Leaders in Catholic education emphasize creating environments that promote student flourishing.

With a mission “to steep our children in what is true, and good and beautiful” — as Sister Maria Ivana Begovic, principal of St. Croix Catholic School in Stillwater, said — Catholic educators in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are aware of the need to help students and families form healthy relationships with technology.

“You have to have a balanced relationship,” said Melissa Dan, who will be entering her third year as president of Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, a sixth through 12th grade Catholic school. “We want to encourage our students to use technology as much as it enriches their lives and learning experiences.”

“Technology is a gift, and it is a good thing to be used. And it’s something that we have to be really wise about,” said Karla Gergen, principal for the past year of St. Helena Catholic School in Minneapolis, a preschool through eighth grade school.

“Ultimately, as with all things, we want our children to become saints,” Sister Maria Ivana — a Dominican Sister of St. Cecilia who is in her fifth year as principal of St. Croix Catholic, a preschool through eighth grade school — said in an email. “We believe that our role is to guide our children in navigating what might be deemed by the world as ‘the latest and greatest device or social media platform or app’ by seriously discerning how such-and-such technology might be a hindrance or a help to one’s personal call to holiness.”

The pull of the screen

Beyond time spent on screens in classroom settings, young people are spending more time on screens recreationally. In 2021, research from Common Sense Media cited by the American Academy of Pediatrics indicated those ages 8 to 12 in the United States spent, on average, 5 1/2 hours per day and those ages 13 to 18 spent, on average, 8 1/2 hours per day looking at screens for entertainment.

This time was spent watching TV or videos; gaming; browsing the internet or using social media; creating content; video chatting; e-reading of news, articles and books; and uncategorized use. The research also found entertainment screen use for those ages 8 to 18 increased 17% from 2019 to 2021, compared with a 3% increase for those ages 8 to 12 and an 11% increase for those ages 13 to 18 from 2015 to 2019.

To foster skills needed for responsible device use, the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education developed a series of aspirational goals to help Catholic school students strive for digital well-being and personal holiness as part of a multi-year action plan, with a special focus on preschool to eighth grade schools.

According to Emily Dahdah, OMCE’s director of educational quality and excellence, the goals are: If a school permits use of internet-enabled devices, teachers are intentional about using them during instruction time and can monitor students’ use of them in the classroom; instructors increasingly refrain from assigning internet-enabled devices for student use outside of the school day and from assigning homework that might encourage independent, unsupervised use of those devices; to consider whether student-owned internet-enabled devices are allowed on school property; and to make resources available for parents who want to learn about the risks of internet-enabled devices and implement best practices at home, to build family connections.

Principals, administrators and teachers at schools in the archdiocese are asked to consider specific strategies to implement the goals, including policies to help limit students’ use of internet-enabled devices and to create a “smart device covenant” encouraging parents to continue their own education on internet-enabled devices and effects on children.

The aspirational goals “are all about formation — forming ourselves as teachers and staff as we form our parents and, with them, form our children,” Sister Maria Ivana said.

The ultimate goal, Dahdah said, is helping students “come to know the Lord by way of real human relationships” and for Catholic schools to “be places to create an intentional environment that protects children from those well-documented risks that we know exist and also then positively promotes student and family well-being.”

Gergen said the aspirational goals inspired St. Helena Catholic School to implement a no-cellphone policy on campus this past fall. Previously, the policy was cellphones could be on campus, but they had to be turned off and kept in lockers.

“But what we saw was, students couldn’t do that; they couldn’t keep them off, they couldn’t keep them in their lockers, it was just too tempting,” Gergen said.

Though Gergen admitted the new policy implementation hasn’t been perfect — “I’m not going to say there’s never a cellphone on our campus,” she said — noticeable was “an immediate difference in students and the distraction that (cellphones) provided.”

This school year, Gergen said, digital devices used in the classroom won’t be sent home with students and teachers will assign homework that won’t require internet use.

“It’s going to be a change in teaching,” Gergen said, but added that when she brought this concept to St. Helena Catholic School teachers, “they were on board because they saw … that the benefits are going to far outweigh the challenges.” Gergen said the policy also helps support parents. “We’re going to work with you on setting limits at home and we don’t ever want school to be a reason why your kid needs to be on the internet or create that challenge for you at home.”

Gregen said there will also be an opportunity for the broader community to learn about teaching responsible technology use to young people. On Sept. 23, St. Helena Catholic School will host Jim Schroeder, a pediatric psychologist who will talk about the effects of technology on children and recommendations for families. The event will be open to the public and held at St. Helena church. Registration information for those interested is forthcoming, Gergen said.

Having student digital well-being goals and guidance from the archdiocese and having a smaller student body helped in the swift implementation of these practices at St. Helena Catholic School, Gergen said. “We are able to immediately respond to the needs of our school and community and shift quickly.”

Gergen, who is a member of St. Pius V in Cannon Falls, said these practices are meant to support student flourishing at a Catholic school: “We want them to have (a) whole and holy life. … If we care about our kids’ souls and who they are, who they’re growing up to be, in an integral way, then really wise use of technology in our schools and families is really important to that mission.”

Dan said this often starts with modeling good use of technology. “We can’t ask our kids to do something we can’t do,” she said.

Hill-Murray is working to implement the goals through a digital citizenship curriculum, which Dan said teaches “the importance of the digital footprint” as well as “soft skills” like good interpersonal communication, problem solving and ethics when it comes to using digital platforms. Dan said there are also plans “to do more parent dialogue and even training this year” to assist families with building solid parameters around technology use.

The rise of AI

As technology advances, artificial intelligence and its increasing availability in everyday life has become a hot topic.

“Really what we saw with ChatGPT was such an exponential leap,” Dahdah said.

