Summer Series #2 – Let’s teach our students the Power of Attention is the theme of this article. Attention and engagement are closely connected. We have our students more hours per week than anybody else so let’s discover what they care about and use our attention to help them learn.
June 26, 2023
The Surgeon General’s most recent advisory on Youth Mental Health and Social Media (May 2023) had a big oversight: in its section entitled “We Must Take Action: A Way Forward” it called Policy Makers, Tech Companies, Parents, Researchers, and even Children and Adolescents themselves to pursue various strategies for safe(r) use of Social Media.
Missing from the list?
First: Medical Providers—but the American Academy of Pediatrics launched the AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health in coordination with the Advisory.
Second: Educators!—I would argue schools have a unique opportunity for systematic and immediate impact on this crisis. Without a doubt, educators are already serving on the front lines (supporting individual students in crisis) and administrators are architecting broader interventions (phone bans, social media education programs, and SEL initiatives) as quickly as possible. But I think that foundationally, there are some low-lift, common sense moves schools can and should make, even as we wait for research-backed guidelines.
Zooming Out: Schools have unique access to—and control over—adolescents’ attention
Students spend, on average, 30 hours a week in school, 10 months a year. For adolescents, this is usually more time than they spend with their parents or friends; it’s almost certainly more time than they spend with parents and friends without screens. This precious time—and the power schools hold to direct students’ attention during those hours—is an incredible, if basic and under-recognized, strategic asset for addressing the Youth Mental Health Crisis.
The ability to control your attention has long been seen as foundational to well-being (and to effective learning!)—and recent research establishes that attention spans wane as screen time rises. Simone de Beauvoir’s famous observation that “attention is the purest form of generosity” feels more poignant than ever in today’s multi-tasking world, and research bears out how attentional control relates to key relational skills, like the ability to empathize. Annie Dillard’s oft-quoted maxim that “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives” is another concept with fresh resonance in an algorithm age: therapists and coaches of all stripes recommend self-awareness exercises (e.g. time-boxing, journaling, hour inventories, notification management) to help clients cultivate agency amidst relentless inbounds and notifications. Mindfulness—whether in the form of meditation, slow eating, breathing, yoga, or journaling practices—is another effort to reclaim humanity in a world where tech drives us all to feel what T.S. Eliot coined: “distracted / from distraction by / distraction.”
Here’s my logic: it’s clear that wellness and attention are linked, and that children—and especially adolescents—are struggling on both fronts. It’s also clear that Schools have enormous leverage over adolescent attentional habits. And that Schools also have the potential to make every child feel the power of being paid attention to every day. So, what if educators made it their mission to help students strengthen their ability to pay attention: to monotask, to self-regulate, and perhaps most importantly from a well-being perspective, to develop positive peer relationships?
I’m not talking about fifteen minutes of mindfulness during Homeroom or peer counseling for the kids who get referred or opt-in. I’m not talking about any fancy programs (spoiler alert: most things being sold into schools require screen time!) or equipping teachers as mental health professionals.
I’m imagining a world where administrators and teachers come together to say: How can we build a human-centered school culture to support these kids who are struggling as they grow up in a tech-centric world? We know our students are in crisis and that tech, and its impact on attentional capacity, is at least one part of the problem. We know that teaching students the power of attention is well within our sphere of influence. Let’s start there.
What might it look like to support intentional tech use—as an effort to increase students’ attentional capacity and well-being—in schools?
At the most basic level, it’s fair to expect schools to revisit or develop a cell phone policy this summer. Schools’ decisions here will run the gamut from soft cultural norming or explicit restrictions to an outright ban; regardless, the cell phone policy must be enforceable and have clear consequences for violation. For example, if teachers collect phones at the beginning of a class period, and a student turns in an old phone so she can go on social and text Mom about logistics from the bathroom, it should be considered an honor or discipline infraction. These policies should be communicated weeks ahead of the school year so that parents and children prepare for the tech transition ahead. As Brené Brown says, “Clarity is kind and foundational to organizational culture.”
