Schools Should Be Prepared For Classroom Tech Pushback From Some Parents & Caregivers This New School Year.
- The White Hatter
- 2 minutes ago
- 24 min read
Caveat - While researching this article, and just before we were preparing to publish it, this past week, New York City introduced a new district wide school policy that adds another important dimension to this conversation. Under the new policy, student use of AI will be prohibited from 2-K through Grade 8, including student facing generative AI software and companion chatbots across these grades (1).
The timing is significant. This policy arrives amid a growing debate among parents, caregivers, educators, researchers, and policymakers about what role technology and generative AI should play in schools and in the lives of children more broadly. Rather than settling that debate, New York City’s decision is likely to add even more fuel to an already heated conversation about whether the best response to emerging AI technologies is restriction and prohibition, or carefully supervised use combined with age appropriate AI literacy, education, and safeguards.
Presently, there are groups actively providing parents and caregivers with checklists and talking points they can bring to schools to express concerns about classroom technology and, in some cases, advocate for its significant reduction or complete removal from their child’s learning environment. Here at The White Hatter, we believe parents and caregivers have every right to ask difficult questions about how technology is being used in their child’s classroom, in fact, we encourage it. Schools should be able to explain why a particular technology is being used, what educational purpose it serves, what information it collects, where that information goes, how student privacy and security are being protected, what risks the technology introduces, what it may be replacing, and whether the same educational objective could be accomplished equally well, or perhaps better, without technology.
What has really helped bring this growing pushback against technology in the classroom to the forefront is Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s book, “The Digital Delusion”, which we have also read and carefully considered in writing this article.
Although Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath raises a number of legitimate and evidence supported concerns in The Digital Delusion that we agree with, particularly around distraction, cognitive offloading, handwriting, deep reading, and the importance of preserving human centred teaching, not all academics agree that the research supports some of his broader conclusions about educational technology (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7).
As the academic community continues to research and debate this issue, we also believe schools need to acknowledge an uncomfortable reality, some of the current classroom “techlash” has been earned. In some cases, technology was introduced too quickly, without sufficient evidence, clear pedagogical purpose, adequate teacher training, or a thoughtful understanding of what it might replace in the learning process. Technology has sometimes been introduced into classrooms because it was available rather than because it was educationally necessary. Digital worksheets have sometimes replaced paper worksheets without meaningfully improving learning. Apps and platforms have entered classrooms without parents fully understanding what information was being collected about their children. Chromebooks and tablets can introduce distraction into learning environments, and some technologies have been adopted faster than educators have been trained to use them effectively. Artificial intelligence has now added entirely new questions surrounding privacy, academic integrity, critical thinking, accuracy, intellectual development, and the collection and use of student information.
Parents and caregivers are not unreasonable for asking questions about any of this. However, we also believe there is an important difference between questioning the quality, quantity, purpose, and appropriateness of classroom technology and simply counting the number of minutes a student spends looking at a screen. Those are related conversations, but they are not the same conversation. To be clear, we are not arguing that the amount of time students spend looking at screens doesn’t matter, it can. We are also not arguing that educational screen use is automatically beneficial simply because a teacher assigned it. Poorly designed digital learning is still poorly designed learning, and even high quality technology use needs to be considered alongside age, developmental needs, movement, face to face interaction, handwriting, sustained reading, hands on learning, distraction, privacy, and what the technology may be replacing.
Our argument is narrower, that being screen minutes alone cannot tell us whether technology use is good, bad, necessary, unnecessary, beneficial, or harmful. To answer those questions, we need considerably more context.
It’s Not About How Much Time Students Are Spending Using Technology In the Classroom, It’s What Are They Doing With That Time That Really Matters.