Generative AI — like ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based AI research and deployment company — is AI that responds to a person’s typed prompts or questions by generating text, code, images and other media. Although an individual must be 18 to use ChatGPT, Dahdah recognized that “those safeguards, we know, don’t always work.”

ChatGPT can present “great possibilities” for learning assistance, Dahdah said, “but also great concern if students aren’t going to use this well.”

Dahdah said it’s important Catholic educators craft strategies that encourage development — “skills to be able to look at texts critically, to analyze arguments … to make sure that we’re doing the best that we can to help children develop in their human formation — the intellect, academic achievement, that they have those skills, but most importantly, that they’re developing those habits of mind, those intellectual virtues.”

Dan agreed: “You can teach students to harness some of the AI to enhance their learning, but they still have to be critical thinkers, they have to be problem solvers.”

Those skills don’t come from technology use exclusively, Dan said. “There are so many more tools that are at our students’ fingertips — whether that’s discussion with classmates, whether that’s being outdoors, whether that’s connecting with their faith by serving others; technology is just one tool.”

SOCIAL MEDIA AND MENTAL HEALTH

In May, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a report highlighting the universality of youth social media use and the harm to mental health such platforms can foster.

The report indicated up to 95% of those ages 13 to 17 report using a social media platform. And although 13 is the age commonly required by social media companies to access their platforms in the U.S., social media use is increasing among those even younger — nearly 40% of children ages 8 to 12 use social media, the report states.

The report found that as of 2021, eighth and 10th graders (typically ages 13 to 16) now spend an average of 3 1/2 hours on social media per day — one in four spend more than five hours and one in seven spend more than seven hours.

The surgeon general’s report referenced a longitudinal cohort study, adjusted for baseline mental health status, of those ages 12 to 15 in the U.S. that found youth who spent more than three hours per day on social media faced double the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety.

“For too many children, social media use is compromising their sleep and valuable in-person time with family and friends,” Murthy said in a statement, in part, following the report’s release.  “We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis — one that we must urgently address.”

The surgeon general’s report contended significant brain development is taking place from ages 10 to 19. It’s a time when well-being can fluctuate and when identities and views of self-worth are primarily forming.

“You learn your social skills and all of those executive functioning skills during your middle school and high school years,” said Melissa Dan, president of Hill-Murray School in Maplewood, a sixth through 12th grade Catholic school. “And if you don’t learn them in a certain window, you don’t just suddenly pick them up in college. There are windows for particular skills.”

The surgeon general’s report highlighted some positives of social media use, including that it can foster self-expression and provide positive opportunities for youth to build community and connection with peers “who share identities, abilities and interests.” But because vulnerable formation takes place during that 10 to 19 age range, the surgeon general’s report suggests “social media exposure during this period warrants additional scrutiny.”

“I think we’re realizing now … that social media can have some serious implications if it’s given too early to children; they just don’t have the maturity level to deal with it,” Dan said. This is why Dan, a member of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, said it is important for young people to learn the values of “kindness, patience, humility, temperance” at an early age “so they can navigate the digital world in a more Christ-centered manner. And that has to be explicitly taught.”

The surgeon general’s report outlines steps policymakers, technology companies, researchers, families and youth can take as part of a multi-faceted approach to protecting youth from social media harm.

For parents and caregivers, steps include:

• Creating a family media plan;
• Creating “tech-free zones” and encouraging children to foster in-person relationships;
• Reporting cyberbullying, online abuse and exploitation and making sure children know how to report as well;
• Working with other parents and guardians to establish shared practices;
• Modeling responsible social media behavior and teaching children how to responsibly use technology at the appropriate age.

For young people, steps include:

• Reaching out for help if they, or those they know, experience negative effects of social media;
• Setting boundaries to balance online and offline activities;
• Developing protective strategies, like tracking time spent online, blocking unwanted contact and content, and using privacy settings;
• Being cautious about what to share online; and reporting, and refraining from, cyberbullying.

SCREENSTRONG PARTNERSHIP

A challenge educators in all settings face is the prevalence of internet-enabled devices that students bring with them to school, said Emily Dahdah, director of educational quality and excellence for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for the Mission of Catholic Education.

“It’s not just in Catholic schools; this is (a challenge) everywhere,” Dahdah said. As an example, the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education was set to vote in early August on a revised policy, which would allow educators in the Minneapolis Public Schools system to establish their own classroom rules and norms for student personal electronic device use with input from their students. The vote on the revised policy was delayed as the item was referred back to the board’s policy committee.

Recognizing that student personal electronic device use extends beyond the classroom, Catholic schools in the archdiocese have begun partnering with the North Carolina-based organization ScreenStrong. ScreenStrong provides “primarily parent education, parent skills on how you as a mother or father (or) family member can help your child use digital tools well,” Dahdah said.

ScreenStrong’s core values include education to help decrease screen dependency and to prioritize authentic relationships.

“We know that real, human, person-to-person encounter is so pivotal,” Dahdah said. The partnership with Catholic schools in the archdiocese comes from “being very much awake to the reality that these digital tools are constantly trying to pull that away from our children, pull that away from us,” she said.

Sister Maria Ivana Begovic — principal of St. Croix Catholic School in Stillwater, a preschool through eighth grade school — said in an email that a ScreenStrong presentation this past spring about technology’s impact on children “was well received” by parents, and an abridged version will be presented at the school’s Back to School night for parents in September. Sister Maria Ivana said the school will also offer a ScreenStrong resource that helps guide families “in making decisions regarding technology in their own homes.”

ScreenStrong will also give a presentation at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year to St. Croix Catholic School faculty and staff. “We want to ensure that at school we are using technology wisely and as a tool, as we teach our children to do the same,” Sister Maria Ivana said.

Learn more about ScreenStrong online: screenstrong.org.