A Screen Is Not a Teacher

There is a version of modern education that mistakes access for learning. Give every child a tablet. Put a screen at every desk. Call it innovation.

We do not believe that is what children need. Not because we are afraid of technology, but because we have thought carefully about what young children actually require to learn well — and a screen is rarely the answer.

The evidence on screen time for young children is not subtle. Excessive screen use in the early years is associated with delays in language development, reduced attention span, disrupted sleep, and weaker executive function. For children in Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade especially, the brain is doing its most critical developmental work. What it needs during that window is not a screen. It is conversation, movement, hands-on exploration, and the steady presence of adults who know them.

For older elementary students, the picture shifts slightly — technology used with intention and structure can support learning. But “used with intention” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Without it, screens become a substitute for thinking rather than a support for it.

Technology Is a Tool, Not a Teacher

At The Laurel School, we treat technology the way we treat a textbook: as one tool among many, useful in its place, and not to be confused with teaching itself.

A screen will never see your child get stuck on a problem and slow down to help. It will never recognize that they’re losing interest and redirect to something better. It never meet your child, let alone form the relationship that’ll encourage them to take academic risks in the classroom. Our two teachers and instructional assistant can do all of those things. That is irreplaceable, and we protect it.

Lower Elementary (K–2): No Screens in the School Day

In Lower Elementary (K–2), we do not incorporate screen time into the school day. Children in those grades are learning to read, to write, to count, to listen, to be part of a community. Those skills are built through direct instruction, real materials, and human interaction. A screen adds nothing to that process that a good teacher and a well-designed lesson cannot do better.

Upper Elementary (3–5): Purposeful and Sparing

In Upper Elementary (3–5), technology enters the classroom purposefully and sparingly — always as a means to an end, never as the lesson itself.

Something Better Than a Screen

One reason we can limit screens so confidently is that we have something better: the real world.

The James River. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. The Black History Museum. Maymont. The Children’s Museum of Richmond. These are not field trips we take once a year. They are part of how we teach. When a child records observations along the river bank, traces the history of a neighborhood on foot, or sketches a specimen in a botanical garden, they are doing something no screen can replicate. They are learning with their whole bodies, in a real place, with real stakes.

That is not a marketing phrase. It is how we plan our curriculum.

Preparation, Not Immersion

We are not anti-technology. The world our students will enter runs on it, and we will prepare them for that world. But preparation does not mean immersion. It means building the foundation first — attention, language, relationship, curiosity — so that when technology enters the picture, children are equipped to use it as a tool rather than lean on it as a crutch.

That balance is something we think about carefully, revisit often, and protect deliberately.

If you are looking for a school that takes this question seriously, we would be glad to talk.