Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.110 - Andrew Pudewa on Why Screens Are Destroying Your Child's Mind | Institute for Excellence in Writing | Classical Education | Homeschooling

Transcript

Ep.110 - Andrew Pudewa on Why Screens Are Destroying Your Child's Mind | Institute for Excellence in Writing | Classical Education | Homeschooling · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

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The media that is created for children is very profoundly
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disorderly, dumbed down, and so they're not developing the
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vocabulary, they're not developing the complexity of
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syntax and grammar, they're not developing the artistic sense
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that allows for a higher level of writing and speaking.
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This is Virtuous Leaders, the podcast for based Catholics who
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will speak truth, do good, or die trying.
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Here's the show. You are the founder and director
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of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and Thought taught
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10s of thousands of teachers, parents how to write.
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However, I'm meant to focus on a book that you published in part
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based on your excellent peer experience, teaching excellence
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and write. That book is, however
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imperfectly. Do you mind summarizing, telling
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us a little bit of the highlights in that?
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Book. Well, that book really is a
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book. It is collection of all the
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essays and articles that I wrote for, oh, probably close to 25
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years. And so they're, they're in
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reverse chronological order. So the newest one is one of the
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newer ones in the title of the book, however imperfectly lesson
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learned from 30 years of teaching.
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And then I arranged all of these various essays and articles and
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things that I have written kind of, you know, just saying, well,
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I'm, I teach writing. I should have at least written
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one book, but I like to joke, it took me over 20 years to write
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1. But the, the core ideas, I think
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are reflecting, you know, my essential philosophies of, you
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know, how to teach writing, how to help cultivate communication
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skills in children, how to build language patterns, how to, you
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know, homeschooling is a lot about homeschooling because
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that's kind of the life that I live.
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And a lot of it is, you know, most of us are kind of having to
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figure out how to not do to our children what was done to us.
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Our #1 greatest influence on us as teachers is our experience of
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having been taught. And so we kind of think, well,
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you know, that's what was done to me.
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So I'll do this to my students. I'll do this to my kids.
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And, and what one of the things I'm really trying to do is help
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people step back and say, wait a minute, you know, you don't have
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to do that. And was that even a good thing
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that was done to you? But we do have to kind of break
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that paradigm in order to do something differently.
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What are the four of these mistakes you think people make
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in this area? Well, one of the one of the
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things that I have been fighting against is trying to help people
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break this idea of age and grade right.
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We, we got into age segregated schools at the end of the 18,
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early 1900s and it's just got worse and worse and worse.
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Once Upon a time, grade meant something.
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You know, being in grade 4 meant that you had learned the things
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that you were supposed to know from grade 3, or almost all of
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it. But now we just March kids to
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grade levels based on age. So now we're comparing children
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based on age. And this is a very disordered
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thing to do because all you have to do is hang out with a few
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kids for a short period of time and you start to realize that,
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well, they're all different, right?
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They they see differently and hear differently and process
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information, the different memory, different interests,
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aptitudes, they have a different mission and they're all very
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individualized. And yet the modern educational
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mentality is that you just get, if you can get all the kids to
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do the same thing in the same way according to the same
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schedule, you'll get the same results.
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And won't that be, you know, great, but it's failed.
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And we see now with the amplification that technology
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has brought to schools in the last 30 years and even more
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rapid decline in just basic skills.
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So that would be the first one is, you know, not doing to your
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kids what was done to you and breaking free of this idea that,
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you know, he's in grade. Therefore, we have to have a
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little pile of books with a a number on the cover and be sure
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that we do everything in all these books over the course of
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one school year. So that's one area I've been
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trying to break down some, some dysfunctional paradigms.
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A second thing would be understanding.
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And, and my whole world is about trying to help kids get reliably
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correct and sophisticated language patterns out of their
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brain, right? Trying to get them to write and
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speak their language articulately, fluently, easily,
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intelligently, correctly. You can use lots of, you know,
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adverbs to modify that. But one of the things I've
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really come to understand white well is you can't get something
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out of the brain that isn't in there to begin with.
