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I agree with calls to reduce screentime in class for students and, if I was still in the classroom, I would have done so already (see Was This The Biggest Teaching Mistake I Made This Year?).
But, as I said in this BlueSky post, an overlooked issue in this discussion is that reducing student screentime will result in more work for teachers:
I think tons of teachers don’t think the tech is the greatest for student learning, either. But it also can save them A LOT of time – no making copies, much easier to grade. Assuming that a transition off of tech happens, it would be nice if some concessions to that were made….1/2
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— Larry Ferlazzo (@larryferlazzo.bsky.social) April 29, 2026 at 7:12 AM
I never had students spend much time on laptops in my ELL classes, though pushed them to use it in their homes (see The Role Of Tech IN My ELL Classroom? Not Much, But That’s Not The Whole Story).
And, since my ELL classes were pretty small, it was easy to handle grading and I was able to print-out any needed paper copies off my printer.
Three periods of over 30 students each in my IB Theory of Knowledge classes were a different story. If I was teaching this year, I’m pretty sure that making copies and hand-grading would have added at least five-to-eight hours each week to my workload. I could have handled that since my kids are grown and I don’t have a life, but that’s a pretty big “ask” for most teachers.
And please don’t quote that BS statistic about how Artificial Intelligence is saving teachers 5.9 hours each week. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you.
It would be nice if this campaign against screentime didn’t become just another in the endless efforts to squeeze blood out of a rock (the rock being teachers).
Some ways schools could mitigate this problem could be:
* Providing teachers with high-quality fast printers so they can print out class materials instead of having to wait in the teacher copier room and hope the machines don’t break down.
* Create district or school-wide grading policies “codifying” that teachers should not actually grade every assignment, so that individual teachers don’t get pushback if they don’t.
* Bring back student teaching assistants (TA’s) if you work in a district like ours that banned their use. TA’s can help make copies.
* Create a school program like ours did for several years where TA’s worked in the school office and teachers could submit materials for copying. They would then deliver them the following day.
I’m all for schools making changes to benefit students. But those changes don’t have to hurt teachers, too.
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