Why it matters

Now we live in a Digital Age, and almost everything is becoming automated. Even parenting², a job in which technology should have no role, is becoming automated to a degree.

In time, the impact of this is going to be felt at every level of society. During a crucial stage of development, when most children are still learning to process empathy³ and develop a sense of morality, many of today's kids are receiving more nurturing from the internet than they do from their own parents.

We see the symptoms all around us every day. The dramatic rise in childhood obesity, children showing up to class feeling tired, children showing less interest in their lessons — these are all signs that once would have been alarming for teachers, but now we are desensitized to them because they have become the new normal.

So now we're here advocating for increased use of computers in the classroom. The reason for this apparent hypocrisy is that teachers can still play a nurturing role for young minds. We may be powerless to control the home environment, but we can control the school experience for our students.

One of the most important things we can do is help students develop truly useful skills with technology. This does not mean some lame attempt to seem like you're "with it" by unnecessarily incorporating social media into your lessons. All this achieves is reinforcment of the sterotype that you're a dinosaur. The students are already adept in the use of social media, and they most likely know more about it than you do.

It doesn't help your students if your lesson only consists of pointless "busywork". You have a limited amount of time with your students each day, and you should make the most of the time by designing lessons that impart new skills and knowledge.

This can't happen if you're trying to teach them things they already know. You have to connect with students in a way that authentic teaching and learning takes place.

Skills matter because the future is looking bleak for the unskilled. Robots are planting fields and harvesting the crops. In Japan, you will find robots cooking meals and bringing them to the table. There are robots cleaning toilets and mopping floors. In fact, for every unskilled job you can imagine, chances are there's a robot that can do it.

The only way to protect your students from this bleak future is to help them learn skills so they can avoid ending up in the "unskilled" category. By making this your goal, you help protect your own job from becoming irrelevant, because teaching is only a profession for as long as it provides tangible results.

Citations:

1. OECD (2018), Program for International Student Assessment
2. Pew Research Center (2020), Parenting Children in the Age of Screens
3. Walsh E & Walsh D (2019), "How Children Develop Empathy", Psychology Today