Phone Free Schools 4

All this week I’m looking at the thought and planning that went into the Philadelphia area’s Delaware County Christian School’s establishment of their well-received and highly successful phone free school policy. One pattern of life in today’s world that the school wanted to address was the ever-present reality of interruptions. As an introduction to their policy, the school shares these words: the average American checks his or her phone one-hundred and forty-four times a day. Research indicates that there is an addictive component to the dopamine rush in our brains associated with smartphone notifications and multi-tasking. As a result, any deeper learning, critical analysis, problem solving, or creative process that we undertake is almost always interrupted, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. The policy writers than ask this question which we all must consider: What steps can we take to limit these interruptions and increase students’ capacity for protracted focus?