By Howard Hubler
I watch how the web, Facebook, and iPad video gaming amongst our very young are starting to destroy the fiber of individuality, not to mention the happiness in the cohesion of the young Indiana family. A young, new elementary schoolteacher I recently spoke with said these kids are highly independent to a fault. If you tell them to do something, such as put their computer away, they can be completely defiant and without coping skills. Many of them live in the world of knowledge whereby they are as much as one or two years behind in school level skills from their chronological age.
This teacher told me that often the problem is a student’s use of the iPad or the ability to control their parents’ phone. This habit becomes disruptive in class and creates an environment where the entire class has been pushed back in their school lessons. When you combine this with the pandemic and online schooling for a few years, this paints a very bleak picture of where American education and ultimately citizenship is headed.
Fast forward to today, most of these older kids have been raised on a computer and texting from the moment they could navigate a smart phone. Today they now find themselves in the world of business at the ripe old ages of 20-30. Yes, their social and coping skills are still not fully developed; their work ethic is frequently nonexistent.
Where is the school superintendent, teachers union, PTA and the elected school board on school citizenship and academics? Teachers help from somebody to come in and crack the code of this electronic, educational nightmare both at home and in the class. We may find ourselves imploding due to our own wholesale lack of initiative to deal with the problems in life and in the workplace. We all need to pitch in to foster a more social and critical-thinking child not tethered to iPads and social media.
