Commentary by Tamara Kaldor and Blakely Bundy
These chapters makes me feel like I am a dinosaur as Rae Pica describes herself. They also me sad, angry and scared. I think that technology in the classrooms, keyboarding for kindergarten and not teaching handwriting are ludicrous.
Handwriting is muscle, brain, had eye coordination and literacy building. iPads, screens, phones, etc are one dimensional and not "interactive" as they purport to be. Keyboarding before full carpal development is complete says that we are sitting kids up for repetive stress injuries at age five??
An interesting and scary thing my eye doctor shared with me recently is the concern for increasing macular degeneration cases. I may have some facts incorrect, but the general idea is that the light waves from the sun that are believed to have caused macular degeneration in farmers (prior to using cabs on tractors and sunglasses with uv protection) is the same frequency of light that is emitting from LED light on our screens. My opthanolgist told me he is worried about a coming generation of forty year olds with macular degeneration. This should scare any parent out of screen use for kids.
I get sad when parents pick up their children at the end of the day with an ear bud in place, continuing a call while they gather up their child and belongings and walk out the door. When does the call end?
In the dark of winter, I see kids fastened into car seats and the instant the car starts up, the movie is playing on the drop down screen. I know many of my toddlers don't have the conversational skills to talk about thier day, but it breaks my heart to see no verbal engagement between parent & child at the end of a long day apart.
Talk to your kids, read to your kids, write and draw with your kids, take your kids outside...don't plug them in.
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