As you know, our schools could not open due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has been ongoing for months and seems likely to continue. Although September 21st was set as a date, the current number of cases and the increase in these numbers indicate that this situation may not be very possible. For some time, private schools have been conducting make-up lessons through screens, and state institutions have also started education through television screens. The same solution was applied during the periods when our children had curfews in April and May to ensure that education could continue. Of course, at that time, we all thought that the epidemic would ease and end in the summer months or that vaccine studies would reach a conclusion. However, this was not the case, and the epidemic got out of control all over the world.
For years, we pediatricians have been telling our patients, children, and their parents that they should stay away from screens, and that excessive use of phones, televisions, and tablets (3T) exacerbates some neurological and psychological problems. With the pandemic, the situation reversed, and because education is done in front of screens, we have come to tell our children to sit in front of the 3T that we once banned them from for longer periods and focus on their lessons. Of course, our children, whose social freedoms were restricted due to the pandemic, could not adapt to this situation.
The attitude of private schools is a complete example of irrationality; they are trying to conduct physical education and visual arts classes through screens, including not refunding fees collected from parents or not allowing such a request. When parents who say "we already paid for school, so let the duration and number of screen-based lessons be increased even more" are added on top of this, what happened, as always, happened to our children.
I would like to address the Ministry of National Education, private school administrators, and parents on behalf of our children, saying that it is beneficial to underline this once again in bold letters. As the time spent in front of screens increases, psychological problems such as attention deficit, irritability, tic disorders, and sleep disorders, as well as many neurological diseases such as headaches and epileptic seizures, will increase. During the pandemic period, instead of implementing the previously planned curriculum content exactly as it is, it is necessary to aim for the education of our children to be completed in the shortest possible time, rather than extending the time they spend in front of screens, by giving assignments from books already available at home for courses that are considered appropriate to be taken as mandatory, in a more concise and shorter manner. In Izmir, you can consult Prof. Dr. Erhan Bayram's clinic for pediatric neurology and psychology support.