Imagine two students who each spend 45 minutes using a Chromebook in their classroom. The first spends those 45 minutes passively clicking through repetitive multiple choice questions, moving between websites, becoming distracted by unrelated content, and accomplishing relatively little meaningful learning. The second spends those same 45 minutes researching a historical event, locating original sources, comparing conflicting accounts, checking the credibility of information, collaborating with classmates, and preparing a presentation where they will have to defend their conclusions in front of their teacher and peers. According to a screen time counter, those students had exactly the same experience, 45 minutes of screen time. Educationally, however, their experiences were very different.
One activity involved relatively passive interaction with technology, while the other required research, collaboration, source verification, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. Simply measuring how long the Chromebook, or iPad, was open does not capture those differences. Consuming social media or clicking through low level digital worksheets should not automatically be treated as educationally equivalent to researching, translating, accessing digital books, collaborating, creating media, coding, fact checking, or using accessibility tools simply because all of those activities happen to involve a screen.
However, there is a fair criticism of our example that deserves acknowledgement. What if the comparison is not between poor digital learning and good digital learning? What if we compare excellent digital learning with excellent non-digital learning? Imagine one group of students spends 45 minutes examining historical primary sources digitally, while another group spends those same 45 minutes examining printed primary source documents, annotating them by hand, discussing them face to face, debating competing interpretations, and presenting their conclusions orally, which is better? The answer might be the digital approach, it might be the non-digital approach, or it might also be some combination of both, and that is precisely the point. Technology should not receive preferential treatment simply because it is newer, but neither should non-digital learning receive preferential treatment simply because it is traditional. The intentional educational objective should determine the tool.
Importantly, there is research supporting this more nuanced position. Educational technology does not inherently improve learning simply because it is present in a classroom, but when digital tools are intentionally matched to a learning objective and integrated through effective teaching practices, they can improve student learning. A meta-analysis of 60 peer reviewed studies examining digital technology and deeper learning, for example, found an overall positive effect on student’s deep learning outcomes (8). Similarly, the Education Endowment Foundation’s review of the evidence concluded that technology can improve learning when it is used to improve the quality of teaching, increase opportunities for practice, strengthen feedback, or support more effective learning strategies (9). The important variable is therefore not simply whether technology is present, but how it is being used.
Screen Time Can Matter Without Telling Us Everything
There is an important distinction that often gets lost in discussions about classroom technology, screen time may be a poor measure of learning quality without being a meaningless measure of exposure. Those are two very different things. A student could theoretically spend most of the school day engaged in high quality educational activities on a computer and we would still believe it reasonable for a parent, teacher, or school administrator to ask whether that amount of screen mediated learning is appropriate.
Duration matters, but so do ergonomics, movement, eye breaks, face to face interaction, opportunities to manipulate physical objects, sustained reading, handwriting, outdoor activity, and the amount of time a student spends using technology outside of school. This is why we do not believe the answer to concerns about classroom technology should simply be, “Don’t worry about the amount of screen time because it’s educational.”, that is too simplistic. However, the opposite position, that less classroom screen time necessarily means better learning, is also too simplistic. A screen time number is a useful piece of information, it just isn’t enough information by itself.
Not All Screen Time Is Created Equal, But Not All Educational Screen Time Is Good Either
Here at The White Hatter, we have long encouraged parents and caregivers to move beyond simplistic discussions surrounding “screen time” and instead examine the who, what, where, when, why, and how of technology use. What is the young person actually doing? Why are they doing it? Who are they interacting with? What type of content are they consuming or creating? Is the technology helping them accomplish something meaningful? Is it distracting them? What opportunities is it creating? What risks does it introduce? Perhaps most importantly, what is it replacing?
We believe exactly the same framework should apply inside schools. There are absolutely times when screens should be put away. Students need face to face discussions, handwriting, physical activity, outdoor experiences, experimentation, art, music, hands-on learning, collaboration, play, quiet reflection, sustained reading, and opportunities to interact with teachers and classmates without a device sitting between them. Technology should never become the default teaching method simply because a school purchased Chromebooks for every student or because a particular educational platform happens to be available.