Next, administrators should make clear guidelines for teachers in terms of the intentional tech norms they are expected to embody in their classrooms. While some are complex (looking at you, ChatGPT!), others can be simple and even leave space for autonomy.
For example, what if there were a school-wide norm that every class begins with five minutes of “human time” when laptops are closed, earbuds are out, and every voice is heard? Teachers could use the time differently—questions of the day, mood meters, holiday celebrations, meditation, or something more profound (e.g. I had a teacher read us NYT obituaries to help us see many ways to go through life and what values seem to matter most to the people who love you. It was weird, but in retrospect, awesome and, yes—terrifyingly human).
A related norm might be that before laptops are opened, the teacher defines a shared purpose (note taking, researching, writing, a session on an ed-tech tool) and clarifies any additional expectations (e.g. “iMessage, gaming, sports streaming, generative AI, are not allowed right now”). From my personal experience, these two moves in tandem can be a game-changer. Kids actually pay attention to each other as they trickle into the classroom—instead of gaming or scrolling, they have an authentic context to build positive social relationships faster when every voice is heard every day, and they are cognitively cued to at least think twice before opening the Fortnite tab.
Or, here’s a dream-big example for most high schools—what if every teacher committed to one screen-free class every week? This might take some training for teachers—here’s how to teach kids to take notes by hand, here are strategies for getting everyone’s voice in, here are great dipstick and bail-out questions you can always ask, here are group protocols you can offer small groups, here are ways to offer feedback that show kids you know them, here are reflection routines to support their metacognition—but think of the quality of attention in that room. And the aggregate impact! Adolescents would have five more hours a week fully off-screen; in control of their attention, surrounded by peers, and supported by a caring adult. It’s hard to imagine that the experience, in and of itself, isn’t at least one element of preventative care for adolescent mental health.
The Biggest Challenge? Teachers are humans who love tech, too!
I run PD for hundreds of faculty members a year across diverse schools. Most workshops relate to the challenge of teaching human skills—like the ability to pay attention—in a tech-centric world. Whenever the topic of edtech limits or screen-free class periods comes up, I get pushback.
I get it. I know from my own teaching experience that tech makes superhuman things possible, like when Membean replaced my lame, undifferentiated, low-context vocab quizzes with an adaptive model, formative and summative assessment, incredible differentiation—and happy, etymology-slinging students. If I lost Membean, I would bristle; mostly at the waste of my time and increased logistics of making and grading vocabulary quizzes like it’s 1998, but also at the sub-par learning experience for my students (especially the kids with language-based learning differences).
But here’s the thing: in a national moment where we are facing a documented crisis in youth mental health, it’s not about the adults. Yes, Google Classroom assignments are typed not handwritten, and the rubric links to your grade book, and kids work on them in Google Docs that can’t be lost at the bottom of a backpack. But kids need attention right now—ours and each others’—and screen-free spaces are an important tool in making them feel seen, heard, and connected to each other offline.
Sometimes, I’ll ask teachers to think about their own attention spans (mine is mosquito-like, though Amisha Jha’s work has helped) and humanity in a tech-centric world, too. How do they listen differently in a discussion where they aren’t typing notes furiously? What do they notice about how their students are relating to each other with no screens? Was tech in the classroom when they decided to become a teacher—or is it something they’ve gotten used to over time?
I also encourage teachers to narrate some of the tradeoffs for kids. There’s no shame in telling students:
We are all putting devices away now even though I really think I could have gotten Wordle with thirty more seconds and we have the entire Quadratic Equation to get through today… but screens away so we can pay full attention to each other and be human together.
Or: Handwriting is more work than typing, I know. But research shows you remember better when you handwrite instead of type and you also listen differently if you don’t have a laptop screen separating you and your classmates. For the record, kids, it’s more work for me to grade, too! But it’s so important for us to have time off-screen, together.
Most teachers I talk to grumble at first—Positioning but then they get it. And then they love the off-screen days, or at the least, the off-screen “human routines” just as much as the students!
You may also be interested in reading more articles written by Liza Garonzik for Intrepid Ed News.
