Our homework help program is filled with students, from third to 11th grade, who generally spend two to three hours a day doing about 45 minutes worth of homework. That's not to say that they don't occasionally get slammed with tons of work, but most of the time, they just take forever to finish.
Why?
Unlike parents trying to get their kids to do work at home, we have no TVs and don't allow social media on the computers. There's no g-chat or Tumblr calling their names.
How, in that environment, can kids be unfocused?
Let's see... Everytime someone walks past the room they're working in, they look up. Every noise from outside sends them racing to the window (so much so that, when we hear the screech of brakes, we wait a beat and then automatically call out, "Sit back down!"). Every time a tutor explains something to another student (even it's a rerun of a lesson that same student could not bear to listen to when it was her homework last year) it's head-turning and riveting.
But, perhaps more than anything else, every time our students phones buzz, they have to look ("What if it's my mom?"). No matter what. They have to look.
Let me pick on Jonny for a classic example. He's a 9th grader and his geometry homework is hard. Not every tutor can help and sometimes he has to wait until a math expert is free. I can see him, stuck and annoyed, trying to wait patiently until I get get to him. I finally do. I read the question. I ask him what he knows and he shows me his work. "There -- that's where I'm stuck," he'll tell me, pointing to his scratch paper. I lean over, make two, maybe three pencil strokes on the paper, and his pocket vibrates. He grabs it, "Sorry" he mumbles, getting up and stepping out of the room.
He's utterly polite. He knows the rules. He steps out so that he doesn't distract others. But there's no question that he will stop what he's doing to look at it and find some reason to answer that phone (they're only supposed to talk to parents and rides, but then there are friends who need homework assignments and various other ways they get around our rules).
And yes, it's probably his mom. And it's probably something "critical," like her telling him that she'll be there in 30 minutes.
He slides back into his seat, "Sorry." But he knows as well as I do that I couldn't (well, I wouldn't) wait for him and I've started helping someone else. He'll have to wait again.
This scenario plays out daily -- with each and every child who has a phone.
And it's not just their phones. I rarely carry my cell phone when I'm working with students. But occasionally I have it on me because I was showing someone a photo or a video and it was faster than setting up a computer. Or, on a rare day, I'm on call for someone or waiting for a call. On those days, if my phone rings or buzzes, EVERY kid in the room will tell me, "Your phone's ringing."
I know it is. And when I tell them, I'll look at it when I'm done doing what I'm doing, they look at me with their mouths open. Why in the world am I not answering it RIGHT NOW?
They also go crazy that we don't always answer the office phone. In fact, we almost never do. I figure, if we're working with students, that's the first priority. Anyone else can get a call back.
But, for the kids, the response is Pavlovian. They are entirely and completely at the beck-and-call of their phones (and, I imagine, when at home, to whatever chat or messaging program causes missives to pop up on their screens).
It's not like the problem is unique to teens and preteens. Everyone one of us who works at a computer knows how we can fritter a day away with silly messages. Most of us have our own strategies for blocking off some periods of time without distractions. We all have those moments when we're irritated to have our concentration broken, frustrated to have a work-roll broken by a phone call or email.
My biggest worry is that our kids don't have those feelings of frustration. For them, the phone comes first. I try to explain to them: People call you when they have nothing to do! They have time, but it doesn't mean that you do! A scroll through their text messages attests to this truth:
"What r u doing?"
"Homework," types our student before we confiscate the phone.
"Me too. Doesn't it suck?"
And if the phone were not taken by one of our eagle-eyed tutors, the inane conversation would go on. Neither student doing work or having any meaningful conversation-- just wasting time.
And they KNOW that most of the texts they get are nothing -- just chatter. And still, they have to look every time it buzzes.
As the mother of a toddler, I have to ask why.
I think that there are two reasons:
- First, their parents get angry when they don't respond immediately. So, the "good kids" have been trained to check all calls and texts immediately.
- Perhaps more importantly, our students live in a world where everyone is at the beck-and-call of their phones.
Number one is a problem. I've had tutors go down to our parking lot to ask parents to please stop calling their kids during tutoring (a tutoring hour that the parents are paying for!). It seems critical for parents to try not to "bother" their kids more than they have to during work time. It also seems important for parents to understand that although students are often messing around, sometimes they are focused, and, if that's even a possibility, parents should give them time to respond.
But I think number two is the more pervasive problem. As adults, we have all become enslaved to our phones. In meetings with parents, even consultations that parents are paying for by the hour, they often have to stop to check their phones. We use our phones so casually -- calling and texting at any time of day and over any small issue. We know how trivial many of our texts and calls are and yet, when we're on the receiving end, we feel utterly compelled to reply immediately.
And, while, as adults, we probably all remember fighting over NOT having to get up to answer the kitchen phone (it's probably not for me anyway!), kids live in a world where people's phones are always at hand and always for them.
I know that my kid will grow up in a world where she will be expected to be reachable a lot of the time. But, more than likely, she will be like me, someone who needs to be generally reachable, but not a cardiologist or a first responder, not someone on whom lives depend.
So, I want to train her to prioritize the people she's with and the work that she's doing, over the potential of the phone.
How can I do it? Explaining and instructing does NOTHING. I talk to our students until I'm blue in the face. Still the buzz of a phone pulls them from any work, any lesson, any conversation.
For now, with my two year old (who will not have her own phone for a good long while), all I can do is be wiling to ignore my phone. When we're playing and the phone buzzes, I work hard not to look at it until we're done. I try to make sure that she knows she's more important than whatever is coming in (and, I admit, yesterday, it was sort of killing me when my phone was beeping out of sight!).
I also try to let the phone go to voicemail, and I tell her why.
We were at the beach yesterday and my phone rang. When she heard it, her little head popped up immediately, "Is it Grandma?" I was lucky. I could tell from the caller ID that it was the drugstore, "No, Bug, it's not grandma. It's the drug store. I'll listen to the message later." But, even when it's someone I do want to talk to, if it's not a good time, I try my best to let the phone got to voicemail and give a call back later.
I don't know if I can make my child an efficient worker, but I will try my best not to train her to give up her own enjoyment and focus in the service of a cell phone.
Of course, by the time she's old enough for a cell phone, who knows what kind of technology I'll be up against!
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