However, the opposite is equally important. A lesson does not automatically become better simply because the Chromebook has been closed and a pencil picked up. A poorly designed worksheet is still a poorly designed worksheet whether it appears on paper or a screen. A passive lecture does not suddenly become engaging because students are taking handwritten rather than typed notes. The better question is not simply, “Was technology used?”, rather it’s, “Why was this particular tool the best choice for this particular learning objective?”
Technology Should Have to Earn Its Place in the Classroom
This is where we believe schools can establish a much stronger standard for classroom technology. Rather than beginning with the assumption that technology should be used unless someone demonstrates why it should not, educators could begin with a deceptively simple question, “What does this technology allow my students to do that meaningfully improves this learning experience?” If there is not a good answer, perhaps the technology is not necessary.
This does not mean technology must accomplish something impossible without a computer every time it is used. Convenience, accessibility, collaboration, timely access to information, creation, feedback, differentiation, and efficiency can all have legitimate educational value. However, there should still be an identifiable reason for introducing the technology. If an activity can be accomplished equally or better through a book, pencil, discussion, experiment, physical object, outdoor activity, or face to face collaboration, then it is reasonable to ask what educational value is gained by moving that activity onto a screen. In other words, technology should have to earn its place in the classroom. That is not an anti-technology position, we believe it is a responsible educational position.
This approach is also consistent with the broader research literature. The OECD has found that simply increasing access to laptops, tablets, or other digital devices does not automatically improve educational outcomes. What matters considerably more is how technology is integrated into teaching and learning. OECD analyses have found that teacher led uses of digital technology tend to be associated with stronger student performance than student led use, reinforcing the importance of pedagogy, instructional design, and educator involvement rather than simply placing devices in front of students (10).
We Also Need to Talk About What Technology Is Replacing
One of the strongest questions parents can ask about classroom technology has nothing to do with the device itself, it’s, “What would my child be doing if the screen wasn’t there?” This is the issue of displacement, and we believe it deserves considerably more attention in discussions about educational technology.
This is also where we believe some of the concerns being raised by parents and caregivers about technology in the classroom deserve to be taken seriously. Just because a digital tool makes something faster, easier, or more convenient does not necessarily mean it makes the learning better. There can be trade offs. Technology might allow a student to locate information in seconds, but if that convenience begins replacing sustained reading, there may be something important being lost. An online discussion platform might make it easier for students to communicate and collaborate, but if it begins replacing face to face conversation, students may have fewer opportunities to practise listening, reading social cues, navigating disagreement, and communicating with another person sitting across from them. Typing can certainly help students produce written work more quickly, but if it largely replaces handwriting, we should at least be asking what opportunities for developing and practising that skill are being displaced.
The same question becomes increasingly important with artificial intelligence. AI can be an incredibly useful educational tool when used intentionally, but there is a significant difference between using AI to support a student’s thinking and allowing it to do the thinking for them. If AI helps a student organize ideas they have already developed, there may be real educational value. However, if it begins generating those ideas, making the connections, constructing the argument, and solving the difficult parts of the task, we risk removing the very productive struggle that the assignment was designed to create.
This is why we don’t believe the classroom technology conversation should simply be framed as “technology is good” versus “technology is bad,” or even around how many minutes of screen time a student accumulates during the school day. A better question is whether a particular technology is adding something meaningful to the learning experience without unnecessarily displacing something else that matters. Sometimes the best educational tool will be a laptop, tablet, or AI platform. Sometimes it will be a pencil, a printed book, a hands-on activity, or a face-to-face conversation, good pedagogical teaching is knowing the difference.
Every technological benefit should therefore be considered not only against its potential risks, but against the educational activity, developmental experience, or human interaction it replaces. Sometimes that calculation will favour technology, and sometimes it will not.
Age and Development Matter
Another weakness in broad discussions about classroom technology is that we often talk about “students” as though a six year old and a seventeen year old have identical educational and developmental needs, they do not. We would not expect technology to play the same role in a Grade 1 classroom that it might play in Grade 11 or Grade 12. Younger children particularly need rich opportunities for movement, play, handwriting, manipulating physical objects, face to face communication, social interaction, creative exploration, and learning through their physical environment.
