There are some low-effort changes schools can make to improve students’ ability to focus in class.skynesher/Getty Images
There is an attention crisis in Canada’s public schools. Thanks to overly lenient and inconsistent phone policies, along with an enthusiastic embrace of educational technology, we have created conditions that make it more difficult than ever for students to focus on learning, which happens to be the point of going to school.
Most senior-level students are allowed to keep smartphones on their person, which means they will spend a good chunk of the day ignoring their teacher while scrolling through social media, playing games, watching YouTube videos and responding to parents’ texts. Others escape into their devices during lunch, recess and bathroom breaks, avoiding social interaction.
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When teachers do manage to wrench their attention away from phones, students then stare at laptops or tablets that have been deemed a critical component of their education, despite evidence showing that students who use laptops for schoolwork spend 38 minutes of every hour off-task and cannot go more than six minutes without looking at distracting content.
The current arrangement isn’t working. For the first time in human history, children are less cognitively capable than the previous generation. Neuroscientist and educator Dr. Jared Cooney-Horvath writes in The Digital Delusion that Gen Z children (born 1997-2012) score worse on literacy, numeracy, creativity and general IQ than their parents did at the same age, and early data from Gen Alpha (born after 2012) suggests that the decline is accelerating. This should be cause for concern, if not widespread outrage.
The obvious solution is for all provincial education departments to mandate a strict bell-to-bell phone ban that physically separates students from their devices for the duration of the school day, including lunch and recess. (As an author and speaker, I have visited U.S. schools that have introduced such restrictions with fabulous results, so I know it’s possible.) But Canada continues to lag behind, which is as disappointing as it is irresponsible.
The good news, however, is that there are some simple changes that schools can make to improve students’ ability to focus in class. Best of all, these low-effort, high-impact changes do not require formal policy changes, committees or financial outlay.
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Ditch the QR codes
Some teachers use QR codes to give students homework assignments. It may feel convenient for the teacher who saves time and paper, but it’s inconvenient for the student who must fend off (or succumb to) distraction while reading the assignment on their phone. QR codes appear on promotional posters and are used for surveys after assemblies and in-class presentations. They send a contradictory message about a school’s stance on smartphones, so it’s best not to use them at all.
No social media for teams or clubs
Any extracurricular team, club or activity that is affiliated with a school should not be permitted to create an Instagram page or Snapchat group for vital communications. It puts tremendous pressure on families who are trying to delay their kids’ use of social media–a reasonable thing to do if a child is under 16. Instead, teams can use an e-mail newsletter, a Google document, a regularly updated website, a group messaging app that is accessible from a computer or even an old-fashioned bulletin board.
No more devices for games or free time
Online game platforms such as Kahoot and Blooket are often used to entertain students once the formal lesson is done, played either on a classroom device or a student’s own phone. This is more a time-filler than a productive practice. There is abundant research showing that “gamification” doesn’t work; for example, the maker of Prodigy, a popular math game, revealed that it takes an average of 888 questions to improve a standardized test score by a single point. Furthermore, offering screen-based play as a reward can motivate a child to rush through their work in order to get to the device.
AirPods don’t belong in class
I hear from my teenage sons that many high school students spend the entire day wearing a single AirPod, listening to music and, allegedly, the teacher. While music has its place, I do not believe that is in the classroom, through personal headphones. Instead, we should be making every effort to minimize external distractions and make it as easy as possible for students to pay attention and focus on learning.
These few simple changes won’t solve the broader problem of superfluous EdTech and phones in schools, but they can help reinforce teachers in the continuing battle for students’ attention. At the same time, such changes send a powerful message that students’ right to a high-quality education takes priority over administrative convenience.
Katherine Johnson Martinko is a Canadian writer and the author of the 2023 book Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance. She writes about digital minimalism, parenting and technology in her e-mail newsletter, The Analog Family.