How does the LCS community equip the “anxious generation” to thrive?

The BC Ministry of Education and Childcare has signalled a province-wide ban of cellphone use (see link) in schools beginning fall 2024. LCS has restricted student cellphone use in our K-12 schools since 2019, and was one of only a handful of schools across Canada that used the emerging research on youth mental health in determining our policies. We are inviting the LCS community to provide feedback on our policy revision.

We’re a school that values connection and thriving through face-to-face learning and communication, interpersonal relationships, corporate worship and prayer, and encouraging healthy habits and disciplines within Christian community.

Our LCS Student Technology Use Policy [link] has provided educational and administrative faculty with guidelines that have been helpful in preventing some student cellphone use from interfering with these goals. In light of what we are observing and learning, we are now considering changes to our policies for fall 2024 with the aim of creating better opportunities for students to experience healthy community together.

The phone-based life makes it difficult for people to be fully present with others when they are with others, and to sit silently with themselves when they are alone. If we want to experience stillness and silence, and if we want to develop a sense of unified consciousness, we must reduce the flow of stimulation into our eyes and ears. We must find ample opportunities to sit quietly, whether that is in prayer, or by spending more time in nature, or just by looking out a car window and thinking on a long drive, rather than always listening to something or watching videos along the way.

JONATHAN HAIDT, EXCERPT FROM CH. 8 “SPIRITUAL ELEVATION AND DEGRADATION” (2024)

What are we noticing in schools?

We are learning from the overwhelming and convincing research on youth that cellphone and social media use is now widely regarded as unhealthy and harmful for K-12 students because of a combination of factors prevalent in students aged 5-18 years that are rewiring young brains.

• sleep deprivation causing loss of ability to regulate emotions or be alert at school
• constant distraction and loss of ability to focus on sustained thinking tasks required in math and literacy (Canadian math achievement has been in rapid decline since 2012)
• increase in toxic, judgemental, self-focused and narcissistic behaviours that create heightened anxiety in self and others
• parents and mentors lacking tools and resources to co-regulate emotions with youth due to their own distraction and anxiety
• increase in addictive behaviours, self-harm and/or self-medicating with screens (numbing)
• withdrawal or self-isolation from community, connection and spiritual practices necessary for developing the skills of emotional regulation and relationship-building
• physical deterioration (cardio endurance, muscle mass, core strength, coordination, bone density) from lack of play, movement and time spent outside
• hearing loss in youth due to excessive use of headphones set at high volumes (We actually tested some of our high school students!)
• opportunity loss due to time spent gaming, trolling, scrolling and seeking digital distraction in addictive online environments
• lack of stamina or perseverance for non-preferred tasks, or activities requiring hard work or discomfort

We are observing similar challenges among our students at LCS. Thankfully, we are not yet at the point of our school being overwhelmed to the degree other schools in BC currently are reporting. We want to be proactive and partner with our parents and churches to create healthy community for all students at LCS.

Interestingly, many social scientists (who admit they do not believe in our God) argue that exposure to social media and a phone-based childhood, in addition to the decline in participation in religious communities have not been good for the health of our youth or society in the past decade. Researchers in this area of study warn that the situation for youth is prime to get worse as generative artificial intelligence and enhanced robotics becomes more commonplace.

Many of the behaviours we see forming in young people at their culturally formative state of life, because of social media use, promote the opposite of the Christian values the Bible commands that parents foster in our children and which we know contribute to the public good: kindness, faithfulness, putting others first, humility, charity, generosity, mercy and grace. The evidence presents a case that your family’s attendance in a Christian church and enrolling in a school with healthy structures is good for our collective health, and may be more important than ever.

…[people need…] to be bound into moral communities that give them a sense of shared meaning and purpose. This work [the research] prepared me to see how online social networks, which can be useful for helping adults achieve their goals, may not be effective substitutes for real-world communities within which children have been rooted, shaped and raised for hundreds and thousands of years…

JONATHAN HAIDT, Pg 13, The anxious generation

For a summary of the most recent research, please see the 2023 UNESCO Report on Technology in Education: A Tool on Whose Terms? Social psychologist Richard Haidt’s 2024 book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness provides the most recent and accessible summary of the current research on cellphone and technology use among children and young adults.

What are we considering as changes to our practices at LCS for the fall?

• Restrictions on students’ cellphone use: to remain in a bag or locker (not on the person), turned off for the entire duration of the school day (8:15am – 3:00pm) and during all school-related events, including athletics.
• Digital device and personal screen “sabbath” days across all campuses
• Commitment to restricting headphone use (except where educationally appropriate or required for an IEP) during the school day and during shared-experiences on school-related trips
• Stronger partnering with parents to ensure regular monitoring of their child’s texting and social media use, in a desire to coach and disciple their child in respectful, community-focused and Christ-like communication
• Encouragements to parents to restrict or delay cell phone use for their own children until high school
• Encouragements to “let kids play” at athletic events: fewer posts, messages and limitations on video recording at Lightning Athletics events
• Designing school grounds with more opportunities for imaginative and unstructured play
• Parent partnership, learning and information sharing opportunities

Thriving is a CORE VALUE at LCS. We provide faith-forming experiences to encourage the values and attributes that promote wholeness and help students flourish as unique, confident individuals made in the image of God.

While there is no doubt strong evidence of the “under protection” of our children from how we use technology, there is also growing evidence that we are “over protecting” children and that a lack of our ability as adults to come alongside and coach children through challenge, discomfort and difficulty, is contributing to declining mental health and escalating anxiety. There is a “God-sized hole” in each of our hearts, but how are we filling it? What are we modelling as parents and teachers – not just in our technology use, but in our prayer and meditative lives, relationships and communication?

We would like to hear from you. Please take a few minutes to give us your thoughts on this short survey that we will use to inform our policy and guidelines revisions this summer.

Where do we find out more about how LCS teachers intentionally foster wellness in classrooms?

Our K-12 Bible Curriculum and our Instructional Guidelines aim to support student wellness. Standard #1 of our Instructional Guidelines requires our educational faculty to establish consistent routines and structures that support all students’ achievement, wellness and spiritual growth. Students need spaces and schedules that are calm, dependable and predictable.

The learner grows in understanding and confidence of who God created them to be. The learner is invited into a worshipping community, encouraged to identify and develop a sense of purpose, and are discipled to live a life modelled on the character of Christ. Learners participate in and cultivate personal and corporate practices and habits that are transformative and promote a life of wholeness, wellbeing and worship.

LCS LEARNER ATTRIBUTES: PURPOSEFULLY DISCIPLINED

One of our learner profile attributes – Purposefully Disciplined – embeds the practice of spiritual disciplines like worship and prayer, which help us all maintain healthy minds and connection to something greater than ourselves.

We deliver a dependable, high-quality education in a thriving Christian learning community committed to helping you equip your child to grow confidently in faith and find their purpose in the world.