As students mature, there may be increasingly strong educational reasons for digital research, online collaboration, coding, media creation, information verification, AI literacy, cybersecurity education, and learning how to responsibly navigate technologies they will encounter outside of school. This does not mean younger children should never use technology or older students should constantly use it. It means classroom technology should be developmentally responsive rather than universally prescribed. “How much?” therefore needs to be accompanied by another question, “At what age, for what purpose, and at what developmental stage?”
Distraction Is a Legitimate Concern
There is another criticism of classroom technology that schools should not minimize, that being multifunction digital devices can introduce opportunities for distraction that simply do not exist to the same degree with many traditional learning tools. A textbook does not normally contain YouTube, games, messaging, notifications, dozens of browser tabs, social media, AI chatbots, and an almost unlimited supply of unrelated information sitting a few clicks away.
Educational intent does not eliminate that reality. A teacher may intend for students to spend 45 minutes researching Canadian history, but the important question is not simply what the teacher intended students to do, we also need to consider what students actually did during those 45 minutes. Schools therefore have a responsibility to think seriously about device configuration, filtering, classroom management, notifications, access controls, supervision, application design, and deliberate periods when devices are closed or removed entirely. If technology is creating more distraction than learning, its educational justification becomes considerably weaker. Again, technology should have to earn its place.
Sometimes the Screen Is an Accessibility Tool
There is another important part of this discussion that can easily be overlooked by parents,, caregivers, and schools when broad calls are made to dramatically reduce technology in classrooms. For some students, digital technology is not simply convenient. It can remove barriers that might otherwise prevent them from participating fully in their education. Digital learning environments can provide screen readers, text to speech, speech to text, enlarged text, adjustable fonts and spacing, captions, translation, dictionaries, annotation tools, audiobooks, organizational supports, and other accessibility features.
Consider a student with low vision who enlarges text on a tablet rather than struggling with a printed worksheet. Consider a student with dyslexia who benefits from text to speech while following written material. Consider a newcomer to Canada using translation tools while developing English or French language skills, or a student who has difficulty physically handwriting lengthy assignments but can articulate complex thoughts through speech to text. In these circumstances, increased “screen time” may actually represent increased access to education.
However, accessibility requirements for some students should not be used as a blanket justification for unnecessary technology use by every student, just as technology reduction policies for the majority should not remove tools that individual students need to learn, both things can be true at the same time.
Schools Shouldn’t Dismiss Parent Concerns
None of this means that when parents and caregivers question classroom technology, schools should respond with, “You just don’t understand educational technology.” That would be dismissive and, in our opinion, a significant mistake. The current techlash should instead be viewed as an opportunity for schools and districts to become more transparent about how, when, and why technology is being used.
Parents and caregivers are raising concerns about classroom technology in connection with student well being, creativity, critical thinking, and social skills. However, addressing these concerns is as much a communication challenge as it is a technology challenge. When parents and caregivers express concerns, schools should begin by listening rather than immediately defending existing practices.
Is the parent or caregiver concerned about total screen exposure, passive digital worksheets, YouTube, Artificial intelligence, student privacy, commercial data collection, distraction, social isolation, academic integrity, handwriting skill development, reading, creativity, critical thinking, or perhaps several of these things at once? Those concerns require different responses, and schools cannot effectively answer parent concerns until they understand what those concerns actually are.
Don’t Just Tell Parents Technology Is Educational, Show Them
In our opinion, one of the most effective ways schools can address concerns surrounding classroom technology is surprisingly simple, show parents and caregivers what their children are actually doing with it. Rather than telling families, “We integrate technology into our curriculum,” explain what that means in practical terms.