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And now we see so many children whose linguistic input has sunk
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down to a very low level. If you look at, you know, the
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number one influence and that statistically the number one
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influence on school age children's language is media.
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So for a long time it was television, but now we expand
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that out into whatever they bump into on screens anywhere.
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And the media that is created for children is, is very
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profoundly disorderly, dumbed down.
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And so they're not developing the vocabulary, they're not
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developing the complexity of syntax and grammar, they're not
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developing the artistic sense that allows for a higher level
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of writing and speaking. So one of my big, big soap boxes
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is to get the screens away from the kids and read to them from a
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young age and all the way through the childhood.
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One of the most important things we can do is read to children at
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a level slightly above their own decoding skills.
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That's what pulls up vocabulary. That's what pulls up
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comprehension. That's what creates a love and
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interest in literature. And now it's a fairly
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frightening statistic, but well over half of high school
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students have not read one single book in the last year,
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and a good chunk of them have never read a book in their
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entire life. And that's how far down this
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slippery slide of non reading that we've got going.
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And of course, the schools have brought in Chromebooks and
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PowerPoints and video and edutainment and the attention
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span of children is profoundly fractured.
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So whatever we, you know, as kind of the, the, the teachers
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on the edge of that trend can do to, to help rescue the kids by
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reading to them and using real literature and having them
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memorize memorizing poetry. You know, that's the third thing
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I would say is we've, we've wiped out memory as a good
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thing. In fact, I just saw an ad this
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morning. So some little AI device that
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you wear that records everything you do all day, every day, and
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then summarizes it for you so that you really don't have to
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rely on your memory anymore at all for anything.
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And of course, you know, this is not a a new problem.
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Plato and the Phaedrus, Socrates talked about how the the legend
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of the God of Egypt, the great God thought that gave writing as
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a technology to the king of Egypt.
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And the king of Egypt said, well, this will be handy, but
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it's going to degrade our memory.
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And So what we see is that technology will atrophy the
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skill which it replaces. And now there's many people,
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teachers, you know, school programs, administrators, whole
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education philosophies saying why make kids memorize anything
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like memorizing poetry, waste of time, memorizing maths facts,
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Why bother? You've got calculators, you can
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just talk to your computer. I saw a little clip of a, a
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little girl, probably 11 years old, says, why should I learn to
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read? My computer will tell me
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everything I need. And so we're in this, this place
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where now the acceleration of the atrophy of the basic skills
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to me is very frightening. And you know, I have many, I
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think good arguments to counter that type of progressive
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technology laden shift in education away from human
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faculties of reading, writing and knowing math and thinking so
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that we don't outsource it to artificial intelligence and and
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machines. Yeah, Andrew, I think you may be
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getting this completely wrong. I mean, so every school has
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technology and they spend so much money on it.
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And is, isn't this the hope for the future?
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Isn't technology just going to raise education for everyone?
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Well, in about 2004, I think is when it was published.
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It's called the flickering mind by Ted Oppenheimer gem memory
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source, same subtitle the false promise of technology in class
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who's way back in O 4. So this was before we've even
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had much in the way of, you know, ever present technology
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and AI continuously available. And what he found was a very
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direct inverse correlation between the amount of technology
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in the classrooms and the basic skills of students.
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So the more screens, the lower the skills of reading and
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writing and and doing basic math.
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The highest level of skills, basic skills were the zero tech
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schools, Waldorf Montessori, really poor Christian schools
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that couldn't afford the computers.
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And in the end of the book, he said something very, very
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interesting and important. And I, I sure wish he was around
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to like do the next edition of this book because now we have a
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whole wave and people look at something 20 years old and say,
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well, it's 20 years old. But he, he made this
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observation. He said that technology will
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amplify whatever you have. So if you have, you know, an
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organized, efficient, focused person and you give them
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technology, they will become more organized, more efficient,
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more focused, more productive. If you have a disorganized,
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inefficient, unproductive person and you give them technology,
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they will become more disorganized, inefficient and
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nonproductive. And then he leaves you with the
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question, you know, for those of you who've been around 10 year
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olds, what do you think? Are they in that category of
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being naturally organized, productive and efficient?
