This Week with EdSurge

This Week with EdSurge

Two New Rules, Two Teacher Workarounds

Sep 2, 2026 · 22 min · 11 segments

New guidance was supposed to help teachers make sense of screen time. New laws were supposed to keep phones out of the way. On **This Week with EdSurge** we look at what happens when teachers are left…

New guidance was supposed to help teachers make sense of screen time. New laws were supposed to keep phones out of the way. On **This Week with EdSurge** we look at what happens when teachers are left to make sense of rules that were never built with their classrooms in mind. Adam Stone talks with pre-K and kindergarten teachers about the guidance that excludes them, and civics teacher Dan Clark explains why he thinks Missouri got its phone ban wrong. **WHAT YOU'LL LEARN** - The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its screen time guidance for the first time in a decade, but the update is scoped around children and adolescents and offers little direction for pre-K classrooms. - Pre-K and kindergarten teachers are relying on tactile, low-tech strategies, such as forming letters out of Play-Doh, to reinforce face-to-face interaction instead of defaulting to screens. - Missouri's new law bans any portable communication device on a student's person from the first bell to the last, which cut off students working on a community advocacy project from the platform they knew best how to use. - We explore if blanket phone bans skip the harder work of teaching digital citizenship, comparing the debate to longstanding arguments over whether schools should still teach cursive. **STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE** Early Childhood Education Teachers Grapple with Screen Time by Adam Stone The Case Against the Classroom Cellphone Crackdown by Dan Clark **STAY CONNECTED** - Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com. - Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news. - Follow **EdSurge** on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. **HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS** **Host:** Ira Apfel **Featuring:** - Adam Stone, Education and Technology Journalist - Dan Clark, Eighth Grade Civics Teacher, Missouri

New guidance was supposed to help teachers make sense of screen time. New laws were supposed to keep phones out of the way. On **This Week with EdSurge** we look at what happens when teachers are left…

Two Rules, Two Classrooms0:03 – 1:42

0:03

Welcome to This Week with EdSurge for the week of September 2nd.

0:06

I'm Ira Apfel, Editorial Director here at EdSurge.

0:10

Two stories this week about rules written outside the classroom, with teachers left to make them actually work in their own schools.

0:18

Our first guest says the American Academy of Pediatrics' new screen time guidance mostly skips over pre-K, so teachers are building their own approach out of Play-Doh and index cards.

0:30

Our second guest says Missouri's new cell phone ban puts the one tool his students need to know how to use out of their reach.

0:37

Let's start with Adam Stone, an education and technology journalist who went straight to pre-K and kindergarten teachers to find out what the AAP guidance leaves out.

0:48

Last January, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its screen time guidance for kids and teens, its first update in 10 years.

0:57

Many teachers welcomed the updated guidance, and they actually tried to use it.

1:02

Create a family media plan, protect sleep, set parental controls, All solid advice, but none of it helps a pre-K teacher standing in front of 15 four-year-olds.

1:14

That disconnect is where Adam Stone went looking.

1:17

Adam's a longtime education and technology journalist, and for this piece, he went straight to the people closest to the problem, pre-K and kindergarten teachers.

1:26

Adam, welcome to the show.

1:28

Nice to be here.

1:28

Thank you for having me.

1:30

So the AAP guidance came out in January, but you found real gaps for the youngest kids.

1:36

Walk me through that.

1:37

Where exactly does the guidance stop being useful once you get down to a pre-K classroom?

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