Are Our Screens and Devices Harming the Very Students We Serve? Perhaps, Here's a Book to Spark Critical Thinking about Device Addiction in Schools

 In order to Disrupt the passive, uncritical acceptance of all things technological into schools, I recommend that school leaders and all educators add Jared Coooney Horvath's "The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning—And How to Help Them Thrive Again" to their reading list.

It really isn't about "banning all screens" in schools; it's about not allowing devices and tech determine what happens in our classrooms and with our students.

Horvath rightfully captures how we as educators have been complicit in turning the control of education over to companies who have made big promises that have not panned out. In fact, the evidence is growing, despite dismissal by the tech evangelical movement, that there is some actual harm caused by this proliferation of technologies.

Don't forget, the smartphone and its apps, especially social media apps, are designed to be addictive and to "capture eyeballs" and we have invited these into our classrooms with open arms. 

Horvath is correct in his whole premise that we need to wrestle back control of our education system, our schools, our classrooms, and our instruction from devices.

It doesn't mean a complete ban; it means removing tech from its central pedestal on which we have placed it.

I could see using this book as a faculty-wide read with some powerful and lively discussions on the rightful place of technologies in our schools and in our lives.

Horvath even offers many hands-on ideas to implement a EdTech Detoxification Process in schools or even in our lives as parents.

If we are going to foster critical examination of EdTech and the constant flow of gadgets from Silicon Valley this book is a good place to start.