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“Rules for all”? “Essential Technology”? What do “they” mean?

Ira David Socol
Teachers on Fire Magazine
5 min readJan 20, 2025

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teenager looking at their phone in class
Which is the damaging technology in this photo? The mobile? The desks in rows? The schedule? The division of content? The school room?

Perhaps the thing I struggle most with when I run up against the anti-technology-in-education crowd is their manufactured sense of moral superiority.

‘We are the defenders of childhood,” they pronounce as they stand in the corridors of locked down, over-scheduled, brutally uncomfortable schools where adults enforcing horrible systems of time and culture continually interrupt the kids’ efforts to grow into informed, caring, skilled, and responsible people.

Then they declare that the problem is the use of contemporary tools. This is the easiest answer for adults not interested in changing their practices, and it is so easy to find research that “proves” that 19th-century technologies are better for 19th-century tasks.

Disengaged? No social connection? Isolation?

“This week we implemented our new smartphone-free school strategy. Wow! The students, parents and carers have been amazing in embracing the change. The students are talking, UNO even made an appearance at lunch. There is eye contact, ‘hellos’ and ‘good mornings’. The reception phone line along with the house teams has gone quiet because the staff are able to deal with and resolve all those issues before any

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Teachers on Fire Magazine
Teachers on Fire Magazine

Published in Teachers on Fire Magazine

The Teachers on Fire Magazine features articles written by agents of growth and transformative change in K-12 education today. If you write about education, reach out to @TeachersOnFire to become a writer for this publication. Writers keep full ownership of content.

Ira David Socol
Ira David Socol

Written by Ira David Socol

Author, Dreamer, Educator: A life in service - NYPD, EMS, disabilities/UDL specialist, tech and innovation leader. Author - Designed to Fail + Timeless Learning

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