Sometimes the best teaching tools are right under our noses.
Because I work with many children, ‘tweens,” teens and young adults, it comes as no surprise that I also spend a fair amount of time teaching, setting limits and dealing with issues related to all things online. We’ve become, all of us, a culture that has suddenly become attached and frequently addicted to our electronic devises. Shock, I know.
While running groups, especially for teens, I’ve watched how they’ve perfected their skills of sitting in a circle of their peers, with knees up or jacket on their laps and “attempt” to hide the fact that they’re checking their phonesduring group time. (I almost always nail them…with delight! I caught one girl by having a text ready to go before group, then pressed "send" ten minutes into group that read, "shut it off!") As for some parents, yes parents, even after our state enacted no-texting laws while driving, I’m reasonably sure that some parents are still texting away as they drive down the road to pick up their children from school, sports, and sometimes even my office. How do I know? I had one teenjust recently say to me, “Oh, my mom is almost here, she just texted me and she’s on Route 6” The lunacy of this practice is well documented by many, and by me as well here, so no need to drum away on it now.
So it’s clear that our little devices have given us what we think we want. Now all we need is an app. to bring us some class, courtesy and some discipline to know when we need to shut these damn things off, set them to vibrate and then not wait to hear them vibrating, or get up to go check them every 30 seconds. Can we do that? No of course not!
Recently Microsoft has been running ads about their latest handheld, and even though this video is also an advertisement, the angle that this ad campaign is taking is both telling and instructive. You’ll laugh when you view it, but I hope that many will take a moment to ponder its deeper meaning, too.
Kevin Lee
