2023-2024
Volume 27, Issue 3
About U.S.
A Publishing Tradition of the Unquowa School
A Message From the Head of School
U
nquowa has long been a school that asks students to turn off and store their cell phones from arrival at school until getting into transportation at the end of the day. We have always been a school that builds outdoor play into its daily curriculum, and our teachers understand the value of lowsupervised recess from early childhood through 8th grade. We have always been a school that fiercely protects the meaningful inclusion of the visual and performing arts for students - young and old - while managing to also provide a substantial curriculum of critical thinking, reading and writing, and a math program that guarantees students’ completion of at least algebra but often geometry before they graduate and move on to day and boarding high schools. So when Jonathan Haidt’s latest book, The Anxious Generation, arrived to rave reviews this past March, I was enthusiastic not because it was a new message for our school but because it reinforced what we already believe and practice. My hope was that Haidt’s book would offer additional advice on how both schools and families can support young children and adolescents to live thoughtfully in a world of increasing technology. In our hearts, we all know that children need to spend their growing years in the real world, not the curated online one, if they are to develop a strong sense of social and emotional well-being. Living with hours of online life - be it in front of an iPad as a toddler or on social media and online games as an older child - gives the developing minds of children and adolescents a false sense of who they are in relationship to the real world and consequently can lead to the anxiety and depression that Jonathan Haidt’s research describes. Haidt’s book has been a welcome reinforcement to the conversations our faculty have already begun to have about the challenge of keeping the impact of cell phones and social media out of our school day. Younger and younger children own phones, phones have become wristwatches, and the creep of kids’ creative
access to chatrooms and social media sites competes with our ability as a school to use meaningful learning software like Google classroom during our school day while still keeping our kids’ minds in the real classroom with their teachers and classmates. Turning off cells and storing them during the school day is no longer enough. We have realized that more is needed if as a school we are to improve our ability to protect our kids from the subtle growing impact of the online world while continuing to recognize and use the aspects of technology that truly do contribute to rich learning. Our faculty do not want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and become Luddites; we want to be thoughtful and careful educators. With that in mind, this past spring we assigned The Anxious Generation as summer reading for all members of our school community, both faculty and staff. We also invited parents to join us in this summer reading and have scheduled an interactive book discussion for Thursday, October 10th for the community to follow. Faculty, Unquowa families - present and past - and community guests will gather to discuss this challenge. We will suggest how we can work together - home and school - to thoughtfully improve our children’s and our own relationship with technology. Yes, that means modeling as well. We adults need to learn how to put down our phones and to stop scrolling when we are with our young people. I watch our kids throughout the school day here at Unquowa and I have not lost hope. What I most often see is curiosity and real interaction with each other and a genuine desire for involvement in the real world with their classmates and teachers. We have only to model and support that real interaction and involvement to turn the tide we see coming. Could a sabbatical from our own devices one hour a day, one day a week, one week a year be a brave start? Wishing you all a restful summer offline…
Sharon Lauer, Head of School