Parents think smartphones are good for children. They’re the opposite...
Katharine Birbalsingh is one of the world’s toughest head teachers. She’s brought discipline and learning to the heart of inner-city London. Now, though, she’s facing her most difficult battle yet — the scourge of internet devices
‘We’re going to reap what we sow - we are in trouble’
KATHARINE Birbalsingh has never been a woman to take any prisoners since she first came to the public’s attention in 2010 when she gave a scathing speech on the education system at the British Conservative Party conference, a move which she made at some professional cost.
In her speech — which received a standing ovation — she said the school system was broken as it kept poor children poor and blasted ‘a culture of excuses, of low standards’ that added to the chaos of the classrooms she was teaching in.
The speech made her unpopular with her peers and also unfortunately made her a target for racist and misogynistic trolls on social media, to the point where it became difficult for her to continue her work in education.
But after four years, she realised her dream of opening one of England’s so-called free schools, funded by the government but free from all local authority control.
New Zealand-born Birbalsingh oversaw the renovation of a run-down college and transformed
it into the Michaela Community School in a disadvantaged area of North London.
She rules the roost in this inner city school where there are, she has said, ‘the kind of inner city issues that you might find in Hollywood films,’ like knives and gang violence.
Before children are given a place they have to attend a seven-day boot camp to learn the strict rules of the school. There’s no talking in the corridors and demerits are handed down for chatter, bad behaviour, distracting others and even having the wrong uniform or equipment.
Detentions are handed out for disobedience and lateness but there are also isolations and exclusion systems for swearing, horseplay, vandalism, bullying and inappropriate use of
technology. Punishments are meted out for behaviour teachers in many other schools would turn a blind eye to.
In fact, the Michaela School adheres to an old-fashioned way of schooling where teachers have the power. Because of her dogged emphasis on classroom discipline, Birbalsingh has been branded ‘Britain’s strictest head’.
It has been an uphill struggle but Birbalsingh’s hard work has paid off. Her charges are devoted to her and the strict system she has created which gives them space from the chaotic outside world and leaves them free to learn.
In fact, she’s written a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers: the Michaela Way, which outlines her school’s more traditional approach to teaching and learning.
But with the recent advances in technology, Birbalsingh has found herself fighting another destructive force that is ruining children’s lives.
‘Parents don’t realise the dangerous world they are opening to their child by giving them a smartphone,’ she says. ‘They don’t know what’s happening on Snapchat and WhatsApp.
‘They think it’s harmless. They don’t realise the horrible things they say, the ganging up on each other, calling each other names, gangrelated issues. Somebody says something on Snapchat and next thing boys arrive at the school with masks or carrying knives, waiting for a boy coming out of our school — all because you allowed your child unsupervised access to the internet.’
She concedes that it is especially difficult for parents of young teenagers not to give in to the pressure.
‘We need to recognise that never before have parents had the uphill struggle they currently have to keep children’s attention on the right kinds of things.
‘You’re considered weird if you don’t give your child a smartphone. You have to be quite brave. The two big apps used by kids are WhatsApp and Snapchat and both of those spend a fortune employing a full time team whose sole task is to make the app more addictive.
‘They are creating addictive apps in order to trick children into being addicted to using their app all the time. Children are victims of these apps. Parents don’t realise just how dangerous it is. They save up money to give their children a smartphone at Christmas thinking they are doing the child a favour when actually they are doing them harm.’
She points out the hypocrisy of tech CEOs keeping their own children away from devices while at the same time fine-tuning their apps to make them more addictive for yours.
‘I’ll tell you who knows all about the harm of smartphones and it’s all the tech CEOs. Bill Gates filled his house with books and when someone asked Steve Jobs if his kids played with the iPad he said, “I don’t give my children the iPad.” Meanwhile we’re making them billionaires and they are protecting their own children from the harmful effects of the technology they invented.’
She despairs at the sight of toddlers scrolling on phones or swiping on iPads.
‘If you’ve been on phones since you were born it’s very difficult for you to read because reading is slow. On a smartphone there are lots of colours, the screen changes constantly, their attention span doesn’t need to last more than 10 seconds. For a child to read a book you need to concentrate for several minutes.’
She has even begun to feel nostalgic for the soap operas that were catnip for the previous generation.
‘Once upon a time kids would watch Coronation Street and there was a narrative arc they had to follow. That’s not like reading a book and it was the naughty thing of its day. But the characters would grow, a story would develop around them, the arc comes down, there’s a disaster, and it is all resolved in the end. They were learning that narrative arc.
On Snapchat or Youtube and so on they’ll be watching 20-second videos saying, “Look at me, I went to the hairdresser…” What the hell is that?’ she exclaims. ‘That’s what they’re doing. Watching ten-second and 15second videos because they’re not going to make them any longer than that or people won’t watch them.’
This is why Birbalsingh has introduced a policy in her own school to target the ‘very dangerous’ and ‘addictive’ lure of the smartphones she says are undermining children’s educational potential.
‘There is an alternative — you can get a brick phone,’ she advises, when we speak to her this week. ‘There’s a brick phone in Asda, we’ve just found out, that’s £7 (€7.88). We said, “Let’s get a whole bunch of those in”. They are super cheap.’
