Thursday, December 15, 2016

New Devices = New Learning Opportunities This Holiday Season

As the holidays approach, most of us look forward to spending quality time with our loved ones, a break from school/work, and time to reflect and celebrate another year gone by.  For many, gifts are exchanged in conjunction with the holiday season, which may mean new electronic devices for some.

I vividly remember the Christmas following my sixteenth birthday.  After turning sixteen a few months prior in September, I received a hot pink Nokia cell phone for my Christmas gift.  I was thrilled!  I set my ringtone to the "Mexican Hat Dance" and quickly learned how to play "Snake", the one game that came on my cell phone, that same day.  My parents were very quick to remind me that the cell phone came with a very limited package of air time, which meant that making calls from my cell phone was to be restricted to driving emergencies only (hence the reason the gift was given after my sixteenth birthday).  No warnings had to be given about texting or appropriate social media use since these things did not yet exist.

Today, parents gifting devices to their children have many more considerations to deliberate than my parents did years ago.  Smartphones and tablets provide immediate access to the internet, and a plethora of downloadable apps allow users to access, create, and share information instantly with others.  Plus, children nowadays are receiving these devices at younger ages, which means their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for decision making, is less developed.  (Read this quick article from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology for a brief overview of teen brain development.)  While these devices are extremely useful and provide many positive learning opportunities, it is also important to provide children with guidance as they learn to appropriately navigate the freedom these devices afford them.

In attempts to support parents as they navigate conversations with their children related to the responsible use of devices and social media, we have created an Internet Safety web page on our school website.  For future reference, this web page can be found on the Pleasantdale Middle School website under the "Information" tab.  Posted resources provide parents with information and conversation starters related to topics like safe cell phone usage, cyberbullying, and posting appropriately on social media.  Pleasantdale District 107 actively works to create good digital citizens, and in order to do so, we need the help of our parents, too.

In addition to providing children with guidance on internet safety, it is important to have conversations with children related to the amount of screentime spent in front of a device.  A recent article from T.H.E. Journal titled "Parents Admit to Social Media Spying on their Tweens" provides key findings from a study conducted by Common Sense Media and The Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University related to the impact of screen time for children ages 8 - 18 years old.  One of the most shocking statistics is that parents say their tweens spend approximately nine hours a day on social media.  This makes having conversations related to social media usage, as well as taking the time to monitor social media usage, that much more critical when some spend so much time on such apps and websites.  In addition, a recently published article by Healthy Day titled "Smartphones, Tablets, and Weight gain in Teens"  highlights the health dangers of too much screen time.

So this holiday season, take the time to give the gift of conversation along with that new device.  Take the time to talk with children about responsible device usage, and set reasonable boundaries related to screen time.  This will make for a more pleasant, safe holiday season which will inevitably lead to a more pleasant, safe year ahead in 2017.

Wising everyone a very happy, safe and healthy holiday season!

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Teaching Empathy

As we return from the Thanksgiving holiday and look forward to many other holidays in the month ahead, it is hard not to be overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude.  Pleasantdale is a school community with an abundance of dedicated staff members, kind and hard-working students, and invested parents and community members.  However, along with this gratitude comes the obligation to continually be sensitive to the fact that we only see a portion of each other's lives.  We must constantly consider how we can support our Pleasantdale family through thick and thin, through life's ups and downs.  This week Mr. Glimco blogs about some of the ways we do this specifically around the holidays at the middle school, and Mr. Vandercar explains how this is done at the elementary school.

But what do we do the rest of the year, when the holidays are not upon us?  At Pleasantdale Middle School, our Social Emotional Learning committee, which is comprised of teachers and administrators and is spearheaded by our social worker Carrie Castaldo, has been working hard to ensure students are receiving regular opportunities to engage in social-emotional learning opportunities throughout the school year.

One of the Illinois Social-Emotional Learning Standards that enables students to support others is Standard 2A: Recognize the feelings and perspectives of others.  A key component of successfully doing this is teaching empathy.  The benefits of teaching empathy are clear.  It strengthens a classroom culture, builds community, and prepares students to be leaders in the community outside of school.  Teaching empathy can also help students with academics since it can help students to understand their audience when presenting and speaking, to interpret a character's motives in a text, and to have a better understanding of the solution a problem necessitates.  Behaviorally, empathetic students are able to better understand how their words and actions impact others, which provides for a richer learning experience when mistakes are made.  Our staff strives to embed lessons in empathy into the curriculum by reading and discussing a variety of texts, taking on historical personas during social studies class, and role playing during health class.

With each conversation we have with students, our goal is to increase their capacity to empathize with others.  By teaching our students empathy, it is our hope that we will create a more supportive school culture throughout the school year, not just during the holiday season.