Tech-free schools for the rich? 3 Reasons why edtech is still vital for low-income schools

I came across this Youtube video about a tech-free school for wealthy children and their mostly tech industry parents and I sighed. Deeply. This comment comes close to what I was feeling:

Wealth enables the students of Waldorf School of the Peninsula to forego technology without any detrimental effects on their future. These students have a variety of learning experiences (on-screen or off) at their disposal (in and out of school). And let’s face it, many of these children could have a hefty inheritance coming their way which could minimize the impact of possible unemployment.

Don’t get me wrong. I think tech-free schools provide great learning environments that develop wholesome young people who aren’t addicted to devices. I would have loved to garden twice a week at my high school! Well maybe not at a whopping $35,000 per year, but you get my point.

Why Edtech focused schools are still vital for low-income children

Wealthy children of Silicon Valley have the luxury of jumping on the tech-free bandwagon. The tech-free aesthetic (which I concede is well-intentioned) might work for the higher echelons of society but here is why low and middle-income communities should be wary of the hype.

Digital Skills are a must in the 21st-century job market

In an increasingly hyper competitive global workforce, it is practically a prerequisite to have some digital skills to succeed in securing gainful employment. As this Brookings report shows about the US workforce, “by 2016, the share of jobs requiring high digital skills had jumped [from 5 percent] to 23 percent.” The report also showed that higher-level digital jobs correlated with higher pay and durability. Those with higher digital skills made $24,622 more than their middle-level digital counterparts in annual wages.

The evidence is overwhelming. Tech skills matter if you want a life of financial stability and resiliency. Tech skills are a way out and a way forward for many children trapped in the web of intergenerational poverty.

Digital knowledge is power in the era of information overload

We live in a time in which someone can become relatively educated by accessing free resources online, without ever stepping inside a school. We are bombarded with all kinds of information, news, and analyses. Digital media literacy is increasingly becoming a part of edtech curriculums. Navigating fake news, hidden agendas, ulterior motives, and propaganda in what we read online is turning out to be a formidable skill to have. This Stanford report showed that most students couldn’t distinguish between fake and real news emphasizing the importance of teaching our children, especially those with fewer opportunities, the research skills and healthy skepticism needed to build a more balanced worldview.

Paradoxically, low-income children spend on average three more hours per day on screens than their wealthier counterparts. But they are not spending that time in fruitful ways that enhance their learning and development. That is where edtech focused schools come in. With the proper scaffolding of learning, technology in classrooms can equip students in low-income schools to secure opportunities and navigate misinformation online; something that they are less likely to be able to do at home. As this Associated Press report shows, 3 million American kids, who are mostly students of color from low-income families, do not have access to the internet at home.

Edtech tools widen horizons and prepare students to thrive in an interconnected world

A few years ago I worked with a small startup that connected a school in DC to one in Kosovo in the hopes of cultivating cross-cultural competency and collaboration among youth. Students in both schools were from economically disadvantaged communities and most of them had never left their city.

They watched videos of each other, exchanged photos and emails and shared their insights from lesson plans about identity, community, and what it means to be a global citizen. Despite never having Skype sessions with each other due to technical issues in the Kosovo school, the students were irrevocably changed by the connection. It allowed them to momentarily escape the insularity that poverty creates. It made them interrogate what they thought they knew about themselves and those different than them.

I now wonder what more revelations and deeper learning could have happened if both schools had the means to install video conferencing!

All schools should be like Waldorf, but…

Ideally, all schools should be like Waldorf. Providing a holistic learning environment that caters to the mind, body, and spirit, interacting with the real world and developing a healthy relationship with technology should be required for all children. But children from poor communities face a greater, negative impact by foregoing digital skills. Unlike their wealthier peers, they have no safety net and school is usually the only place in which they can engage with technology. And unlike their wealthier peers, acquiring digital skills has a greater, positive impact on their quality of life in terms of better employment, better use of information online, and the confidence to gracefully navigate an interconnected, globalized world.