When I taught grade school, one of my favorite things was watching the kids at recess. Usually the girls were clusters of plaid jumpers playing horse, acting out plays, or building fairy forts. Boys carried sticks (secretly sharpening them until they were confiscated), played football, and managed to get dirt on every single piece of clothing.
But some weeks nearly everyone played together, joining in an invented game called “Infection.” It had been handed down for years on that playground, and despite my attempts to figure it out, I still don’t understand the rules.
These sorts of complicated, made-up games were once commonplace, but they’re becoming a rarity in our digital world. Indeed, the kids in my school likely only played them thanks to the lack of screens their parents and teachers tried to keep to a minimum in their young lives.
In many ways, my deepest hope for my students is that they remain childlike in certain senses – to play silly games at recess, to learn boundaries with their peers face-to-face, and, for the time being, preserve their innocence.
Sadly, the digital world we live in doesn't let childhood like this survive. So what do our kids miss when we give them a digital childhood rather than a screen-free one? Here are a few observations I gleaned from the kids in my classroom over the years.
First, kids are sponges for learning. Shove an iPad under their noses and they become empty bins, for doing so skips the most important part of receptivity in learning. It’s active absorption, not passive compliance, that allows a child to truly engage and make a piece of information a part of themselves.
A screen free childhood, however, cultivates the mind.
Without screens, a child can grapple with ideas and frustrations. I witnessed children do this in our school’s monthly philosophy class, a seminar-style discussion where, to their great frustration, I would Socratically only pose questions, not answers. There, the age-old question, “What is happiness?” was discussed heatedly, and though one singular answer wasn’t quite nailed down, they got closer to the answer than most adults I’ve heard try to answer the question. Witnessing children use their brains in this way was extremely rewarding.
In a screen-free classroom, children can truly engage in their education because they are interacting with their teacher and their classmates – even if unwillingly so. That may make for messier moments and chaotic classes, but it’s all worth the reward: their participation. Once a child feels that their work is their own, a part of themselves applied to a project or assignment rather than just a regurgitation of what was crammed in their brain, they will want to make it even more their own.
Screens deaden children’s minds, mentally paralyzing them with constant entertainment, stunting them from being imaginative, feral jumbles of energy.
That energy needs to be preserved. Learning to play is one of the ways a child learns to use his intellect. And allowing kids to amuse themselves is what lays the groundwork for critical thinking and self-motivation.
Yes, learning requires docility … but docility implies a pre-existing boisterousness. Kids need to learn to employ their intellect and harness their will if they are ever to use either well in the future and suppressing both by screen-hypnosis won’t do that.
But cultivating an environment where children can truly interact with learning also breeds another important element of life: enthusiastic creativity.
There should be no jaded eyes, no vacancy or hollowness in gaze of a fifth grader. Instead, there should be vibrancy: thoughts they are learning to not always express, an inner life bubbling over, the tension between doing what they want and doing what they are told. I don’t want zombies in my class, I want a bunch of rowdy children.
I found many a pinecone on my seat, frog in a pencil case, and stinkbug habitat smuggled inside. I experienced snarkiness, breakdowns, tears – drama too – from my students. But these were the fifth grade personalities that could also hold a spontaneous history debate in-class on whether 19th century America should have remained agricultural or shifted to industrialization.
One of my students, for example, was the owner of a very large, prized trash collection – largely busted-up pens that paired will with his perpetually ink-stained hands – that had become a treasure hoard amongst the boys. He begged to keep it on his desk. Behavior like that doesn’t scream intelligentsia, yet this same student once randomly quoted Benjamin Franklin during a class discussion on the debauchery and corruption which caused the Fall of Rome.
In essence a child’s mischief and frenzy isn’t a deterrent to education. It’s the creative spark behind a love for learning. It just needs to be channeled properly.
Like it or not, our society is suffocated by the virtual world. Of course, it’s not all bad, nor is it all avoidable. But trying to be screen-free, at least as much as possible, will help our children immensely, allowing their imaginations to flourish and their intellects to develop. Yes, they may have more energy and sass than we feel we can handle, but if it’s disciplined and channeled properly, it will get them far in life. And ultimately, that is a vital step towards true engagement, not just with school, but with the world and the meaning of life.
Anna Barren holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Christendom College and has been published in The Epoch Times, The Federalist, and the Smoky Mountain News.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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