It wasn’t sent to us, at least not directly, but we decided to pretend it had been. “As we often ask our children to do their best,” the principal at a state primary school in Melbourne’s west had written in the second week of April, “we now ask that of our parents. But please do not let it become too overbearing or too difficult to the stage where it causes upset in the household – this does not assist anyone – child or parent.”
As my partner reads the letter, I watch the tension in his face ease. I also notice that his hair has greyed. Mine has too. We’re down to one income and even that has taken a battering. We’re rattled. Everyone is. For the first two weeks of lockdown I’d lie awake at night thinking of all the people and things I touched before I last saw my parents. WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE, was a refrain lodged in my head like a lewd joke.
To continue reading this article in The Monthly, go to:
https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2020/june/1590933600/anna-krien/screens-ate-school
Also see this interview with the writer of the above article:
Big Tech and screen-based learning in schools
State schools are providing pupils, as young as seven, with iPads, or asking parents to buy digital devices for them. Writer and parent, Anna Krien, has many reservations about Big Tech, and screen-based learning, in primary school. She investigated the growing presence of the tech giants in our schools for The Monthly magazine, in an article titled, “The Screens That Ate School”. Presented by Byron Writers Festival.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/big-tech-and-screen-learning-in-schools/12348514