Imagine a Grade 7 teacher explaining that students will use Chromebooks during a social studies unit to investigate competing accounts of a historical event. Students will locate original sources, identify who created them, determine when and why they were created, compare them against other sources, identify possible bias, verify claims, and explain why they consider one source more credible than another. The conversation changes, the parent or caregivers is not simply hearing that their child spent 45 minutes “on a Chromebook.” They are hearing what happened during those 45 minutes and can make a much more informed judgment about whether that use was worthwhile.
The same principle applies to artificial intelligence. Rather than simply announcing that a school “allows AI,” educators should explain where, when, why, and how students are being taught to use it. Students might compare an AI generated answer against primary sources and identify inaccuracies. They might examine bias, locate hallucinated information, verify citations, identify persuasive language, or compare their own reasoning with an AI generated response.
In those circumstances, AI is not necessarily replacing thinking. It can become something students are learning to critically interrogate. However, if students are simply asking AI to do the intellectual work that they previously would have done themselves, parents have every reason to question whether that use belongs in the classroom.
Communication Needs to Come From the Classroom
Communication surrounding educational technology becomes more meaningful when it is connected directly to a student’s classroom rather than delivered only through broad district messaging. Parents are already overwhelmed with school emails, newsletters, notices, portals, apps, permission forms, and district communications, so generic statements about “digital learning” often do very little to reassure them.
Instead, communication should be specific and practical. Tell parents and caregivers how technology is being used in their child’s Grade 5 classroom. Explain why Chromebooks are being used for a particular science project. Explain how Grade 10 students are being taught to critically evaluate artificial intelligence. Tell families when devices are intentionally put away and why. Explain what privacy protections exist around educational applications. Give parents concrete examples of assignments where technology added meaningful educational value.
Equally important, tell parents where technology is not being used. A school that can say, “We use technology here because it improves this activity, but deliberately do not use it here because discussion, handwriting, physical experimentation, or face to face collaboration is better,” is in a much stronger position than a school simply telling parents that technology is part of modern education.
Schools Need to Be Willing to Say “No” to Some Uses Of Technology
Schools will have considerably more credibility defending appropriate technology use when parents and caregivers can see that educators are equally willing to reject inappropriate or unnecessary technology. Not every educational problem requires an app, not every lesson requires a Chromebook, and not every assignment needs artificial intelligence.
Sometimes a notebook is better, sometimes a physical book is better, sometimes handwriting is better, sometimes face to face discussion is better, and sometimes going outside, conducting an experiment, building something with your hands, drawing a diagram, debating another student, or simply sitting quietly and thinking is the better educational choice. Sometimes the best technology decision a teacher can make is telling students to close the laptops.
The goal should never be maximizing technology simply because we have it, but neither should the goal be eliminating technology simply because some forms of technology use have become problematic. The goal should be intentionally choosing the right tool for the learning taking place.
Give Educators the Training to Make Those Decisions
We believe banning pedagogical use of tech and AI at school while students continue to have largely unrestricted access to tech and AI outside the classroom may ultimately be counterproductive. However, before we criticize schools for choosing to restrict or ban tech and AI, we need to ask an equally important question, “Are teachers being given the training, resources, guidance, and support they need to introduce and use tech and AI effectively and responsibly in the classroom?”
This distinction is increasingly supported by the research. The OECD’s 2026 Digital Education Outlook concluded that generative AI can support learning when it is used with a clear pedagogical purpose and appropriate teaching guidance. However, simply giving students access to general purpose AI can improve the quality of the work they produce without necessarily producing corresponding learning gains. In contrast, educational AI tools that are intentionally designed or used around sound learning principles show greater potential to produce sustained improvements in learning (11). Once again, the important question is not simply whether AI is being used, but how, why, and under whose guidance it is being used.
Of course, asking teachers to make thoughtful decisions about technology also places responsibility on schools and school districts. If we expect educators to determine when technology improves learning and when it interferes with it, professional development needs to go beyond teaching teachers how to operate an application or log students into another platform.
