Dear Christian School Administrator,
School issued devices, smartphones, & social media have negatively altered the lives of millions of school children. Artificial Intelligence is about to harm even more precious image bearers.
As normal, you arrive on campus before everyone else. Walking into the building, you turn off the alarm system and place your things in your office. Grabbing your thermos of coffee, you begin your daily practice of waking the hallways. You start in the front office, praying for all of those who will enter today. For the kids who will leave early because of illness, or come in late due to an orthodontist appointment. You remember a prospective family is touring the school this afternoon, and pray for wisdom and guidance for your Admissions Director. You take a left out of the hall and walk toward the music room. You hum a few lines of “Lord, I need you” and remember the music teacher’s sister is battling breast cancer. You ask the Lord for healing and continue on to the Upper School hallway. As you round the corner you see a piece of trash on the floor and lean down to pick it up - a bubble gum wrapper. Your school is a gum-free campus so you huff a bit but as you throw it in the trashcan you notice a flyer on a bulletin board for the 9th grade girls’ Tuesday morning Bible study and realize the bubble gum isn’t that big of a deal anyway. There is kingdom work to be done.
You finish your walk of the halls, praying for teachers and students and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. You return to your office and pull out your Bible. You've been reading Jeremiah. Today’s passage is from chapter 6. You jot verse 16 in your journal, “Stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” You spend a few more minutes in prayer and then realize, from the increasing sounds coming from the halls, that the building is about to be alive with students and staff.
You open your door just as your assistant comes to remind you of your 7:30am meeting with Mrs. & Mr. Williams. They want to discuss the incident on the playground last week with their middle daughter, Elizabeth. They are adamant that the punishment was too harsh. She didn’t mean to hit Jessica in the face with the four-square ball, despite what the teacher claims to have seen. You promise to follow-up with the teacher again and encourage the Williams to call Jessica’s parents and usher them out of your office before the first bell rings.
It’s the first Wednesday of the month which means an all-school chapel day. You make your way down the hall, noticing Elizabeth’s younger brother has his shoes untied at the water fountain. “Hey buddy, let’s get those shoes tied so you don’t trip!” you whisper. Heading into the chapel, you pull out your phone to check your calendar. Following chapel is a meeting with the Upper School Principal Mr. Mayer.
As you sit with Mr. Mayer, you are saddened, but no longer shocked, to hear the rumor about the 10th grade boys talking about online porn in the locker room before gym class. This isn’t a new problem, of course, but the frequency of these rumors is concerning. You and Mr. Mayer decide it’s time to call the parents of the 10th grade boys. Recognizing that many of the boys are watching porn on their smartphones, you wonder how to approach these conversations. At least this didn’t happen on the school-issued devices, you think. Or did it? You jot a note to check in with the IT department regarding the school’s network restrictions.
After Mr. Mayer leaves, you log-in to your email. 129 new messages since this morning. Great. You see one from the former Literature teacher who is now a Middle School principal in Missouri. He wants to know if you have time for a call this week. He could use your advice. The parent prayer team has been sharing faculty prayer requests in a group text that has taken on a life of its own. Now the whole school is praying gossiping and faculty members are feeling betrayed. You email him back with a few times you’re available, unsure of just how much help you might be able to offer.
Your calendar dings. It’s time for the Kindergarten Alphabet Parade through the halls. They are all dressed up in silly costumes, each student proudly wearing items celebrating one letter of the alphabet. Here comes Georgia with a green G taped to her shirt. She has Green socks, Green mittens, Goldfish earrings, and is carrying a ukulele you assume is meant to serve as a Guitar. You smile and notice the camera flash from your Communications Director. It used to be that parents would show up for these events, but that’s rare these days. Besides, all of the photos will be posted to the school’s Instagram and Facebook accounts within the hour. Maybe one of the photos will be shared with prospective families. That’s the hope of the Admissions team, after all.
Back to your office for the parent meeting you’ve been dreading all week. One of the 7th grade boys used Google chat to share AI-created images of the 6th grade girls’ volleyball team. From what you’ve been told by the Athletic Director, the photos were mostly harmless (no full-on nudity), but with AI technology these days, it’s only a matter of time before somebody does something far worse. You’ve heard as much from other school administrators. As you discuss the issue with the boy's parents you realize they are completely oblivious to what their son has been doing online. He has a tablet, of course, but he’s only allowed to use it on the weekends and only to access a few apps and websites. You explain that, as you understand it, parental controls don’t work inside many apps. Thanks to AI technology, there’s a growing number of “nudify-apps” being marketed online. You encourage the parents to maybe, possibly, consider restricting their sons’ tablet use for at least a few weeks. They scoff at the idea, noting that without it he won’t have any way to stay in touch with his friends. When you tell them that their son has been suspended for two days due to the severity of his actions, they protest. Neither of them are able to take off work on such short notice and they can’t possibly leave him home alone, especially not without access to his tablet. How else are they to check-in on him?
