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James Woodcock
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Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8684
Posted: 25 September 2026 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

the pandemic lockdowns were weird.
I was never furloughed, but worked from home, doing a lot
of Zoom calls as I was on a few international projects.
It was funny talking to adults who were furloughed, who
seemed to think no one was working. they just couldn't
get that I was at work.

My son got barely any work from school, so we bought a 20
week on line 11+ course and I split each week over 5 days
- that became his school work. He aced the 11+ when he
took it.

It was a mega hot spring/summer, and we would go out each
afternoon after I finished work for a bike ride. good
times.

But there were other parents that seemed to really
struggle. And yes, it became clear that those kids did
not get some real basics sorted by their parents. They
also seemed to struggle socially after a year of not
interacting with other kids.
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Evan S. Kurtz
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Joined: 04 July 2022
Location: Canada
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Posted: 25 September 2026 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

As a teacher, the biggest dip in knowledge and comprehension definitely occurred with the kids who were in K-3 during the lockdown years. The issue is, the kids I'm teaching now weren't yet in school when the lockdowns happened, but I'm seeing the same low level of comprehension and critical thinking. Something changed. (I blame screens mostly.) 

I will say, my wife and I both volunteered to teach online for a full year during the pandemic, which means we both got to work from home 3 or 4 days a week (we had to teach from empty classrooms in our schools the other days, when we had recess duty responsibilities). 

My wife taught a virtual kindergarten class, and having observed her, how she did it, and what she did, I sincerely think she should have been hired to instruct other teachers on how to teach kindergarten virtually, because she was fantastic.

I taught a 7th grade class virtually and I sincerely believe they got as good an education that year as they would have if they were in the regular classroom. The evidence is purely anecdotal, but one of my virtual students won an award as one of the Top 8 students in our entire school board (90,000 students!) when she graduated high school. But I think for most kids, the virtual learning years were absolute and total wastes. 
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Bryan Eacret
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Joined: 08 February 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 773
Posted: 25 September 2026 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Both my wife and daughter work in the local school district. They both say Covid did a lot of damage to the social skills of kids. They are experiencing a lot more instances of mis behavior and lack of reasoning. I think children that are starting out now have been better, but there is a large group moving through grades that Covid did some lasting damage to. 

From my experience I think the attachment to screens is doing major damage to our ability to properly communicate. I see it in my own extended family, where people can't seem to leave their phones alone in a social gathering. Whatever the phones are telling them, it's more important than what is actually happening in person. It's very frustrating.

I went to dinner recently and watched a large gathering of people sit down. One couple had an approx one year old kid. They immediately handed the child a screen and proceeded to sit down and enjoy their companions. The group did not use their phones, which was great. However, the kid was glued to the screen the entire time. I told my wife that it was a shame that the baby was missing out on picking up a huge amount of social skills by having it's face in a screen while everyone else was socializing. The baby was good the entire time, but missed out on learning in order to make dinner more convenient. 
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Evan S. Kurtz
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Joined: 04 July 2022
Location: Canada
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Posted: 25 September 2026 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

A child being handed a screen causes a dopamine feedback loop in their brain that is on the same level as if an adult snorted a line of cocaine. (Source)

Edited by Evan S. Kurtz on 25 September 2026 at 6:53pm
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James Woodcock
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Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8684
Posted: 25 September 2026 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Strangely, my son’s school has just moved to touch screen laptops for all
lessons.
Text books are PDFs
They have to use a stylus to write, but it’s a screen. No notebooks allowed.
We had to buy the laptop.
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Evan S. Kurtz
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Posted: 25 September 2026 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Yes, we don’t have textbooks for anything anymore, and I feel it’s become a tremendous educational obstacle. When I taught older kids, it was fine, but I try to limit as much as possible with 5th and 6th graders.
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Evan S. Kurtz
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Joined: 04 July 2022
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Posted: 25 September 2026 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

One other thing I want to mention: we bought my son an iPad (his first personal device, an M4 iPad Air) last summer after he turned 11. We bought him his first cellular device this week: an Apple Watch. He gets 20 minutes of screen time a day, which he uses for Spellbound (a Disney scrabble app), Murdle, Wordle, and Duolingo. The watch is so he can text or call us if he needs to, but obviously severely limits use for the kinds of apps and activities a kid can get lost in.

A lot of my students have unlimited screen time and keep their devices in their bedrooms.
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