Screens and the Catholic Homeschool

Screens are everywhere in our lives. They pop up in the most unexpected places, and the more often they pop up in our lives, the more defensive we are about their ubiquitous presence. The ability to access a wide range of information in a moment is addictive, and the feeling it gives of being both well-informed and connected can be hard to argue against. But the constant distractions of a life lived online create a life without depth, without wisdom, and without understanding. We can see the effects of this distracted, screen-driven life everywhere, but particularly in the ways we educate our children.

My husband and I homeschool our children. Recently, I met up with a couple of my fellow homeschooling, Catholic moms. We sat around in the sunlight at a local farm cafe, sipping chai lattes, and stroking the cafe’s fat, orange cat. In our diocese, the new bishop is encouraging conversations around Catholic education, hoping to revitalize both homeschooling families and diocesan schools – so it’s no surprise our own conversation turned quickly in the same direction.

Homeschoolers tend to fall into tribalism pretty quickly – we all have passionate opinions regarding how and why we school the way we do. But what I’ve been noticing more and more, is that a lot of homeschooling parents are burned out and looking for an escape. With the diocesan discussions on new schooling options – these burned out parents are taking a second look at institutional schooling, as well as at online curricula designed for homeschoolers.

There’s nothing wrong with homeschooling parents deciding to step back and give a good, institutional school a chance. Not every family is happy to homeschool throughout all 12 years. But when homeschoolers begin falling into the trap of online schooling, I can’t help but worry about the outcomes.

Screen Schooling

Homeschoolers tend to have high ideals and high expectations – at least at the beginning. But after a few years, a lot of homeschooling parents start packing away the pretty books and sifting through online curriculum options instead. After all, we tell ourselves, the kids are still at home, learning within the family, safe from the deceptions of the world.

But, home is not the primary point of homeschooling – or, it shouldn’t be. Schooling is meant to instruct – to open up the world to your child and prepare him to understand it. At best, screens can only be a background instrument in this understanding, because screens give the illusion of knowledge, while only skimming the surface in a carefully curated and addictively distracting way.

What do I mean? Think about a friend during this past year who’s done a “deep dive” into something you’d really rather never talk about again. Maybe it’s politics, or vaccines, or the CIA’s “indisputable” ability to control the weather. Maybe it’s the flat earth theory. Maybe it’s just the Only Right Way to make pancakes. Whatever it is, your friend is now an online expert. You may have tried to ask questions, but every question is seen as an attack. With tons of information at the swipe of a screen, your friend’s world has shrunk.

When we outsource our schooling to a screen (even with another, live person at the other end) we’re changing the way we interact with the information itself. In fact, studies on the effects of screen time, especially on children, indicate that more time in front of a screen lowers the IQ and increases aggression. Children lose short term memory and show a marked decline in attention span. So while we’re hoping to educate our children, their minds are fighting an uphill battle against the natural effects of increased screen time.

Consistent screen time can even thin out the brain’s cortex – which is the part of the brain linked to critical thinking and reasoning. And like so many adults who get most of their information online – our kids are learning to absorb facts passively, without thinking through the information or trying to understand it.

This isn’t the kind of learning we want for our kids, especially as we’re trying to prepare them to go out into the world and be saints.

Finding Our Way

We’re all in a strange time – parents and educators in particular. It’s hard to know what’s best when it comes to how we educate. Even in the Church, we’re beset with advertisements for apps for prayer and apps for faith formation. Everything is digital – and everything is for sale.

In our home – books, art, music, and prayer are the primary means of education. But not every home is the same. One of the delights of homeschooling is the variety within each school. That variety is one of the things screen schooling steals away from us with its one-size fits all approach to information.

So what can tired homeschooling parents do instead? I don’t know. But I think that the first step is to get off our own screens. Get a basic flip phone, cancel social media, and show our children that we are willing to spend time face to face with them. We can’t teach what we don’t know – and unfortunately, too many of us don’t know how to live without the distractions of a device anymore. The shift might be difficult, and it might be lonely, but changing back to the attitude of the late ’90s – that going online is something I do, not a state I exist in continually – will not only help us live more intentionally, it will help us form our children into healthier people.