why the place of screens in school is not unanimous

What place do screens have in society, and more specifically at school? The debate has been open since the publication of the expert report on April 30 which recommends limiting children’s exposure to screens. In the process, Gabriel Attal assured, National Education must “sweep in front of your door” on the question of the use of these digital tools. So, will any developments be decided by the executive? This would be a major political turnaround, as digital technology has been promoted in recent years in the classroom.

First there were the communities, which financed computers and tablets for students from the beginning of the 2010s. Since then, the use of digital tools has been regularly highlighted. Six months ago, Gabriel Attal himself affirmed, during a visit to Educatech, the educational innovation fair, that the “Digital and artificial intelligence were key tools.” As Minister of National Education, he extolled the merits of an application to help all second-year students with their homework.

A real tool for some teachers

Today, there are numerous devices. In Pierre’s class, for example, a teacher in Drancy in Seine-Saint-Denis, there is a tablet on the desk of each CE1 and CE2 student, financed by the town hall. “The tablet is really a tool, for me, which allows us to adapt to the needs of each student”. They use it 30 or 40 minutes a day on average, to work on writing, reading, conjugation, grammar, and even math. “And we also have, with all these applications, the fun side. It’s a real motivator at school,” explains this teacher. The application is called Lalilo, so each student has their own tablet, with headphones to follow the instructions. “I go behind a student who is not going to make it, I will be able to go see him.”

“Successful students continue to progress and students having difficulties, we can provide human assistance in an individualized manner.”

Pierre, teacher in Drancy

at franceinfo

Companies in this sector are grouped together in an association within Edutech France. The general delegate Orianne Ledroit defends reasoned use of these educational applications. “The more we play with a technical tool, the more we appropriate it, the more we free ourselves from it”she says. “It is important not to completely exclude digital education from classes. This is one of the conditions for our children to be able to use technological tools in a critical, reasoned and civic manner.”. For professionals, these tools must be differentiated from social networks, which can be dangerous.

Others worry about a decline in reading

But this use of screens in the school setting is far from consensus. It is particularly criticized by some teachers, like Agnès Favre, literature teacher in middle and high school. In January 2024, she founded the collective for reasoned digital education. For her, young people must be able to work without connecting to their screens, she refuses to use tablets in class. “First, because our role, that of the school, is to get students back into reading”argues Agnès Favre.

“We have students who have lost contact with the book, it has become a foreign object for them.”

Agnès Favre, middle and high school teacher

at franceinfo

Furthermore, Agnès Favre notes that they are more easily distracted and that most of her students no longer have an agenda, “because they know that we will grade homework on the digital application”. Which she regrets, because, according to her, writing down her homework, “this is the moment when they will become aware of the duty to do. The role of school should be to teach them to improve their concentration and to be independent”. The collective is campaigning for screen-free lessons, in class and at home, while training students digitally in dedicated time slots.

“I was studying and suddenly I got a notification”

Concerns are also growing among families. Franceinfo met several final year students in Strasbourg. The Grand Est region finances computers for each high school student. Since 2019, they no longer have any paper manuals, everything is digital. Ari, in her final year, talks about how young people turn away from classes when they have to take out their computers in class.

“There are some who play or shop online. I go on Insta, or watch videos”

Ari, final year student in Strasbourg

at franceinfo

Ari explains that the work computer at school gives them access to everything, “the high school Wi-Fi doesn’t block much”. His friend Abdssamad has become addicted to Pronote, the website where homework and, above all, closely scrutinized grades are posted. “I keep checking to see if my average has gone up or down. There was definitely a very addictive side to it”says Abdssamad.

Not to mention how easy it is to deconcentrate when doing homework when everything is done on the computer. “Maybe I was studying hard and all of a sudden I get a notification, I start talking to someone, I watch videos. So I get lost and sometimes I can stay until at midnight, one o’clock in the morning to revise”, testifies Abdssamad. Their friend Ionela has lost the habit of writing by hand and admits some difficulty with spelling “by always having a corrector, there are still gaps that are there.”

A group of parents denounces contradictory injunctions

Some have come together in a collective at the initiative of Audrey Vinel in particular, this mother of students denounces contradictory injunctions between having to regulate screens at home and using these same screens in the school setting. Her three children only had digital textbooks in high school. “I saw screen time explode. With their father, I had tried to control things a little. There, it became open bar and that makes control of all that, for the parents, impossible”, this mother annoys. “It’s a health scandal in realityshe insists. Billions and tens of billions of euros are spent on this every year.