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No. So we have to teach that and we
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teach that virtue, if you want to call it that.
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We teach that through human to human interaction.
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And so that's kind of an area that, you know, I'm thinking
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about talking about writing about I.
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Think that makes a lot of sense because the technology is a
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tool, so it's going to bring out the the character of the person
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is kind of the turn how the tool is used.
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If you if you give a a gun to a criminal, it is going to be used
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for harm. But if you give it to a
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responsible adult that needs it to protect people.
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But then there is this added factor that many technologies
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are not neutral, like social media and pornography, video
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games, smartphones, and they're inherently addictive.
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It's it's all the more so all the more of the case that it's
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going to lead to bad habits. Do you think we live in a
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intellectual and cultural dark age?
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I think we live in a time of increasing extremes.
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If we look at the the superficial world we live in,
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everything's better, right? Everyone is richer than anyone
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has ever been in the whole history of the world.
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We've got vehicles and computers, we've got infinite
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library says we've got food, unbelievable luxury.
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Even poor people are richer than rich people were 1000 years ago,
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if you look at it objectively. But then you know what has
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happened to our ability to listen to each other and to
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discourse and to have a civil disagreement.
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What is our where is our ability to draw from the wisdom of the
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past and apply it to the present?
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So much of what you hear is, well, all of the past is old and
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wrong and bad and we should start right now and figure out
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everything, you know, based on our own personal experience and
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lived truth and my truth and, and this kind of rejection of
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tradition, I think is extremely dangerous, probably the most
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dangerous. But there is hope.
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There's the glimmer of hope. I work in the world of classical
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education a lot. And so, you know, we're seeing
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homeschoolers are seeing, you know, hybrid and charter
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schools. We're seeing Catholic and
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Christian schools trying to recover, if you will, the lost
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tradition of being able to, you know, read the wisdom of the
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past and lean from it and apply that in our lives today.
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And so there is kind of, I think this, this stretching of, you
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know, the, the very dark side of what's, what's in the world, But
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there's also some people doing really remarkable things and in
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a way, you know, using the technology to, to spread good
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and true and beautiful things throughout the whole world.
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So it, it's a time of extremes, I would guess.
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I, I recorded yesterday and, and the person I was recording with,
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she read the first sentence of the Tale of Two Cities.
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It was the best of times. It was the worst of times,
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right? It was the age of enlightenment.
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It was the age of darkness. It was the age of hope.
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It was the age of despair. I didn't get that exactly right.
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But but it's interesting that, you know, Dickens could write
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that in the mid 1800s and it was true then and it's always been
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true, but it seems like it's maybe even more true today,
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right? We are all going straight to
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heaven. We are all going straight to the
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other place. So timeless, timeless.
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Understanding human nature is what doesn't change.
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Technology changes, you know, wealth changes, circumstances
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change. You can be in a time of peace, a
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time of war, a time of opulence, a time of scarcity, a time of
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enlightenment, a time of, of darkness.
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But human nature is pretty much unchanging.
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And that's where I like to I like to be about the the
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discovering and education and nurturing of the human person.
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But I really encourage your efforts to preserve tradition.
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My concern is that we are so immersed in the dark age that we
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don't even know what we don't know.
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So, for example, he used to be the case that educated people
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would memorize very lengthy poems or even entire books.
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And that's not even seen as as a possible goal now or educated
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people will be. They could read Latin and they
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could at least recognize Greek pretty easily.
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Maybe not. Only.
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Or to use a religious example, I think most people don't even
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know what they're missing with not having witnessed the
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extraordinary form of the Mass. So that that's the level of
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ignorance that who concerns me, because if they don't know what
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they're missing, what they don't know, then how are they going to
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recovery? Well, I think that, you know,
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people like you and me being who we are and just trying to reach
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out into the world and say, let's look at the the beautiful
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things that we have had over the years, whether it's
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architecture, art, music. I have AI have a huge interest
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in in music because I think that that's one of the most
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disordered by the modern world things that that have negatively
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influenced the souls of people. And then of course, yes, forms
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of worship. I'm, I'm actually a Byzantine
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Catholic. So our Divine Liturgy goes way
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back, you know, even before the the traditional Latin Mass, and
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you get this richness, this fabric of meaning in everything
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that happens. And so, you know, I think just
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me being out there, especially talking to young people, invite
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them, come over here. Let's listen to this.