You are grateful for the time you spent walking the halls in prayer this morning. You take a deep breath and thank the parents for their time. It’s time for your next meeting, with the Admissions Director. You can tell from her face that the appointment with the new prospective family didn’t go as well as she had hoped. Certainly the family is able to pay full-tuition, which is good because your scholarship fund is lower than you’d like, but their 5 year old daughter seems to have some developmental delays that your small school may not be equipped to help with. She struggled to hold a crayon, sit still for a reading of Corduroy looking for his lost button, and couldn’t make eye contact with the Kindergarten teacher. As the Admissions Director tells you all this, you remember seeing the little girl sitting in the front office staring at her tablet with the pink kid-safe case. You wonder aloud if screen time, not developmental delays may be the issue. The Admissions Director thinks you’re on to something and mentions a few more families with similar struggles that she’s seen over the past few months and an article she recently read.
You look at your watch and realize carpool pick up is about to start. You head outside to help, waving at moms and dads as they go past. You remember when you started teaching three decades ago, this was always a time parents would try to ask you questions or make small talk. Now, as they move along, most of them have their eyes down on their smartphones. Maybe they are looking at photos of the Kindergarten Alphabet Parade, you think. As all the Lower School students head home, you head back into your office to check your email again.
Soon enough the Middle School Principal Mrs. Smith pops in. She met with Hazel and her parents this afternoon and wanted to give you an update. Hazel has stopped turning in her homework, claiming she’s too anxious to focus and hasn’t been sleeping well. Her parents are concerned the school is demanding too much and would like some accommodations. Mrs. Smith mentions that during the meeting, Hazel spent most of the time swiping through TikTok videos, while nodding along with her parents’ concerns. You and Mrs. Smith discuss if recommending counseling to the family is a better idea than decreasing the homework load. Oh, and before Mrs. Smith leaves she mentions that earlier in the day, there was quite the outburst from the new 6th grader. Something about a video game, she thinks. She’ll find out more and let you know tomorrow. Oh, and one more thing, she says (there’s always one more thing with Mrs. Smith!). She’s been reading up on students using AI to cheat and wants to discuss some policy changes with you and Mr. Mayer as soon as possible.
There’s a Varsity boys’ basketball home game tonight so you call your wife to remind her you won’t be home until later than normal and ask if you can pick something up for dinner on your way. During the game you notice a handful of students hunched over their smartphones instead of cheering for the team. You realize this has become a normal scene, but you can’t quite put your finger on when or how it began. During half-time you notice it is not only the student section modeling this hunched posture. By the start of the 4th quarter, the boys have a solid lead, so you quietly sneak out of the gym. Walking to your car, you remember that you need to schedule a meeting with the Lower School principal for next week to discuss the 5th grade overnight field trip. A few parents have e-mailed with concerns about sending their children on a field trip where other students will have smartphones. You can understand parents who want to stay in touch with their kids, but given what’s happening with the older students, you can see the validity in not allowing 5th graders to bring their own devices.
Driving home you wonder how it is that so much of your day revolves around screens and the internet? That’s not what you got into education for! Especially not Christian education. What was that verse from Jeremiah again? Something about rest. You left your journal on your desk, so you will have to remember to look in the morning. As your phone pings, a text from the Development Director, you wish you had left your smartphone at the office as well.
What’s Next
Thanks to social media and smartphones, the past decade has brought challenges that most of us didn’t see coming. Parents are overwhelmed, teachers are tired, administrators are dreaming of early retirement, and students are suffering. We’ve hardly gotten a handle on these challenges and now Artificial Intelligence is blasting its way into our homes and schools, whether we want it to or not.
Dear Christian School Administrator, it’s time to confront these challenges head-on. You’ve rightly deferred to parents as the primary authority in your students’ lives as it relates to smartphones & social media. Yet, all the while, parents are looking around your campus, seeing the prevalence of smartphones among students and assuming if the school hasn’t said it is a bad idea, then it must be okay.
You’ve wondered:
If we don’t use social media to promote our school, how will we attract new families?
If we ask students to not use social media, how will we ever enforce it?
If parents are asked to not buy smartphones or tablets for their children, will they take their students (and tuition money) elsewhere?
Is it actually true that students need to learn how to use AI to be college or career ready?
When you look at your school buildings you have a growing sense that the status quo can’t be your guiding principle going forward. Your policies and procedures might align with current legal standards, but shouldn’t protecting precious image bearers of God be the standard you aspire to instead? I’m suggesting that it is time for something new. It is time for a return to the ancient paths. It is time to ask what is good and find rest for your soul and the souls of the students who enter your school. You don’t need to throw out the light bulbs in favor of candles or abolish your weekly e-newsletter in favor of phone-trees.
If this post struck a nerve and you are wanting to make changes to your school’s tech policies but don’t know where to start, please contact me! In addition to this substack, I also run a small consulting business and would be delighted to help you think deeply, and Biblically, about crafting tech policies for your school. As a product of and parent in Christian school, I believe you have an important role to play in our modern culture. I’d be honored to partner with you.
Wow! What a great way to point out how quickly the day can change all because of technology and misuse because parents are scared to do what is necessary at home and school administrators and teachers aren’t sure what they should do, and can do. Well done Emily! So glad
I took time to stick with it and read it all. Definitely thought provoking and makes me thankful schools are banning phones but that’s NOT enough for sure. Keep up the great work and fight!!!