My children attended school in the mid-1990s and to the end of the 2000s.  I recall their Primary School Principal addressing parents at assembly, telling us that our children could work jobs that had not been invented yet.  PCs were big, I mean physically big, taking up a lot of desk space.  The kids went to a computer lab to learn computer skills and a poster of a computer keyboard was in every classroom.  Everyone believed we were on the brink of a new era where technology would change everything.  And we were right. 

I decided to write a space series for Children’s Church taking lessons from the first eleven chapters of Genesis.  I named the series Moon Base Genesis 2.  Ryan, Tristram, Leala, Stella and Pip are part of an Earth colony on the moon.  However, their school teacher was an AI program named Lunar and events take a life-threatening turn.  The series continues to be popular, with some upgrades over the years to try and keep up with technology. 

You’ll find the series here: https://cooeekidsministry.com.au/short-stories/moon-base-genesis-2/

That my grandchildren could be taught by AI in their high school years was not something I ever considered until watching a speech by Sophie Winkleman at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship 2025 Conference.  Her speech was titled Screens and Children: the Compelling Argument against Tech in Schools. 

“The digital destruction of childhood is a crisis we must face if we’re to have an alliance of remotely functioning citizens let alone responsible ones.”

Facts and Figures

As stated in the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, “the great rewiring of childhood is causing a plague of mental illness in our children.”

• Increased suicide rate
• Increased eating disorders (social media cited as a major factor)
• Increased self-harming
• Last year 1 in 3 children was found to be short-sighted with myopia (expected to affect a billion children by 2050) due to blue light screens that also interfere with hormones and sleep patterns

Douglas A. Gentile, Director of Research for the National Institute on Media and the Family and faculty member in the Psychology Department at Iowa State University says “Time spent on screens is time not spent elsewhere.”   

Too Much Screen Time

Health Professionals say 11 to 17-year-olds should only have two hours of screen time per day.  This includes everything from school to smartphones.  Yet 8 to 18-year-olds are on average spending 7 and a half hours per day on screens outside of school hours.

Unthinking Crossover from the Analogue to the Digital

Children experience hours of screen time in the guise of Educational Technology or ‘EdTech’.  Despite being futuristically exciting, learning systems have not been proven to be best for children.  They are impacting children’s speech, cognitive and emotional regulation.  Ed Tech has not delivered the academic benefits once promised.  Instead of putting every subject online by 2030 and using AI as teachers, Sophie Winkleman implores educators to hit rewind. 

“EdTech is Big Tech in a School Uniform”

This is a quote from Emily Cherkin, author of The Screentime Solution:  A Judgement-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family. 

The business of EdTech is worth hundreds of billions of dollars as screens continue to replace books.  Digital literacy is a different beast from digital dependency.   Children who have their eyes on the teacher at the front of the classroom learn better than they do from a screen.  A screen can be a distraction and an obstacle to learning in a way that a book and pen and paper never are. 

An Eye-opener

As I have shared with you here I certainly learned a lot from Sophie Winkleman’s speech.  And I think it pertains to the Kid’s Ministry as well as the school classroom.  I’ve used YouTube clips for Praise and Worship because I’ve never had a band and I can’t play an instrument.  I’ve also used PowerPoint presentations for the visual aids.  But amongst that digital screen time is lots of teacher-student analogue interaction with discussions and Q & A’s.  Programs include drama, games, crafts and whole Church events.  I try to read from a Bible in book form every lesson and believe that Bible literacy is important. I also believe that a Kid’s Church leader is the best resource a Kid’s Ministry can have, now and into the future!