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Let's, let's, let's read, let's talk.
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Let's let's put away the phones and have a conversation that I
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think we need more people to be doing that.
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And I'm of course, on the older side of all the people around
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right now. And so without, you know, being
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a obnoxious boomer, I'm wanting to point people back to the
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things that humans created when they were really a reflection
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more of the divine nature. Yes, because you're describing
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the process of bringing people out of The Cave, which is a
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painstaking process. This is that analogy, and I
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think it's through all the What's your recommendation for
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helping people to see the truth? One of the very simple things
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that I have suggested is that we all try to follow CS Lewis's
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rule to read 1 old book for every new book.
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This would of course assume we're talking to people who
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still read books, but there's something about connecting with
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the past that I think does a good job of helping people
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realize that the whole everything is much bigger than
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your little experience of it. You know, we all live in our
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bubble. I live in my bubble.
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I spend 98% of my time with very like minded people.
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How do I get out of that? How do I cultivate some
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relationships with people who. Who aren't kind of in in my way
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of thinking about everything. And so I've been thinking
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personally a lot more about how to do that while at the same
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time I'm very comfortable, you know, with my friends talking
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about things that matter to me. But yeah, expanding the
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discourse. I think, you know, the, the
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whole world, podcasts and YouTube and conversations like
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this, you never know what you're going to, to stumble into and
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what other people are going to hear.
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And I've been somewhat happy to get a kind of a broader audience
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on say, Instagram and TikTok and people that aren't in my bubble
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and they'll challenge me on things.
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And that's good. And that gives me an, an
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opportunity to unpack a little more and explain and, and try to
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hope that they can gain some value out of my perspective as I
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have gained value out of other people's perspective.
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So I, I do think that on Discourse conference, Francis
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Bacon said he wrote in his essay on studies, he wrote reading
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maketh the full man, conference maketh the ready man and writing
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maketh an exact man. And I, I think we're, we're weak
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in all of these areas. We're, we're not reading the way
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we could or should be. We're not writing nearly as much
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as perhaps we could or should be.
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And you know, we look at reading and writing now and the schools,
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I think have done a very, a great disservice of putting
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those in a practical category. It's pragmatic.
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Well, you read because that's how you can, you know, get a job
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and make money and blah, blah, blah.
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Or you write. Well, you write if you have to,
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if you don't have to, why bother learning it?
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But, but that middle zone of conference discourse, that's
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where we, we learn to access the ideas that we've absorbed
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through our reading, through our environment, through our
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reflections, the, the ideas we furnished our mind with through
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our memory and, and sort and organize it and choose.
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And you ask me, what are four things?
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And then I've got to say, OK, of all the things I know, what are
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the four things that I would pull out right now?
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And, and say, your conversation helps me to organize my thoughts
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and, and that I think is something we need much more of.
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And I see it happening. I do see certain platforms where
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there are people who disagree with each other and they're
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willing to have a conversation about that.
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To me, that's a very hopeful then platforms that just want to
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slam everything you know that isn't in their little narrow
23:20
view of their truth. And question I'm grappling with
23:26
right now is to what extent to cooperate with platforms that's
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I think lead people to great evil on a regular basis.
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Some speaking specifically of social media like Instagram,
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TikTok, you mentioned both of those.
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So I'd be curious to hear your, your take on it.
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How did you decide to be present on those platforms?
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Well, I will say that I was encouraged by my youngest
23:50
daughter who is a digital native and she, she said you should
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take a look at this. You should see what people are
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doing because you know, you could get on there and you, and
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there's this networks, classical people, there's networks of
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homeschooling people, lots of teachers.
