Why this Indianapolis school wants kids to put screens down

(MIRROR INDY) — The classrooms at The Oaks Academy look frozen in time.

Weekly poetry and scripture memorizations are scrawled at the front of the room in tidy cursive letters, their powdery marks of white jumping off the dark, black chalkboard.

Classical music plays as fourth grade teacher Sarah Budd guides students through a handwritten writing assignment. Students are encouraged to practice their own cursive. Not a device is seen on students’ desks.

Instead of logging onto Chromebooks, students carry their projects with them in colorfully drawn notebooks containing leaf rubbings and sketches of dissected apples exhibiting students’ discoveries from recent field trips and class lessons.

The low-tech studies are by design. While most schools have embraced technology with smart boards at the front of every classroom and laptops assigned to every student, The Oaks has moved in the opposite direction.

School leaders say that too much screen time has become detrimental to students’ learning and mental health. They point to studies that show students’ behavior has gotten worse with increased screen time.

While some public schools see access to technology as an equity issue and have made a mission of ensuring all students have the ability to connect to the internet at school, The Oaks sees the benefits of scaling back.

About 30% of students attending the Christian private school live in its campuses’ surrounding neighborhoods and 50% come from low income families, said Brooke Reeves, The Oaks’ director of communications and marketing. But all of their students are challenged with increasing screen time at home, school leaders say, so they feel a responsibility to cut back on that technology while students are with them in class.

“We really just want to start a conversation about this in our community,” Reeves said, “and come at it from a way that’s really positive and empowering for parents and not shameful, because we’re all in this boat together. We’re all in the same ship. We would like to figure out how to navigate these uncharted waters.”

During the month of November, they’re also encouraging kids and their families to cut some tech time out of their routines at home to help regain balance over students’ screen time.

Scaling back screen time

The Oaks Academy — with three campuses in the near north side, Brookside and Martindale Brightwood neighborhoods — has long embraced tech-free teaching.

The holistic curriculum emphasizes play and discovery. Students in The Oaks’ lower grades get daily outdoor recess along with an additional “discovery time” — a self-directed creativity period with no established agenda.

Technology is a tool, school leaders say, but one that should be used sparingly in school and with appropriate balance.

“We believe that putting a physical book in their hand and having them write with pencil and paper instead of typing everything is going to promote engagement and their habit of attention,” said Jessica Surface, the school’s director of K-2 academics.

The academy’s youngest students in pre-K through fifth grade have very little interaction with technology. Teachers use smart boards with attached document cameras only to project their own handwriting or visual art projects to the class, and students check out devices from computer carts only to take standardized tests, such as the ILEARN, which are now offered primarily online.

Older students spend part of their library time learning typing skills, and Surface said students with severe learning needs may use computers in limited scope as an intervention tool. But students do not have school-issued computers to take home with them at the end of the day.

Like most schools, The Oaks pivoted during the pandemic to use more technology to connect with students from home. They also offered an optional online school as classrooms began reopening. But unlike other schools, leadership at The Oaks made an intentional decision to have students put the computers away when they returned to in-person learning.

With kids’ growing access to technology, school leaders say, comes immediate access to search engines and instant answers depriving students of the opportunity to flex their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Creating good habits and keeping focus has also become increasingly difficult as games, media and constant communication vie for attention.

Those challenges have only become worse coming out of the pandemic, said Bruce Crawford, the head of school at The Oaks’ Fall Creek campus on the near north side.

Shifting the relationship with technology

Middle school students, in particular, have struggled more with disruptions to class as students’ conflicts on social media spill over into school.

Crawford attributes much of what the school is seeing to both the increase in students’ access to technology and the increasing lack of time children spend exploring and playing without devices in their hands.

“The kind of free-spirited, unrestricted play that has become more constricted or has gone away is not allowing kids the ability to withstand difficulties or to work things out,” he said.

Crawford said that years ago The Oaks’ approach to technology was encountered with some skepticism as prospective parents visited the school with questions about the new computer labs they had seen growing popular in other classrooms. But, as kids’ relationships with technology shifts, parents have increasingly come around to the tech-free way of learning.

“It’s almost a longing for something different,” Crawford said. “There’s almost like a relief that their child is not going to be exposed to (technology) when they’re here.”

However, the academy’s biggest struggle, Crawford said, lies in how students choose to spend their time outside of school. Even with the best systems in place to remove technology from the classroom, he said, students are still returning to their devices at home.

That’s why — as the time came for a fall fundraiser — school leaders decided to incorporate a challenge involving kids’ time outside of class.

1 Million Minutes Challenge

This month, the school is taking on a 1 Million Minutes Challenge.

Designed by Oaks school leaders, it encourages families to cut at least 30 minutes of tech-based play out of their day in favor of other activities, such as reading, sports and art. It also doubles as a fundraiser for the private school.

Each student has been asked to mark their progress on a weekly tracking sheet. They’ve also been asked to seek out a financial sponsor for each week of tech-free play with proceeds supporting the school’s ongoing capital campaign. This year’s campaign seeks to fund a new playground at the Fall Creek and Brookside campuses and a new athletic facility in Martindale Brightwood.

If each of The Oaks’ more than 1,000 students successfully completes at least 30 minutes a day throughout the month of November, the school will have collectively achieved nearly 1 million minutes of tech-free play.

The school is encouraging parents to match their students’ tech-free time. Oaks leadership first introduced the concept to parents in its once-a-semester Saturday school event where families get a chance to meet teachers and spend part of a day in class with their students.

School leaders shared data on technology’s influence on kids and challenged parents to reflect upon their own usage. They also shared ideas for how families can embrace alternatives, replacing video games or Netflix, for example, with board games or crafts.

While achieving the fundraising goal is important, Reeves said she hopes the challenge lasts beyond November.

“It just challenges parents to think a little bit more creatively,” Reeves said. “Once you try something, you’re like ‘oh, that wasn’t actually that hard.’ … If you do it a couple times, it starts to become habit, so hopefully this will become habit in our families.”

Creating your own tech-free time

Oaks leaders are urging others to join the 1 Million Minutes Challenge.

They shared ideas for families:

• Create an art box with materials from around your house and set up an art gallery with the creations.
• Plan a picnic for a weekend meal.
• Create a new board game.
• Set up a scavenger hunt.
• Exchange handwritten letters with a penpal, such as a favorite family member or to drop in a neighbor’s mailbox.
• Write and illustrate a comic book.
• Enjoy A-Z nature walks, spotting animals and natural objects using every alphabet letter.
• Interview your grandparents, neighbors or a friend. Ask them questions about their childhood.
• Build an obstacle course.
• Play the Memory Tray game to see who has the best recollection.
• Start a puzzle and game swap with other families.

Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.