Teaching Chronicles: Love, Positive Reinforcement, or Hate

It is hard to believe that much of the problems that we are seeing today evolves the ever going and on the go technology.

While I think it is great to see things improving, it is becoming problematic in our growth and development.

Recently, I had a conversation with an esteem colleague, and she shared with me the problem that we’ve both been seeing now that started when our students were at a young age.

At some point, when the students were younger, they encountered three things. They were either given love and care, positive reinforcement, or hatred response like telling them to shut the (you know what) up or something around those lines. When she told me about it, I had to ponder it for some time. Then, I remember the words of St. Teresa of Calcutta resonated as I reflected on the conversation. She shares that the most dangerous poverty in the world is, “loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” Who knew that it would be prophetic in the 21st Century.

It appears that the tablets and smartphones are becoming an obstacle to the education world, and I believe parents need to do a better job in helping children develop the skills needed in everyday life that gadgets can’t do. Further, people who have been hooked on these devices should strongly consider reprioritizing what really matters to them.

People still need to develop social skills that many lack. I always wonder as I take walks around my neighborhood and see children on their phones or tablets if they will understand that there is something more important than what’s on the screen.

Since teaching for over half a year, I have seen how problematic they can be. Granted, there are ways that we can get it under control. However, the tablets and smartphones are like a drug to many people.

During a class adoration session (something my students enjoy doing and I take it as a small victory in my teaching career thus far), the presenter shared something that was good timing with the first full week of Lent well underway. He shared how the phone kept him from fulfilling his duties as a father. When his children asked him to tuck them in for bed, he promised to be there in a minute. Sadly, it turned into nearly an hour. He would find his kids asleep. He realizes that his children must come first instead of the sports alerts, games, and everything else found on the apps of his dumb phone.  It cut to the core that prompted some of my students to consider reevaluating their own priorities.

My hope for students and parents is that we all need encounter. It can’t be found on the phone. Rather, it is found in every human person that walks on the face of the earth.

For parents, it is time to raise our children to not rely on technological advances to help develop their well-being. It is also time for them to become the first teachers in teaching them how to love.

If we don’t teach our children that family and those in front of us matter more than avatars on the apps, we have forgotten who we must love first. We will wind up teaching them that it’s okay to live in an artificial world. We must live in the present moment not the doom and gloom that tablets and electronic devices has to offer.