"My toaster has undergone more safety and efficacy testing than any piece of ed tech that's been put in front of our kids in the past 20 years."
That's according to Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a neuroscientist, university professor, and former classroom teacher whose book "The Digital Delusion" has become the center of a national conversation about screens in schools. He's testified before the U.S. Senate, and parents are handing out copies at school board meetings. Jared's argument is that we've spent 15 years and $400 billion building an ed tech industry on a promise that never came through, and that the tools we've handed kids are working against the way human beings actually learn.
I came into this conversation agreeing with a lot of his premise and pushing back on some of it, particularly the reliance on standardized test scores as evidence and the assumption that school was working well before devices showed up. Jared took the pushback seriously, and what came out of it is one of the deepest (and certainly lengthiest!) conversations I've had about whether the ed tech promise keeps failing and what teachers can actually do about it. We dig into:
We also get into what teachers can do Monday morning. Jared makes the case for reintroducing friction, eliminating tech as the default rather than banning it outright, what to say to admin and parents when you want to teach differently. Most importantly, Jared makes the case for teacher autonomy and why you need to trust your own expertise about student learning.
This conversation ended in a more hopeful place than I expected, and I hope you'll carve out some blocks of time to go deep with us on this topic. It takes time to tease out the nuance, and that's where the most important takeaways are.
LIsten on or read: https://truthforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/the-digital-delusion/