I Sent My Kid to School to Learn, Not to Become a Beta Tester for Silicon Valley
There’s a strange modern ritual happening in schools across America right now. It usually starts with a concerned parent saying something simple like: “Hey, maybe my 11-year-old doesn’t need to stare at a Chromebook for seven straight hours a day.” And then, as if summoned through a portal beneath the district office, a committee of administrators appears carrying PowerPoint slides about “digital transformation,” “future readiness,” and “equitable technology integration.” Translation: Your child will now complete worksheets on a glowing rectangle because someone at a conference in 2019 got emotionally attached to the phrase 21st-century learning environment. I know this because I’ve watched it happen in real time. Parents raise concerns about screen addiction, declining attention spans, literacy collapse, social problems, cyberbullying, AI cheating, dopamine dependency, or the small but noteworthy detail that children now panic when asked to handwrite a paragraph longer than a ho...
