I have had a wonderful Easter break and I hope that our students and families have had the chance to have a similar experience. Welcome back to School!

This Easter included a first for me as I took on the role of the Easter Bunny. I discovered that bunny suits are hot and that the eyes are in the wrong place to see anything. I also discovered that that my years of reluctance to look silly were unfounded and that the pleasure the exercise gave the children in our house was well worth the effort. I do know that I have probably set a precedent and that a Santa suit may just be coming my way.

The break also gave me the chance to have a few days where I could choose to do one thing at a time. One of these things included teaching a friend how to cast with an old-fashioned Penn “Jigmaster”: an overhead fishing reel that is durable and reliable, but which takes some skill to avoid horrible over winds and time wasted on untangling rather than fishing. No phone, no interruptions and nothing to do but enjoy the experience of the beach as the sun rose. My friend learnt to cast. Neither of us caught a thing. We did nothing but spend an hour on the beach.

Our lives are often over-filled. We get news and information every second; events haven’t happened unless they are photographed and shared; conversations are punctuated by phones rather than pauses: the “next” has become more important than the now and our minds race all the time.

I am certain that much of the stress that students and the adults around them experience is driven by us being constantly connected to multiple demands. Our children often have little chance of giving true priority to the individual components of that incessant stream. Everything seems equally demanding and often the loudest demand assumes an importance that is not warranted. People have never had this volume of stimulus and demand and we flit from one item to the next like demented digital dragonflies skimming the surface. This is altering the way we deal with relationships, our families and our own mental and physical health.

Much of our tension builds in insidious ways without our conscious knowledge and many of us have reached the point where at a gut level, we know that things could be better yet we seem to be unable to do more than yearn for something different. Technology enriches our lives, yet as adults we need to work out how to manage that – and model healthier approaches for our children to copy. On occasion “being out of touch” may be the key to actually “being in touch”.

The following links to a talk by Stephen Bartlett which highlights many of the things that people have mentioned to me over the past few weeks.

Similar talks (e.g. Allison Graham’s TED talk on emphasise the same concerns and is more articulate. I would encourage you to engage your child in conversations about technology. Technology has its place, but many of us are concerned that social media and the social demands of technology are shaping a world where our children have less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5GecYjy9-Q)

Dr. Cal Newport Quit argues that we should quit social media in this video.

My apologies for the irony of giving you links to technology in order to make points about it.