At the moment the school is offering a Doro 5030 phone — which works on any network — to parents at the wholesale price of £29 (€32.66).
‘Parents like the convenience of being able to contact their children but the brick phone only allows texts and phone calls. That way they can stay in touch but their children don’t have unsupervised access to the internet.’
The problem, though, is that once a child already has a smartphone it’s difficult to get them to give it up.
‘It’s like taking away heroin from a heroin addict — they’re not going to have it,’ she says, and 60% of her Year 7 students — who are aged 11 and 12 and roughly the equivalent of Irish First Year students — already have a smartphone.
‘We do our best to try and stop children who don’t have them from getting them. Ideally I would like to see this work done at primary school,’ she emphasises.
Her school has ‘only just started a couple of months ago’ to sell the brick phone and she admits: ‘We have to push them more.’
‘Our rules are they’re not allowed the phone in school. They can either leave it at home or keep it in their blazer. If we see it or hear it we take it. We are very strict about enforcing that rule so we never see phones,’ says Birbalsingh — and once confiscated a phone is only returned at the end of term or half-term.
But, she says: ‘The problem is when they’re outside of school.’
She believes we won’t understand the full extent of smartphone damage to our children for some time to come.
‘In 15 or 20 years’ time we’re going to reap what we’re sowing. We’re in trouble. Employers are already talking about a decrease in people’s ability to concentrate. It’s not just about concentration— but the ability to think through something, being able to analyse and examine, tear something apart and put it back together. These apps do not encourage you to think.’
Parents are potentially sleepwalking into trouble by casually introducing their children to devices at a very early age.
‘I’ve heard parents say, “Oh it’s fine — you allow them on for a little while and then you take it away”. When they’re six you can do that but when they’re older they’re addicted and they can’t come off,’ she explains.
‘It’s like smoking — you try telling someone addicted to nicotine to just stop. And, like with smoking, smartphone use becomes increasingly addictive as time goes on. At first you smoke a few a day then you’re on two packs a day — that’s what addiction is.’
Some of her 600 students recognise how their own smartphone addictions are holding them back at school.
‘Our children tell us, “I can’t come off even though I want to. I want to do my homework but I can’t. I’m addicted.” That’s when you involve the parent.’
Despite some parents’ best efforts, their children will do anything to get their smartphone fix.
‘We’ve had a child up all night looking for their phone when their parents have hidden it,’ says Birbalsingh. ‘We’ve had children who find the hiding place, do their WhatsApp and Snapchat all night, then put it back in the hiding place so their parents don’t know what’s going on. Meanwhile they’re falling asleep at school — that’s one example.’
Then there are the children who are meeting strangers via their smartphone. ‘I had a lovely couple
saying to me that their daughter met this boy online and he was a criminal. Their daughter thought he was God, a super sexy boy. To avoid her meeting this boy, the parents were collecting her at school, taking her straight home and they said, “She’s just in her bedroom all night, she’s still so depressed, we don’t know what to do.”’ But it hadn’t occurred to them that the child was in her room communication with the boy until Birbalsingh spelled it out.
‘Smartphones are a lifeline into a world that is really very dangerous,’ she warns. ‘Children have access to undesirables out there and undesirables have access to your child. Anybody will know where your child is, where they go to school, what route they take to school, what their favourite food is where they went on holiday — everything!’
‘When we hear about grooming incidents with girls and sometimes boys, I tell parents that giving children unsupervised access to the internet with a smartphone is the problem. They can have access to the internet on a family computer where you can keep an eye on them. But the moment they have a
smartphone, they have it on them when they’re not with you.
‘There are terrible stories about children who have been murdered having been accessed by the perpetrator through the internet. The child lies to the parent because
they want to meet this person after months and months of grooming. And the parent doesn’t know anything about it until the child is murdered. Afterwards the parent campaigns for greater awareness of the dangers, saying, “Please listen to me!” And nobody listens.’ Some schools even encourage children to bring their smartphones to class, much to Birbalsingh’s dismay. ‘What I find concerning is that many schools allow phones on the premises — at break time, during lunch, during lesson changeover — and some schools even use the phones in lessons because they believe it helps with the learning,’ she says. ‘I would disagree with that. I don’t think it enhances learning, I think that idea is utterly ridiculous. What are you teaching them? How to search on Google? You ought to be teaching them
history and having some nice class discussion, as opposed to learning how to look up something on Google,’ she complains.
‘It’s heartbreaking when you hear about parents struggling trying to curb the smartphone addiction at home but because the phone is allowed — and sometimes even required — at school, they feel undermined by the school.’
She believes schools and parents should work together to tackle the issue.
‘The reason I have to shout louder than most is because the number of schools that ban phones is far fewer that the number of schools that allow their usage in some form or another,’ she says.
‘At the very least the smartphone prevents kids from doing homework and gets them addicted to something unsavoury.
‘At the very worst they could lose their lives. I keep screaming about this from the rooftops and more and more people are listening.
‘When I used to say this kind of thing a couple of years ago, nobody listened.
‘But now,’ she says, ‘people are beginning to understand the dangers.’