Educators increasingly need an understanding of privacy, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, algorithms, persuasive design, misinformation, accessibility, digital literacy, media literacy, AI literacy, distraction, and the potential developmental implications surrounding different forms of technology use. They also need support in designing lessons where technology serves the educational objective rather than becoming the objective itself. Simply purchasing technology does not create good digital pedagogy.
We also believe it is important for parents and caregivers to understand that decisions surrounding the use of technology in the classroom should not rest solely on the shoulders of individual teachers. This is ultimately a school district responsibility. If a district approves, purchases, licenses, or encourages the use of a particular technology, it also has a responsibility to ensure that educators are properly trained not simply in how the technology works, but in how, when, and why it should be used as part of teaching and learning.
Putting a laptop, tablet, application, digital platform, or AI tool into a classroom does not automatically make its use educationally valuable. Teachers need appropriate professional development that helps them make intentional pedagogical decisions about when technology genuinely supports a learning objective, when a non-digital approach may be more effective, and what may be gained or displaced when one approach is chosen over another. They should also understand the privacy, security, accessibility, developmental, and commercial considerations that may accompany the technologies their district expects them to use.
At the same time, we believe educators need the professional and pedagogical freedom to decide how district approved technology is actually used within their classrooms. A school district can establish expectations, learning standards, privacy and security requirements, accessibility obligations, and other guiding principles, but those principles do not necessarily have to look identical in their application in every classroom. Our approach is that the principles remain consistent, while their application can and should be diverse.
A Grade 2 classroom is not a Grade 10 classroom. A mathematics lesson is not a language arts lesson. A student with an accessibility need may benefit from technology in ways that another student does not. One teacher may determine that a digital tool substantially improves a particular learning activity, while another may reasonably conclude that discussion, handwriting, physical materials, sustained reading, or another non-digital approach better serves the same educational objective. Good pedagogy requires room for those professional judgments.
This is why we would be cautious about replacing one rigid approach with another. Moving from “technology everywhere” to “technology nowhere” does not necessarily improve education. The better objective is technology where it makes pedagogical sense, and non-digital approaches where they make pedagogical sense. Districts should establish the principles, provide appropriate technologies and safeguards, ensure educators receive meaningful professional development, and then trust trained teachers to apply those principles according to the developmental needs of their students, the subject being taught, and the learning objective they are trying to achieve.
This is also why the classroom technology conversation cannot focus only on teachers or on how much “screen time” students accumulate during the school day. School districts have an important governance and leadership role. They should be able to explain why particular technologies are being used, what educational purposes they serve, what evidence supports their use, what safeguards are in place, and what training educators receive to use them effectively. If a district is going to put technology into the hands of teachers and students, it should also provide educators with the knowledge, training, resources, and professional autonomy necessary to use that technology intentionally rather than simply because it is available.
An Eight Question Test for Classroom Technology
Rather than asking parents and caregivers to simply trust that classroom technology is educational, we believe schools should be prepared to demonstrate why it deserves to be there. Before introducing a technology into learning, educators and schools should be able to consider seven basic questions:
1/ What educational objective does this technology support?
2/ What does it allow students to do better, differently, or more accessibly than the available alternatives?
3/ Is its use appropriate for the student’s age and developmental stage?
4/ What activity, interaction, skill, or experience is this technology replacing?
5/ What privacy, security, distraction, commercial, developmental, or other risks does it introduce?
6/ Could the same educational objective be accomplished equally well, or better, without the technology?
7/ What evidence or observable educational outcome tells us the technology actually improved the learning experience?
8/ Has the educator received appropriate training to use the technology effectively and intentionally as a pedagogical tool?
These are not anti-technology questions. They are good educational questions. If a school can answer them clearly, it has a much stronger foundation for explaining classroom technology to parents. If it cannot, perhaps the technology deserves reconsideration.
Don’t Defend Technology, Defend Good Learning
In our opinion, this may ultimately be the most important shift schools can make when responding to the current classroom techlash. Stop defending screens simply because they are screens and instead defend the learning taking place through them. If a parent or caregiver asks why their child spent an hour using a Chromebook, the school should be able to explain what happened during that hour. Perhaps students researched, wrote, collaborated, translated, designed, coded, read, fact checked, analyzed, created, communicated, or learned how to responsibly use a digital tool.
