three weeks in a bid to make it onto the map, to be part of something wider.
Children are not being safe guarded for innocence and for their childhood.
Another article reveals our precarious situation
In the Borders and the central belt of Scotland, schools provided 44,000 iPads to school children from p4. They are compulsory for pupils in school to view, complete and submit assignments, access resources and email. This article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czr36828mg1o reveals the struggles that staff find themselves with, with the iPads not fully secure from inappropriate content, such as pornography and executions.
The article describes the struggle of children’s ability to switch off ‘Safe Search’ as a search engine function, and that filters are not foolproof. The Edinburgh City Council’s head of education, Jackie Reid is quoted at the end of the article, massively prioritising ‘the learning potential of electronic devices’. In addressing the issue of content accessibility she seems to much prefer the apparent educational benefits of the technology, over the safeguarding of our young ones’ minds from violating content, that it “…needs to be balanced with the need to enable teaching and learning to take place and also the rights of children to access information.”
Learning happens outside anyway
The irony is of course that good learning happens when children are physically and actively engaged, as explained in the inspiring book, “Smart Moves, Why learning Is Not All In Your Head”, by Carla Hannaford. Hannaford describes the importance of active learning with science, and through interesting and heart felt anecdotes. Through her book we discover the innate need to move and participate for proper brain development and to learn.
A poor attempt at raising children
With this in mind it is very clear that even the basics in literacy skills and spacial reasoning (analytical teaching) does not need to be taught on an iPad. Once again iPads are an unsustainable attempt at child care – a ‘solution’ conjured up in a streamlining head office far away from the children who are now increasingly being raised by AI with a negligible filter. There needs to be a priority for safe guarded child care, family life and connection with trustworthy adults for children’s innocence and for their childhood.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/balancing-internet-in-education/
Who is responsible for boundaries? The children? Really?
Finally, in a stroke of incredulity, the council’s head of education Jackie Reid prefers to put the responsibility on to the children, the impressionable school pupils who are looking for and learning about what kind of behaviour society expects from them. The children are actively following examples set by those influential people around them. Reid claims that children need to learn how to use the (infested) technology appropriately. She said, “we also have to educate our learners the appropriate behaviours required to allow for safe internet use.”
Of course, we wouldn’t serve alcohol and drugs in the school cafeteria, and claim we were teaching them to make good decisions, a point made by my husband. Interestingly, there are all sorts of less desirable options (sugar, preservatives and caffeine packed foods) that are not necessarily ideal for growth and brain development, nor ‘enables teaching and learning to take place’, (as asserted of utmost importance, far above morality and ethical choices by Jackie Reid).
I think it is safe to say that schools don’t consider themselves responsible for, nor have the energy to be vigilant, to ‘educate our learners’ in making these kind of decision. Children are not being protected for their innocence and for their childhood.
Peer and AI led upbringing
But regarding unprotected internet usage, we should be. We should be safe guarding our children, and not just giving them these devices. Allowing children access to explicit material is barbaric. The pendulum always swings, and future generations will look back in dismay that we did not properly protect our children for their innocence and childhood.
What children learn at their desks is only a small part of what adds to who they are. They’re learning by taking in the world around them. The world that we describe to them with our actions and what we provide them with. Even if they are expected to sit and learn analytically from their iPads (which is a shadow of an education and upbringing), what they are truly learning is not the information of academics.
In school, what they are learning, and actively looking for (whilst sitting stationary) is what world do they live in, and what shape (morally, behaviourally, physically etc) they should take to integrate successfully. Finally, they are being allowed to choose, at a very young age what internet based sub culture they will associate themselves with. It is not a culture that us parents and teachers are part of. But it is a culture that we are facilitating them with through providence of time and resources, and perhaps an occasional rolling of the eyes.
Community, the example of adults for a moral ethos
Our children’s perceived existence is shaped by the values and providence of those responsible for them. As parents, we should be defending them with a moral ethos. Children require genuine connection with their community and their family, and the adults are required to lead, for their innocence and for their childhood.
