September 26, 2024Away for the Day: Phone Policy Update

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Reducing the omnipresent role of technology in students’ lives has been a topic of discussion and concern for quite some time. This past June, we purchased a copy of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation for every faculty and staff member to read over the summer and consider the implications of the content to their own lives and to the lives of our students.

In brief, the book is about child and young adult mental health and the connection between the rise in mental health concerns and the pervasiveness of technology in our lives today. It outlines how mental health issues, varying from tanking self-esteem, anxiety, depression, self harm and suicidal ideation, have been on the rise and explores a causal relationship between this and the increasingly ubiquitous nature of technology. Many of the findings indicate that as a society we have “overprotected children in the real world and underprotected them in the virtual world,” (Haidt, 2024).

Many of the findings indicate that as a society we have “overprotected children in the real world and underprotected them in the virtual world,” (Haidt, 2024).

During Aberdeen Hall professional development days in August, faculty across the school discussed The Anxious Generation and the thoughts and questions that came up for us as individuals and as related to the context of school-life. 

There was a whole-hearted consensus that we needed to do something. It was a collective sense that it was part of our responsibility to the young people under our care to make better efforts to protect and preserve childhood, to reattune attention to the tasks at hand, and to support the building of real-life social connections. It was also openly and often acknowledged that we did not want to be the “tech police.” As educators we embrace and encourage technology as a tool of efficiency and we appreciate the innovation and advancements of knowledge. As a faculty, we established a renewed commitment to our  enhanced “Away for the Day” policy and agreed to support each other by upholding the same standard, all the time, for all students.

At our first High School assembly during the first week of school, I shared this renewed, and enhanced, commitment to the “Away for the Day” policy and that it was essentially a safe-guarding policy. We, the adults, are working to right the wrongs of allowing free and easy access to a tool that is loaded with apps that are constructed to lure one in and monopolize time and attention. I shared a few statistics and graphs from The Anxious Generation that illustrate the barrage of mental health concerns that followed the rise of smartphones and the technologies within them.

But that wasn’t the main message of our first assembly. The message I so wanted to impart was that our time is precious and that how we choose to spend our time is one of the most important decisions that we can make.

 Mary Oliver offers this message in her beautiful poem “The Summer Day” which I shared with students.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean —

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

~Mary Oliver

We focused on the last half of the poem where Ms. Oliver shifts from describing a moment in nature to imparting the wisdom she’s learned in nature and then to her famous provocation: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

When we are caught up in the world that is contained in the technology that we carry in our bags and pockets we disconnect from the places and people around us. We become insular and focused on the self and the algorithm that validates our ideals and perspectives. This does not help us create community, it does not help us consider diverse perspectives, and it does not enable us to grow and thrive – I would argue that it limits us and leads to stagnation. We need to push back against comparison culture, validating algorithms, and lightning fast gratification.

To grow and accomplish what you wish within your one wild and precious life– you must accept uncertainty, a little discomfort here and there, and recognize the astounding, complex beauty of the people and the world that is your community and right in front of you.This is why we established “Away for the Day.”

And the response from our students has made us proud. This switch has not been an arduous undertaking and there has been no contention. Every conversation has been respectful and sometimes downright appreciative. We are delighted to see students engaging in conversation over lunch, attending lunch time clubs, playing cards and board games in the great hall, and that the outdoor basketball courts and the Athletics and Wellness Centre are full.

Yes, “Away for the Day” is harder for some students than others, but as long as we are doing it together, supporting each other, and providing opportunities to connect and find interests, then together we are working to ensure healthier, happier futures for our students. And ultimately, this is the essence of all our practices and policies; we work together, school and family, to allow the young people under our care to thrive and find fulfillment in this “one wild and precious life.”

Warm regards,

Heather Nolan Wood
High School Principal