John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, write about what matters most to students today: learning to pay attention in a world of screens and distractions.
He writes:
D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh, and Peter Schmidt begin their New York Times opinion piece, “Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can fight Back,” with an eloquent version of a statement that should have long been obvious:
We are witnessing the dark side of our new technological lives, whose extractive profit models amount to the systematic fracking of human beings: pumping vast quantities of high-pressure media content into our faces to force up a spume of the vaporous and intimate stuff called attention, which now trades on the open market. Increasingly powerful systems seek to ensure that our attention is never truly ours.
Then Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt use equally insightful language to explain why “We Can Fight Back” against “the little satanic mills that live in our pockets.” They recall that “for two centuries, champions of liberal democracy have agreed that individual and collective freedom requires literacy.” Today we face widespread complaints that reading is being undermined by “perpetual distraction,” due to commercial use of digital technologies. They add, “What democracy most needs now is an attentive citizenry — human beings capable of looking up from their screens, together.”
“Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can Fight Back” calls for a “revolution [which] starts in our classrooms.” They explain, “We must flip the script on teachers’ perennial complaint. Instead of fretting that students’ flagging attention doesn’t serve education, we must make attention itself the thing being taught.” They draw upon the work of “informal coalitions of educators, activists and artists who are conducting grass-roots experiments to try to make that possible. Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt call it “attention activism.
Due to these worldwide efforts, “common ground is rediscovered in the weave of collective attention.” They seek ways “to create, beyond the confines of our personalized digital universes, something resembling a shared world.” One set of starting places, museums, public libraries, universities, as well as classrooms, remind me of a time when I was a student, and the first half of my teaching career, when field trips were widely celebrated, and before critical thinking was subordinated to test prep.
“Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can fight Back” recommends another practice that I’ve long struggled with, “observations of absolutely whatever unfolds in the world,” in order pay “particular attention to the supposedly mundane … events that might under normal circumstances have gone unnoted.” It reminded me of a conversation with a student where we agreed that we don’t want to depend on beer or marijuana in order to fully appreciate a sunset. It was hard for me to later realize that I also took that shortcut in order to slow down and fully appreciate such beauty.
Next, I left my computer, and my dog and I got into our complicated new hybrid car to take a short ride to the park for a walk. Of course, the irony of driving to the walk is obvious. Then I figured out how to push the buttons for defrosting the window, rather than scrape the ice off. But then, technology taught me a new skill for paying attention to “normal circumstances” that had “gone unnoted.” I became enthralled the bubbles that broke loose from the coat of ice as it melted and dripped down the windshield. (Perhaps due to that experience, the park’s beautiful fall colors were even more awesome.)
Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt also reminded me of conversations I had had as a young Baby Boomer with family members, neighbors and other mentors. So many adults coached me on developing “inner directedness,” not “outer-directedness,” and to not be “like the Red River, a mile wide and a foot deep.” I was taught that my real goal shouldn’t be higher grades, but “learning how to learn.” And I’ll never forget the elementary school principal who took us to the junior high to watch Edward R. Murrow interviewing John Maynard Keynes, about the real purpose of school – which was not getting a job. Our goal should be learning how to learn how to be creative after technology reduced the workweek into 15 hours.
Of course, that hopefulness seems laughable today, but it brings us back to Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt and their diagnosis of why today’s technology has become so destructive. They linked to ATTENTION LIBERATION MOVEMENTS(or ALMS) that resist the “powerful new financial, commercial, and technological system that is commodifying human attention as never before.” It promotes “RADICAL HUMAN ATTENTION” to nurture “unrivaled access to the goodness of life;” and second, “that present circumstances present new and imperiling obstacles to human attentional capacities.” For instance, these bottom-up efforts seek to educate young people how, “We operate in a world in which attention is increasingly bought and sold. Bought and sold by powerful interests, pursuing wealth — pursuing ‘eyeballs,’” on screens.
And, of course, the subsequent undermining of inner-directedness, social ties, and critical thinking paved the way to today’s rightwing assault on democracy.
Although I was never as eloquent as Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt, but I’ve unsuccessfully advocated for their type of approach for a quarter of a century. My first encounter with a cell phone occurred the day after a gang-related murder when my students affiliated with the “Crips” stared at a new student, a “Blood,” who was secretly typing into a gadget I’d never seen before, who was requesting armed backup. Given the way that cell phones, predictably, increased violence and, predictably, undermined classroom instruction, I lobbied for our school to commit to regulating phones and engaging in cross-generational conversations about digital literacy and ethics.
