PARENTS, Are Apps For Students Really Worth It?
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Parents, I went on a bit of a rant here, but it ends well! Enjoy.
Below is the text from the email that inspired this video…
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Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth
I’ve reached a peak frustration level with my 2e student. I have attended many parent seminars / conferences / talks / meetings (you get the picture) and after attending yet another last night and leaving frustrated, I thought I’d pose a question: If ALL the experts agree that kids should have limited screen time (especially kids with ADHD), why then does every bit of advice come with yet another app or website to introduce to your kid?” – Andrea
Love my work and want to give? Click here! To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth
Video transcript:
Hey, what’s up everybody? Welcome. It’s at. Perler.com. And I have a letter here from a parent that I want to go over with you. She says this is Andrea and she says I have reached Peak frustration level with my to East student and Touhy for those who don’t know means twice exceptional sun exceptionality is basically if you think about the bell curve, it’s either side of the bell curve. It could be exceptionality could be gifted and exceptional. It could be some sort of a disability Asperger’s autism. Dyslexia ADHD sensory issues. Any any type of quote disability you can think of so, you’re two evenings gifted and a star goes with some sort of disability, but this mom says I’ve reached a peak frustration level. And then it says I’ve attended many parent seminars conferences talks meetings, you get the picture and after attending yet another one last night and leaving frustrated. I thought I’d ask you this question. If all the experts agree that kids should have limited screen time, and I absolutely agree with that. I think it can be toxic to a lot of students and very difficult to change especially when they get into Middle School. If experts agree that they should have limited screen time, especially kids with ADHD. She says why then does every bit of advice how much yet another app or website to introduce to your kid? Okay. So here is my cynical yet honest answer. Why do they always recommend more apps or websites? Why the online learning when the curriculum for most of the well, really all the online courses I’ve ever worked with my students have been pretty much horrible. They often time are very poorly written very difficult to understand. They’re very choppy to go through there not motivating. It’s basically you do this thing. You answer these questions online. You get it done. There’s no real support usually on these things. And then you have all these apps that are supposed to help and all this noise noise noise all these things that so why are these people pushing this stuff? So if your parent and you go to some parent meeting and you here, oh, this is the latest and greatest new app for this or that Why are they telling you this? Okay, if we know that there’s evidence that shows that a lot of the stuff really. I mean kids they’re not just going to use the after going to be distracted by other things by Minecraft by Facebook buy whatever things they’re addicted to or consumed with online. They’re not just going to stay on that helpful app usually case oyyy well two main reasons. I came up with Monday. people make money After about money their Affiliates, and I’m sorry to be cynical and I’m not trying to be a jerk and you may be watching this and you may be someone who has developed a great app for kids that really helps will hey some apps to help and I thank you. Thank you very much. I’m glad you’re out there doing what you’re doing. Okay, there are some great apps that can help with certain things if they’re used properly right by speaking. If you’re going to these things there they’re making money off of it in some way or another now. I’m going to be cynical little bit more about it. She’s got a really think about this what’s going on their educational system. Okay, so we’re seeing what’s going on with politics today right? There is just some really wacky stuff going on. And as far as education, which is tied to politics politicians are making a lot of decisions about education. And what happens is we have a system where we have test And the tests are designed to look at the school or look at a child or look at a teacher gather data to determine the success of that school teacher or child. Okay. No do the test really show what they claim to show. I don’t think so. I’m not a fan of tests. They really bother me. They heard a lot of kids and I’m I’m I’m passionate about this today because I’ve watched so many of my kids is so stressed out by this time watch test interfere with three weeks of school every school. You’re not even counting all the prep time that teachers put into the test and all the money in blah blah blah. What what about test? Let’s look at Miss Pearson is an 8 billion billion dollar company, one of the biggest testing companies in the world. These people are making money now test you got to do well on the tests. So what do you need? Well, you need good. Text books textbooks. Have you ever seen a college textbook sell for $180? Like what what book cost $180 and then it’s the 17th edition of the textbook and the 16th Edition in the 15th. And the fifth edition cost on sale $150. And then what do they give the students for those textbooks $22 or whatever. I mean, it’s it’s a racket. Okay, the textbook companies are making big big big big big big big big money. And then of course you have if you want to do well on tests, you have to have a great textbooks. You also have to have curriculum. So there are all these curriculum manufacturers that sell textbooks in that sell different curriculum packages. So as a teacher being in schools, I seen a lot of these crackling manufacturers will bring in the huge boxes display boxes beautiful boxes design with all these different books and and all these supplemental materials and DVDs and all this stuff in this beautiful box. If you never seen one you should see it. It’s a sight to behold. There’s a thousand-dollar box there in and teachers can look at in principles can look at and say we’re going to teach teachers how to be creative. It’s not valued because we want them that doesn’t help the bottom line, right? We don’t teach teachers how to create a creatively differentiated curriculum how to think on their own that’s not encouraged how to make decisions that are outside the box. We don’t want to disturb the status quo. We want kids to be in the Box fit in the Box. Perform on the test so that the school looks good blah blah blah. My cynicism for why the apps is the same reason for all this stuff. It comes down to that somebody’s property do not get me wrong. There are phenomenal teachers phenomenal administrators phenomenal therapist phenomenal people who are involved with kid to help your kids. Who care about your kid. Those are the people you really want to hold on to you want to get your kids around them because they’re really invest in your kids because they love being of service to humanity through serving kids and helping them grow and have amazing lives. They’re not concerned with the bottom line or they may be by there. It is not their focus their focus is your kid. Okay, so they’re amazing people out there. So my cynicism does taking to count that are those amazing people. We need them. We need to reward them. We need to inspire them help them. Push them give them what they need to survive are cats. Okay, but my opinion is why money number to the number to reason why so many apps are pushed. It’s easy. It’s easy to stand on a stage and say hey if you use this out, this is great for kids. Here’s a list of 70 things that are going to help your kids blah blah blah blah. If you follow my blog if you watch my videos, if you look at what I’m saying fact is that helping kids make real change that helps their life and that helps them to launch a great future and have a great childhood at the same time is not easy. It is not we want why apps because we want Magic Bullets. We wanted to be easy. We want we want fairy dust and unicorns and and we want something magical that’s going to help us with our kids so that we can be assured that they’re going to have a great future and that they’re getting what they need. And if we just listen to these people and we just listen to the apps and we just do this. And if you’re a good enough parent, you’ll buy this stuff and you buy into this crap. And your kids will be okay. Working with these kids is not easy. Takes time. Patience effort persistence you want to change your kids habit. You can’t do it in a week. You’re trying to really change your consistency. For example at the parents instead of strong boundary about something. It’s going to take you a good six to eight weeks with your kid before they even believe you that the boundary really exist. You have to be so firm and consistent and loving and kind. This stuff is not easy. Parenting is not easy teaching is not easy, but especially helping a 2E child who has very very extreme extremes. That’s really challenging and it does require a lot of patience lot of time all this stuff. So with apps and new websites new this and that they may be helpful. They may serve a purpose. But they also may be helping somebody profit and that in profiting they may want you to believe that this isn’t easy way out. This is something that’s not going to require a lot of aspirin if you just do it. You’ll be okay. So what I’m here to tell you is that that’s not the truth. The truth is is that with consistency with understanding executive function with having outside the box solutions for your kid with keeping the big picture in mind, which is their future and their happiness with certain things. You can help your child transform their challenges and get to a place where they are able to navigate education navigate life and created great future. Absolutely positively, so I just really want to encourage you just want to make that short video to respond to that. Thank you so much for your email, and I hope that helps I will see you soon. Take care.