Dear Families and Students,
We hope this email finds you enjoying the warmer spring weather and sunshine!
As a Seventh Grade Team, we have been invested in teaching our students about setting appropriate boundaries when it comes to technology use in our classrooms. According to a majority of parents, based on research from the 2020 Pew Research Center, 71% are concerned about their students getting too much screen time. We agree! As teachers, it is a major concern as anxiety disorders, addictive behaviors, and disconnections occur more readily in our students. We believe in creating structures that keep technology in its place, and we have created a good balance between using technology and using hard-copy books and literature to offset the digital. In many instances, we give students the choice of completing the activity or assignment digitally or hard-copy. This empowers students to use technology in meaningful ways, focused on what product they want to produce, depending on the activity.
At the start of each class period, students place their phones in pockets at the front of the room. We have set up this structure since the start of the year, but recently, we noticed that fewer students have been following this procedure. We ask for your help at home in reminding our students that iPhones are not allowed in the classroom, in desks, or in pant pockets during class. Each student must place their phone in the phone pocket at the start of class, or keep their phones in their backpack in their lockers. We have put this structure in place to create a healthy boundary and set class time apart from online “social media” time. Notifications and the tendency to get on the iPhone is so tempting! With the phones in their place, we can focus on our content skills and curriculum study.
We also ask that you speak to your child about iPad games. We understand that games are very readily available on the internet and on the iPad. Even so, these games take up a lot of energy and time from your students’ learning. They also feed into mindless behaviors and waste valuable learning time. A discussion at home would help us as we are giving this message in school, but we are finding reminders are necessary. Our messaging is focused on students using self-control, focusing on their priorities, and using school time appropriately. We know that having your support system at home working collaboratively at the same message will help our students set boundaries around technology use.
We thank you for your cooperation and collaboration around setting boundaries with our technology use in school. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns!
Sincerely,
The Seventh Grade Teachers
