We have an incredibly mixed relationship with technology.
If you read the volumes of commentary written about technology it is, for the optimist, the sunlit uplands of progress and potential. For the pessimist, it is a source of great challenge and temptation. For the realist, we perhaps see both the amazing potential and the pitfalls.
For those, like me, who grew up in the ‘TV generation’, we can probably remember similar discussions about the evils of television. The well-trodden lines that TV ‘rotted your brain’ or ‘gave you square eyes’ were certainly heard in my home. Go back another generation and it was radio that was the challenge to our familiar way of life. I love this quote from an Australian journal in 1927 entitled ‘The evils of radio’: “Radio does not know its place. Sooner or later, our children will be brought up almost entirely by radio. Mother is no longer the wise being who knows such lovely, frightening tales… There is nothing but a voice from the void to sing children to sleep” (Chronicle of Australia, p.534).
“As parents, we need to clearly understand our children’s relationship with technology.”
The author of this particular piece concludes by arguing that “Radio is excellent in its place as a blessing to the lonely settler, but how can we convince it to stay there?” I often wonder whether we as parents are wondering similar things about smart phones and our hyper-connected children and their world – ‘it is all excellent in its place… but how can we convince it to stay there?’
The arguments that are made strike at the heart of the issues for a new generation, how do we maintain the central place of relationship and connection whilst providing the best of the opportunities available to our children? And ultimately, how do we teach our children to become mature and discerning adults.
As parents, we need to clearly understand our children’s relationship with technology. Last year, our Community Engagement Committee ran a Parent Forum with Daniel Sih that explored some of the lessons from his book Raising tech-healthy Humans. This week, we will be sending home complimentary copies of his book to each family with primary students and I would personally like to invite our primary families to an online webinar with Daniel on Wednesday 25 October 7:45-9:00pm and a follow up, face-to-face Q&A for Channel and Calvin Christian School parents on Tuesday 5 December at 7pm at Channel Christian School. For parents, I would also encourage you to attend our Parent Forum on 30 October at the Multipurpose Hall with Melinda Tankard-Reist.
Jesus reminds us that people have been making decisions about what they truly value for millennia and that the key to our decision-making remains our hearts. If technology becomes our ‘treasure’, the thing we value most, then it will rule us in ways that are unhealthy. Conversely, if we can learn to be discerning and clear about the central place of relationship and, I would argue, accept the central place of God in our lives, our view of the world (and technology) transforms radically.
Scott Ambrose - Principal