Although I personally communicated with my students about “using digital technology,” but “not being used by it,” our school system refused to touch these issues. Before long, watching students who were glued to their phones, it seemed obvious we were also facing a crisis of loneliness, made much, much worse by screen time.
My personal experience thus gives me reasons for both hope and pessimism. Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt build on the same human community strengths that were crucial for me, and embraced by students in our phone-free classroom. But I can’t ignore the three decades of refusals by the systems I’ve worked with to tackle the challenge.
Then again, on the same day that the New York Times commentary was published, National Public Radio reported that California “joins a growing movement to teach media literacy.” The next day, the Washington Post called on parents to support a ban on smartphones. So, maybe the time is right for the wisdom of Burnett, Loh, and Schmidt, who make the case for “what democracy most needs now is an attentive citizenry — human beings capable of looking up from their screens, together.”
I think these smartphone bans in schools make a lot of sense.
The Aldo Leopold Nature Center has a really cool article posted about the Possum. I guess it’s what you pay attention to.
One of our teachers used some rudimentary yoga techniques in her elementary class. After students eat lunch, they go outside to play. When they return to class, they are all wound up. This first grade teacher taught student how to self-regulate through a couple minutes of deep breathing and calming visualization.
Some schools have been experimenting with mindfulness and even yoga with success. As a result, discipline referrals have declined. However, these strategies are not a replacement for psychological therapy for children that have a mental illness, and they are not a cure all. The goal of mindfulness and other such programs is for students to become more aware and exercise self control and enhance well-being. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/804971750/schools-are-embracing-mindfulness-but-practice-doesnt-always-make-perfect
I considered doing that, but in Southern Florida, doing anything yogalike in class is thought of by the local brain trust as Satanism.
DeSantis wants to ban all social-emotional learning so he would definitely oppose mindfulness.
Best thing about my son’s private school?…..NO cell phone use inside the school building and if caught, the phone confiscated (a parent was made to come in for a conference to retrieve the phone) and 6 days of detention (meaning at least 1 Saturday morning!). Lunch was meant for eating and conversing, free periods were meant for homework/projects/extra help/conversing. The behavior was much better and more respectful than at the public school that my 1st child attended.
Ironic that I would not have known this without my cell phone
Fascinating layers of writing….the original Times piece then John Thompson’s thoughtful take on it.
As one of the few people I know who is not carrying around a smart phone, I kind of view myself as a control group…often of one, ha, ha.
It’s an odd feeling watching a room full of people, each focused on their phones, quietly, deeply immersed, clicking away.
It’s somehow different from when people were busy in a room doing whatever they were doing…. back in those pre-cell phone days.
I sometimes feel like I’m looking into a tank of water, and my fellow humans are suspended on the other side of thick glass, breathing in another realm. Bubbles come through the water to me. (I hesitate to say “up” because that perhaps implies I am somewhere above them. I’m just somewhere….else.)
I have a long list of reasons for not carrying around a phone. How long can I keep going on like this…who knows? (I’m part of a study of an experimental vaccine, for example, but only because my wife happened to have her smart phone with her that morning for the medical staff to “plug me in”, so to speak.)
I’m more worried about our machines (as I always describe phones, computers etc….. ) than vaccines, ha, ha. The vaccines seem to get more scrutiny than the consumer items we so casually buy.
So, thinking about technology and the impact it’s having on us….absolutely yes!
BTW I sometimes wonder how this place, Diane’s blog, her living room, has changed over the years as more people connect via phones rather than desktop computers?
I sometimes get the sense that by the time I see a post, think about and come up with something relatively coherent to say…..well…..time has moved on.
Things just keep moving faster…everywhere.
Good morning Diane and everyone,
My mother always said, “What’s the secret to success? Pay attention!”🙂
You had a wonderful mother, Mamie!
Thanks Diane. She was great. Not without shortcomings, flaws, etc. A few other gems from mom:
Everyone’s flawed. (A biggie!)
You are distinguished by your enemies.
RHIP (Rank has its privilege) – meaning that she got to make the decisions because she “outranked” me!
Because I said so (a biggie)
Complainers are volunteers (meaning don’t just complain, start working on the problem)
What comes around goes around.
Life gives you all the lessons you need.
Don’t look for trouble. It will find you soon enough.
You teach other’s how to treat you. (One of my favorites! I use that with students all the time.)
You have to know the dark to know the light .
Lighten up! You’re too intense! (That one was especially for me!)