Who will draw the line? Only parents will stand for their children
Schools are not going to make a moral decision here. This huge ship is not modelled to facilitate genuine care giving. The appeal to streamline and create a factory line conveyor belt of convenience has made not only iPads a compulsory part of the whole school day, but schools also require smart phones for ease of ordering lunch. (Yes, ordering, anyone else see the gaping hole of an opportunity missed here?)
Despite all evidence of the highly detrimental effects of smart gadgets, schools are ever increasing reliance on these devices. They work for affordable learning resources (never mind the lack of creativity, nor the tactile learning and pragmatic intelligence that is being bypassed).
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/what-should-i-teach-my-homeschool-children/
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/fostering-creativity-in-everyday-life/
Who is raising our children?
But they also succeed (somewhat) in providing a bums on seats version of child care and supervision. We can talk about the growing number of children not fitting into the system, and the overwhelm in the behavioural units another time.
The machine wasn’t designed to show compassion
The educational institution was never going to choose a moral high ground here. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about the endless cuts and streamlining of staff and resources. Additionally, teachers are not allowed to assert any kind of point of view on boundaries crossed. In the clouds of the head office, there are not many that would have the guts to outline an ethical and moral high ground of boundaries and expectations for the children, for their innocence and for their childhood, that these schools are apparently raising. No-one wants to be the prude.
Being a ‘prude’ was not originally an insult. Prudence was originally a virtue. In real life, where we would value humanity, prudence shows compassion.
Our children will learn what’s in front of them, like it or not
But our children are sponges. They are learning the language of their culture, whether expressed by their peers or waved at by their teachers. Or whether they’re viewing it on the screens, big and little, blatant or brazen or a search in the shadows. Whether as their parents or as their teachers we need to be setting the example. We need to be putting up the boundaries. Phones do not need to be a normal part of a child’s life, nor an adolescent’s.
Dopamine
We would ideally set up a structure where children can boost their dopamine through voluntary exercise, sleep, music and socialising with one another, rather than with faces in their phones.
How much are they really socialising?
It is ironic that people value socialising so highly in the school education of their child when so little time can actually be spent in genuine connection with one another. Socialising is one of the main concerns people tend to have on my behalf regarding our homeschooled children. But they have a life of genuine connection with those around them.
Protect the children – their right to an unviolated childhood
For their innocence and for their childhood. But more than anything, we, as the adults in society have an obligation to protect our children from the harmful content that is so prevalent on the internet. Rather than seeing that as over protecting, I believe it should be seen as defending their right to a childhood. It is defending their right to innocence. It is absurd that we should overlook what the children in our society are being exposed to.
It is in actual fact a form of child neglect, to overlook children being exposed to pornographic and explicit content. And that they are actually provided with the means, is child abuse.
Adults must now take on the baton of responsibility
Adults must establish an ethos that involves moral integrity. Young girls, children in fact, cannot be led to believe that it is normal to engage sexually at their young age. They cannot be led to believe that their worth is of a sexual nature. Especially when we consider the precarious unsafety of it, that they, and the young boys (also children), are also being exposed to violent or nonconsensual sex, as written about in the article mentioned above.
This is where the peer led orientation pendulum has swung way too far. Adults must be bringing up our children, and adults with a mature and moral ethos – adults willing to be ‘boring’ and set the boundaries. Parents who prioritise their children’s innocence and for their childhood, need to think about the true implications of caving in to peer-parent-pressure. Teachers have a compromised time of it on all fronts – headquarters, parents, pupils, staff hierarchy, school rivalry and cut backs mean that it must be nigh impossible to respond in the face of all the developmental needs of the children. But schools that prioritise the future outcome of their youth need to stand straight in the face of peer-parent-teacher-pressure.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/religious-and-moral-studies-in-education/