A Delicate Balance
Our school has taken great pride in our innovative and creative approach to the education of young children. I remember our Board of Trustees working on the first strategic plan that I was involved in shortly after becoming Head of School back in 2007-08 school year. One of the parts of this plan was the desire for our school to become a leader in the Chattanooga area of approaching education with the mindset of innovation and creativity. As a result of that plan, we hired Mr. Chambers and one of his first tasks was to help infuse our classrooms with technology and to help our teachers with the implementation of technology like iPads into our classroom. Through the years we have continued to be innovative adding programs like our 4 C’s curriculum, CAT days, STEM lab, world languages, and many other experiences for our students that truly separate our program from the many other independent school choices that parents have in the Chattanooga area. As we have continued to grow and gain a better understanding of how children learn, a relatively new concern has become a reality - the amount of time our students spend looking at a screen each day. In our endeavor to be innovative, we placed iPads in every classroom in our building. While I remain convinced, and research clearly shows that there are benefits to students using tablets, we must also be cognitive of the amount of screen time they accumulate each day. I will reluctantly admit that as a parent, I have put a screen (either a movie in the car, or an tablet/phone of some sorts) in my children’s hands more than once to occupy them. Research is now showing that we must be more aware of how much time our children are spending on screens. Our approach at BBS is to be intentional and purposeful with tablet use/screen time. They are not used as time fillers, or time wasters (which, many of us struggle with!). Smart phones and tablets have become so ingrained into our daily lives that it is hard to remember that tablets themselves were not even available 10 years ago. Let that sink in and consider how much has changed in a relatively short time. Because tablets are relatively new, the research that study their affects are now becoming more available. I hope you will take a few minutes to read the story by Sandeeps LaMotte with CNN that is linked below. I am a