Published on 30.11.2022
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
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When he enters school, the Little Man is just over 4 years old. Separation from parents is still difficult, changing in the locker room is a sporting feat, not to mention holding a pencil. If there is, however, one thing that many of our Little People have already mastered perfectly, it’s screens. Barely dry behind his gourds, the Petit d’Homme ebbs, flows and snaps with truly jaw-dropping aplomb.
Many, on the other hand, struggle to hear a story, to make eye contact, to hold a pencil. And without demonizing the IT tool, I think it would be wrong to see it as a means of “integration” (read in LL of 17.11 the interview with the state councilor Sylvie Bonvin-Sansonnens on the computer at school). Like Kaa’s eyes, the screen in all its forms fascinates and hypnotizes the child. Place it in front of an iPad and the noise level in the classroom will instantly decrease.
Like many of my colleagues, I observe a progressive impoverishment of some skills in children. For some, the screen takes the place of bedtime stories, walks in the woods, the first coloring pages.
Faced with this observation, I confess a certain skepticism towards the “digital strategy” of the canton. Certainly, there is some good in the computer tool. Unfortunately, the teacher’s job today consists much more in combating the harmful effect of screens.
Crossing eyes, reinvesting the hand, spreading glue on an approximate DIY, enhancing listening, collaboration, mobilizing the body in its entirety: many crusades to distract our future Little Men from the unhealthy charm of screens…
Annick Appetite, child teacher, Bubble