And the one she loved most:
It’s my job to teach baby bird to fly.
And she did.🙂
This year my school switched to no cell phone use in class. They can use their phones only during homeroom and study hall. It’s been working well except that they often take the phone to the bathroom. I do think classroom performance has improved though. But you are correct about short attention spans.
For the classroom, a ban won’t be enough. That ban must include jamming wireless signals so no one can sign onto the internet during class time while in the classroom.
And that technology exists.
Still, teachers will have to deal with the shorter and still shrinking attention spans.
“Research says the affection for screens has shriveled attention spans to about 47 seconds.”
The first so-called smartphone was made available for purchase in 1994.
“Smartphones are mobile phones with more advanced computing capabilities and connectivity than regular mobile phones that came onto the consumer market in the late 90s. The mainstream popularity of the devices took off with the introduction of Apple’s iPhone in 2007.”
I retired from teaching in 2005 after 30 years. I didn’t have to deal with attention spans that short.
Still, I did have to content with the attention spans programed by commercial breaks on TV.
“One-hour scripted shows usually have 42–44 minutes of content, which means 16–18 minutes of commercials. Half-hour scripted shows usually have around 22 minutes of content, which means 8 minutes of commercials.”
So, knowing that, back in the 1980s, I started to plan my lessons to last about 15 minutes before I shifted to another capsule lesson to avoid losing my student’s attention.
That mean planning three to four teaching modules per class and shifting topics, too. Classes ran about one hour before ending and starting with a new group of student in the next period.
That also meant I was almost always on my feet, on the move and did a lot more work preparing those lesson modules.
There is strong evidence that strategy worked.
But I can’t imagine how teachers today would plan 60 different modules during one class period. Instead, they may have to become stand up comics and entertainers planning lessons that teach while being more like a TV series mixing drama, comedy, music, et al. Or something like Saturday Night Live.
Maybe anyone reading this who wants to be a teacher or is a teacher should consider taking voice & dance lessons, and drama classes too.
This year my school switched to no cell phone use in class. They can use their phones only during homeroom and study hall. It’s been working well except that they often take the phone to the bathroom. I do think classroom performance has improved though. But you are correct about short attention spans.
“And, of course, the subsequent undermining of inner-directedness, social ties, and critical thinking paved the way to today’s rightwing assault on democracy.”
I recall having Similar thoughts as I watched January 6th on TV in real time. That idea was reinforced once studies of the participants in the insurrection revealed participants who had become enthralled with the sense of community and purpose lacking in their lives that developed as they discovered like minded individuals who were fed up with a world they could no longer tolerate. The first thing that should happen in education is that we should stop cramming more content into curricula for high performing students. I have watched too many accelerated high schoolers work from dawn to midnight six days a week just to get the opportunity to get to college where they discover that they missed so much while pursuing something because they were told they had to pursue it. I have a brother in law who was an accomplished chemist and as he struggled to help his gifted daughter deal with an academic environment that wouldn’t let up he observed that he didn’t have to do what she was doing when he was growing up and he turned out great. When Alfie Kohn wrote “The Homework Myth”, he made the same point. Work for the sake of completing task, as with distractions that pull us from screen to screen, achieves very little in the regard to self actualization. If the smart phone had existed in Einstein’s time, E would have never equaled MC squared. Learning environments should not only provide time for students to think, but a climate that encourages self and social exploration. This requires stepping away from the key board and opportunities to use the senses that make us sentient. The biggest problem we have may be that those who a profiting handsomely from the technology that is draining our intellectual capacity are using their wealth to insure that we don’t slow down to “smell the roses.”
I agree. We’ve created a pressure cooker. By exam time each year, my juniors and seniors were ready to explode.
And high-school kids are emotionally delicate.
If the smart phone had existed in Einstein’s time, E would have never equaled MC squared.
This is one thing that really set him apart from others. He had the capacity for sustained concentration on a problem, question, issue.
He also liked to day dream. If he had not had the time for his daily walks, he would have never had his epiphany about time while looking at the tower clock.
Well, it was highly structured day dreaming. Chance favors the prepared mind. He was mulling questions that he had the background to comprehend and the inconsistencies in what he had learned.
Adding a little clarification:
“. . . when field trips were widely celebrated, and before critical thinking was subordinated to test prep, i.e., the standards and testing malpractice regime.”
We were warned about that malpractice regime, some of us fought it as much as we could, refused to implement the malpractices but hardly anyone listened. Is anyone listening now?