Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse Is Making Our Kids Dumber

by Joe Clement, Matt Miles

Overview

Over the past decade, educational instruction has become increasingly digitized as districts rush to dole out laptops and iPads to every student. Yet the most important question, “Is this what is best for students?” is glossed over. Veteran teachers Joe Clement and Matt Miles have seen firsthand how damaging technology overuse and misuse has been to our kids. On a mission to educate and empower parents, they show how screen saturation at home and school has created a wide range of cognitive and social deficits in our young people. They lift the veil on what’s really going on in schools: teachers who are often powerless to curb cell phone distractions; zoned-out kids who act helpless and are unfocused, unprepared, and unsocial; administrators who are influenced by questionable science sponsored by corporate technology purveyors. They provide action steps parents can take to demand change and make a compelling case for simpler, smarter, more effective forms of teaching and learning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613739518
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/01/2017
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Joe Clement and Matt Miles are award-winning teachers, coaches, and mentors with a combined thirty years’ experience improving the education of young people. They run the blog PaleoEducation.com and their writing has been featured in Psychology Today and the Washington Post. They are both parents and live in Northern Virginia.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note v

Introduction vii

1 These Kids Today 1

2 The Myth of the Technology-Enhanced Superkid 15

3 Reclaiming Your Child's Ability to Think 47

4 Learning to Focus in the High-Tech World of Distraction 75

5 Escaping the Digital World of Anxiety 107

6 Reestablishing Support from Home 127

7 Revitalizing Social Interaction 145

8 Technology Is Widening-Not Closing-the Achievement Gap 169

9 The Education-Industrial Complex 187

10 Ideal Education in a Modern World 211

Acknowledgments 237

Sources 239

Index 255

What People are Saying About This

Author of Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance - Dr. Nicholas Kardaras

“Bravo to Joe Clement and Matt Miles, two savvy and experienced teachers, for masterfully pulling back the veil of the tech-in- the-classroom hoax.”

Bestselling author of Sweet Poison and Free Schools - David Gillespie

"Clement and Miles succinctly lay out the compelling evidence against filling our classrooms with weapons of mass distraction and then tell us how to fix the damage already inflicted. This book is mandatory reading for teachers and parents alike."

Professor of Neurology at George Washington University - Richard E. Cytowic

"A sobering exposure of the damage wrought by constant screen exposure on developing brains. These veteran teachers refute the over–promised claims of Ed–Tech peddlers, and show us why screens undermine learning and leave kids unable to think on their own."

Author of Mind Change - Susan Greenfield

"An urgent wake-up call for anyone interested in how screen use in schools is damaging kids and education."

Author of Wired Child - Dr. Richard Freed

"With striking clarity, Screen Schooled reveals why an education increasingly centered around digital devices is failing our children. Two veteran teachers, Clement and Miles, expertly illuminate the need to teach kids problem solving, critical thinking, and other skills demanded in today’s economy. Get this must-read book!"

Editorial Reviews

08/21/2017
In this astute exposé, teachers and education bloggers Clement and Miles team up to draw attention to what they see as the overuse of technology in education. According to the authors (who claim not to be antitechnology curmudgeons), too much screen time at home and in the classroom has resulted in students who lack focus, critical-thinking skills, and—despite the proliferation of social media platforms—meaningful social engagement. Also alarming, Clement and Miles contend, is that the educational system has bought into the “myth” that kids benefit from high-tech learning environments: they observe that the research supporting this claim comes via the very “ed-tech” companies that stand to benefit financially from selling technology to schools. The authors shore up their stance with anecdotes and statistics (e.g., the average teen spends nine hours a day consuming entertainment media) and share some worrisome reports from classrooms populated by “digital natives,” such as one concerning AP economics students too distracted by their phones to complete an elementary paper-cutting exercise. Many chapters conclude with action steps parents can take to limit screen time at home; the authors also give educators ideas for limiting technology use at school. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Screen Schooled is the most vivid, intelligent, and compelling book I have yet seen on what technology is doing for, and to, our schools.” —Jay Mathews, author of Work Hard. Be Nice. How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America



“A sobering exposure of the damage wrought by constant screen exposure on developing brains. These veteran teachers show us why screens undermine learning and leave kids unable to think on their own.” —Richard E. Cytowic, MD, professor of neurology at George Washington University and author of the “The Fallible Mind” column at PsychologyToday.com


“With striking clarity, Screen Schooled reveals why an education increasingly centered around digital devices is failing our children.” —Richard Freed, PhD, author of Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age



“Bravo to Joe Clement and Matt Miles, two savvy and experienced teachers, for masterfully pulling back the veil of the tech-in-the-classroom hoax.” —Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, author of Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance



“Joe Clement and Matt Miles lay out a pressing truth that runs squarely against the hype of education technology: screens are not the key to achievement. They are a glossy distraction from the real intellectual work of learning.” —Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30)



"An urgent wake-up call based on first-hand experience for anyone interested in how screen use in schools is damaging kids and education." —Susan Greenfield, author of Mind Change: How Digital Technologies Are Leaving Their Mark on Our Brains


“I am deluged with education books, but this one was hard to put down."—The Washington Post


"In this astute exposé, teachers and education bloggers Clement and Miles team up to draw attention to what they see as the overuse of technology in education." —Publishers Weekly 

From the Publisher