“Multi-tasking or Multi-distracting: What is happening in our classrooms?”
By Natasha Mansouri (William Lyon Mackenzie C.I.)
One of the best definitions of concentration is, “wherever you are, be there”.
As the number of students using cellular phones in school has grown, situations have arisen when I had to stop a student from using his/her device in class. In those moments, I had to stop teaching and helping other students and instead deal with the cellphone use. Despite the TDSB ban on the use of cellphones in schools, some students continued using their devices at lunch time, before class, and between classes.
In spring 2011, TDSB Trustees voted to lift the ban on cellphone use. This came to a vote as a result of a proposal made by two Student Trustees and, surprisingly, without consultation with teachers even though teachers would be subject to direct consequences from this decision.
Allowing young students to use cellphones at any time—especially in school—not only causes many unnecessary environmental and health hazards but also encourages and increases inappropriate moral, ethical and social behaviours in school settings (and elsewhere).
Since September 2011, as the result of the new cellphone policy, and despite administration’s clear message of not using the device without the teacher’s permission, and despite several big signs reminding students to turn off their cellphones prior to entering the class, my classes are disrupted at least once each day because a student is texting. This causes extra work and additional classroom management issues for me.
In conversation with many other teachers, I realized that this is a common problem. Constant and obsessive use of cellphones everywhere and anytime in school seems to have become an epidemic and, like drug addicts,.these depraved students seem to feel that their survival depends on their device.
Learning requires focus and concentration. Many students are so preoccupied using their devices and social media that they have lost their concentration. Our teaching environment has been “legally” invaded and transformed. Some teachers choose to ignore the situation and continue their lessons; these teachers feel that there is little they can do about it because they themselves did not cause the problem. Other teachers are avidly trying to reinforce the importance of concentration and polite public behaviour in order to maintain the necessary optimal learning environment. Therefore, unfairly, part of teachers’ time and energy is diverted from helping students learn the course to helplessly guide these young minds back to the definition of concentration: “wherever you are, be there”.
The situation is ironic. Around us and among students we notice a great increase in depression, anxiety, cyber bullying, lack of proper social skills and short attention spans, yet students are, unfortunately, encouraged by media, advertisements, families, and even our education system to constantly use electronic devices that foster those same problems!
In the hallways, many students are constantly preoccupied with these addictive toys, oblivious of their surroundings. Rather than interacting where they are, “how are you?”, they are texting someone else.
Students are becoming more and more impatient; they continually crave instant gratification and fulfill that by “clicking”.
We are also seeing decreased skills in learning, reading, writing, numeracy and concentration. Some have been convinced that this is multi-tasking and that this is the way of future! Is this the way our next generation is going to run the world? Clinical physicians texting in the middle of surgery?
Multi-tasking is a great skill,but it should not take priority over the ability to give careful attention to each task, each other and concentration. Otherwise multi-tasking is nothing more than “multi-distracting”.
Students multitask because they are bored, failing to understand what they must do. Teachers do not tell them. The job is to understand principles and the logical conclusions, not simply techniques. See Rational Thinking, Government Policies, Science, and Living. Rational thinking starts with clearly stated principles, continues with logical deductions, and then examines empirical evidence to possibly modify the principles. Here is another book: See Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better.
Here is an article I wrote in my university student newspaper:
The Rider News ran an article on multi-tasking, saying that college kids find it beneficial most of the time. The article said that you have to be trained to handle multiple things simultaneously. My life experience as a student and educator is the precise opposite. While in graduate school, I analyzed how best to study and do well in the complicated subjects of advanced mathematics. I arrived at rules, and gave them short names so that I would remember them. One is “What’s the problem?” Another is “full attention”. It is necessary to give your full attention on any serious mental task in order to fully understand the complicated ideas, and to eschew multi-tasking. There are a number of reasons for this.
The nature of human thought is to focus fully on the subject. In many ways the brain is similar to a computer. Computers do not multi-task, but instead quickly store in memory partial results, go to another task, and the retrieve the partial results from the original task. While storing and retrieving results, a computer will display the hourglass to show that it is busy. When people attempt to deal with interruptions, they also store in memory the thoughts, and then retrieve them after the interruption. However, the storage and retrieval processes are error-prone.
Another important thing about thinking is the relation between thinking and neural networks. In a neural network, there are hidden layers between the input and output layers. In psychological terms, we speak of the unconscious and conscious mind. We consciously think of the concept the professor is speaking about or what we are reading. We then process this thought in our unconscious mind. We think of ramifications, examples, implications, visualizations, and questions. Multitasking interferes with this processing, preventing proper thought on implications and such. We need to relax and give our full attention to try to understand.
We must give examples for the points we make if we are to understand the points. Here is an example. Consider studying a foreign language. Words have both definitions and connotations. A definition is the meaning in a dictionary. The French word and the English word can have the same definitions. A connotation is a commonly understood subjective cultural or emotional association of a word that one obtains from the literature. The French and the English connotations of words may be different in spite of the identical definitions. If we study while being frequently interrupted, we may focus on the definitions and miss the connotations. Since students are required to know the connotations as well as the definitions, you will get lower grades on tests for failing to know the connotations.
When taking tests or doing homework, we need to focus our full attention on what we are doing, pausing while “thinking of nothing” (another phrase I coined for myself), and then returning to the subject. This pause allows the neural network, the unconscious mind, the hourglass of our brains, to operate. Multitasking interferes with this critical process.
I ask students if they get nervous during tests. Some say they do. My advice is to remind students that they must give their full attention to the test. If they are nervous, they are thinking of being nervous, and so not thinking of the test. How can we stop thinking about being nervous and start thinking about the test? Here is what I do. Look away, think of nothing, then look at the test and start thinking about the test.
In summary, we need to give our full attention to the subject, pause, think of nothing (but not of some other task), and then return to the subject. If we enjoy music, give our full attention to the music. If we enjoy conversation, give our full attention to the conversation. We need to budget our time, remembering we cannot multitask doing serious intellectual tasks.
Good luck on your exams, students!