However, if the only explanation is, “because the assignment was online,” perhaps the parent or caregiver raising the concern has a legitimate point. This distinction allows schools to demonstrate that they are not blindly pro-technology. Some classroom technology use may indeed need to be reduced, redesigned, or eliminated, while other uses demonstrably improve accessibility, creativity, collaboration, research, communication, critical thinking, or learning. That is a far more defensible position than either extreme.
Parents Deserve Transparency, Not Just Reassurance
Schools should also resist the temptation to simply reassure parents and caregivers that educational technology is safe, beneficial, or necessary. Parents and caregivers deserve something more meaningful than reassurance. They deserve transparency:
What technology is being used?
Why is it being used?
What information does it collect?
Where is that information stored?
Who has access to it?
Is student information being used to train artificial intelligence?
Are students being tracked?
Is information being used for advertising or commercial profiling?
What happens to student information when the school stops using the service?
What educational outcome does the technology support?
Could the same objective reasonably be accomplished without it?
Has the teacher received approved training on how to use it in the classroom?
Again, these are not anti-technology questions, they are responsible parenting questions. Schools that can answer them clearly will be in a much stronger position when challenged about technology use. Schools that cannot answer them should perhaps be asking the same questions themselves.
Preparing Kids for Their Onlife World Doesn’t Mean Giving Them More Screen Time
There is another argument commonly made in support of educational technology that we believe needs some qualification, “Kids need technology because their future will be technological.” There is certainly truth in that statement for sure. Artificial intelligence, automation, digital communication, online collaboration, algorithmic systems, augmented reality, wearable technology, robotics, and technologies that have not even been invented yet will increasingly influence education, employment, relationships, commerce, healthcare, entertainment, and civic life.
However, simply exposing children to more technology does not necessarily prepare them for that future. A child does not develop technological judgment merely because they spend thousands of hours using technology. The educational objective should therefore not be technological exposure or even technological familiarity, instead it should be technological agency.
Young people need to progressively develop the ability to ask whether they actually need a particular technology, what it’s helping them accomplish, what it may be doing to them, what information they are giving it, who benefits from their use of it, whether they could accomplish the same task better without it, whether it is helping them think or beginning to think for them, and when it is time to put it down.
Preparing young people for a technological world does not mean surrounding them with technology at every opportunity. It means teaching them how to control technology rather than allowing technology to control them. That is digital literacy, that is media literacy, that is AI literacy, and that is critical thinking. Ultimately, that is what we believe onlife literacy should look like.
Perhaps Screen Time Isn’t the Wrong Question, Just the Wrong Only Question
When parents ask schools, “How much screen time is my child getting?” we do not believe schools should dismiss the question, it’s a legitimate question. The mistake occurs when that becomes the only question.
A more complete conversation should ask what students are actually doing with the technology, what they are learning from it, what skills they are developing, how old they are, how long they are using it, what the technology is replacing, what opportunities it is creating, what barriers it is removing, what distractions it introduces, what information it is collecting, what privacy and security risks exist, whether the same learning objective could be accomplished equally well or better without it, and whether technology is serving the learning or the learning has started serving the technology. Those questions tell us considerably more about the quality of a child’s education than simply counting the number of minutes a screen happens to be turned on.
The growing classroom techlash does not have to become another polarized battle between parents who supposedly want technology eliminated and schools who supposedly want more of it, there is a reasonable middle ground. Schools can listen to parents, acknowledge that some of the criticism surrounding educational technology is justified, reduce unnecessary screen use, become more transparent about the technologies they adopt, protect student privacy, properly train educators, consider age and development, examine what technology is displacing, put devices away when they are not adding educational value, and use them when they genuinely improve accessibility, creativity, collaboration, research, communication, critical thinking, or learning.