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I, I really enjoy listening to teachers talk about their
24:14
experience in schools because it, it gets me kind of a view
24:19
that I wouldn't normally have not working in a school full
24:23
time the way they are. So you know, you can go back and
24:29
you know who did Jesus eat with? You know, the publicans, the
24:32
sinners, the tax collectors, the illiterate.
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Why? Because those are the people who
24:39
needed what he had to teach. They they're the ones that
24:44
needed to be touching the truth face to face with with the word.
24:50
So, you know, if if I can have some way to reach people who
24:57
would never otherwise find me and say something that makes a
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difference, then I think that that's a valid risk to take.
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The other thing is we can look at the other one and say we can
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complain about Instagram and TikTok and how horrible it is,
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but it's not going to go away. So if we want to make it better,
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then we would be, I think it would be reasonable to say,
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well, let's contribute something better to that thing that
25:26
exists. You know, we we can go off and
25:29
be a hermit and hide and say the world is going to hell and I
25:31
don't want any part of it. And there is a don't give me
25:34
that what, you know, what's to do that?
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But I am, you know, somewhat of a public person in small
25:42
circles. And I have, you know, a modicum
25:45
of, I think, useful thoughts on various things.
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So why not take the risk? Why not share it?
25:53
Why not maybe come across someone's feed and peek an idea
25:58
in their mind that that may have benefit in the long run?
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I've been doing this long enough to know that, you know, people
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come up to me to conference or send me an e-mail and they'll
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say things like 10 years ago I heard you say fill in the blank.
26:15
And it really helped me in this way.
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Bum, bum. So, you know, I have this
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experience of knowing that the Holy Spirit can use things that
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I might say in ways I would never imagine.
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Let me end with one last question here then, So I'm going
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to what I'm going to ask you is what is your favorite book that
26:36
no one's ever heard of? One of my hobbies is to preserve
26:40
culture in the new dark age in which we live.
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And one way of doing that is to find these rare treasures that
26:47
have been lost or are about to be lost.
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What is that book for you that you want to preserve in the new
26:52
Dark Age? My favorite book that no one's
26:56
ever heard of. I don't think that I am widely
26:59
read enough to know a book that no one's heard of.
27:07
I will. I will mention a book that is
27:11
probably not well known in most circles but had a huge impact on
27:17
me. I would put this in like the top
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10 most important books I have ever read in my life and that
27:24
would be The Restoration of Christian Culture by John
27:28
Senior. Do you know John Senior?
27:31
And for his reputation, yeah, he started this basically Catholic
27:34
liberal arts program. And was it Kansas?
27:37
And then, yeah, I think he was basically as he was too
27:40
Catholic. And that's what I have to.
27:42
Read Yeah. It was the Pearson Integrated
27:45
Humanities program at the University of Kansas in the late
27:48
70s and 80s, and it was kind of a poetic mode of learning.
27:55
Many really remarkable people came out of his program, so many
28:02
converts to the faith that the university wanted to shut it
28:05
down because they accused him of running religious program inside
28:10
a public institution. Whereas what he was really doing
28:14
is just reading the great books and talking about the good life
28:17
and what is virtue and what is goodness and truth and beauty.
28:22
The founder of Wyoming Catholic College, Bishop Conley in
28:24
Nebraska, Archbishop Paul Coakley in Oklahoma City, Ellen
28:29
White a lot of other very influential people in the
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Catholic world and classical education world came out and and
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when I read this book, it was back in gosh O2 O3.
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I really did not have an understanding of how important
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literature is in the passing on of culture and it's
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accompanying, you know, wisdom and and capacity for experience
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of truth from one generation to the next.
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And it, it really transformed my personal relationship with
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literature and with the importance of bringing that into
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the lives of my children and my students.
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So he wrote one book, The Death of Christian Culture, little
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collection of essays. It's kind of on the depressing
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side. So I actually generally
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recommend the second, which is the one I read first, which is
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the restoration of Christian culture.
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So I guess I'll, I'll give you that one.
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Cool. Well, thank you Mr. Bouvard and
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all the best to you and your vision.
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Thanks for listening. Please like, subscribe and share
29:46
with your friends. See you next time.