Parents and caregivers, in turn, can challenge schools to demonstrate the educational value of technology rather than assuming that every minute involving a screen is educationally equivalent. Perhaps the standard should be remarkably simple, “Don’t use technology simply because you can. Use it when you can explain why.”
We believe schools have an important role to play in helping young people develop the digital and media literacy, critical thinking, AI literacy, and digital well being skills they need to navigate a world where technology is increasingly woven into education, relationships, work, and everyday life. Children are not born knowing how to use technology critically, safely, responsibly, or effectively. These are learned skills, and like any other form of literacy, they need to be taught, practised, modelled, and reinforced over time.
This is why we believe the conversation about technology in schools needs to move beyond simply asking, “How much screen time are students getting?” Time matters, particularly when technology is displacing sleep, physical activity, face to face interaction, hands on learning, or other developmentally important experiences. However, time alone tells us very little about whether technology is helping or hindering learning. What students are doing with technology, why they are using it, what educational value it provides, how the technology is designed, what data it collects, and what safeguards surround its use are equally important questions.
Educational technology should therefore be evaluated on its quality, purpose, privacy, security, accessibility, developmental appropriateness, and demonstrated educational value, rather than being judged simply because it involves a screen. Poorly designed or unnecessary technology should absolutely be challenged and removed. Technology that meaningfully supports learning, creativity, accessibility, collaboration, or skill development should not be discarded simply to meet an arbitrary screen time target.
That middle ground position is increasingly reflected in international education research. A recent OECD review examining systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and empirical studies concluded that access to technology by itself does not guarantee educational improvement. Positive outcomes depend substantially on pedagogical decisions surrounding how digital tools are selected, designed, and incorporated into learning (12). In other words, the evidence increasingly supports neither “technology everywhere” or “technology nowhere,” but technology used intentionally where it demonstrably supports learning.
We also need to trust and support teacher professionalism. Educators and schools should have the flexibility to determine when a digital approach makes sense and when a book, pencil, classroom discussion, physical activity, hands on experiment, or face to face interaction is the better educational tool. Technology should never be used simply because it is available, but neither should it be rejected simply because it is digital. The question should always be, “What approach best supports the learning objective and the needs of these students?”
Parents and caregivers also deserve a meaningful place in this conversation. Schools should be transparent about what technologies are being used, why they are being used, what educational purpose they serve, what information they collect, and how student privacy and safety are being protected. At the same time, educators, students, researchers, school leaders, and education organizations should also be part of decisions about significant changes to classroom technology. Good education policy should be informed by evidence and the experiences of the people actually teaching, learning, and parenting within these environments.
The goal should not be classrooms that are technology first or technology free. It should be classrooms that are learning first, where technology is one tool among many and is used intentionally when it genuinely improves the educational experience.
Perhaps most importantly, removing technology from classrooms does not remove technology from childhood. Our kids are growing up in an increasingly digital and AI enabled world whether we like every aspect of that reality or not. Schools therefore have an opportunity, alongside parents and caregivers, to help young people learn how to navigate that world thoughtfully, critically, safely, and responsibly. Rather than simply asking how we can reduce young people’s exposure to technology, we should also be asking a more important question, “How do we prepare them to use it well?”
Here at The White Hatter, we have always believed in “Know Tech, Not No Tech.” We think that philosophy applies equally well to the classroom. The question should not simply be, “How long was the screen turned on?” It should also be, “Why was it turned on, what was the student learning while it was on, what did its use replace, and was it actually the best tool for the job?” If schools can answer those questions, they should not be afraid of the classroom techlash. If they cannot, perhaps parents are asking exactly the questions schools need to hear.
So, if we had to summarize the central message of this article in one thought, it would be this, technology by itself does not improve learning, just as removing technology by itself does not guarantee better learning. What matters is how and why the technology is being used, whether it is appropriate for the student’s age and developmental stage, how well educators are supported to use it, what learning objective it serves, and what important activity, skill, or human interaction it may be replacing.
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
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