The countdown to the Morton Pumpkin Festival is on, and the smell of rotting pumpkins is filling the air! Helen gives an update about her classes, including how she and her students are navigating her mostly-device-free technology policy. She talks through the examples of when classwork does allow for the use of devices and how she is using the tech intentionally with her students. Jordan shares about a recent local radio segment, “What to know about Illinois’ cell phone ban in schools,” from Illinois Public Media. In addition to discussing the new personal device law, there was talk from a professor about problems with edtech products entering K-12 schools. This leads to a discussion of the hoops educators often have to jump through in order to become professionally licensed while keeping up with the many requirements. Jordan shares the difficulties of transferring her own license from Indiana to Illinois--including the absurd requirement to sit for the SAT exam in her thirties! Then we talk through the fascinating and complex world of introducing bills to lawmakers. Jordan gives information for the upcoming listening session on September 15th being held by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) calling for parents, students, educators, and child development specialists to share their concerns about screens in schools. Helen closes with a story about how her bracelet-making fundraiser was included in the local newspaper with some possibly false details.

Find Helen on Substack at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Join Jordan in⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.

When you need to get some energy out, crank up the tunes (maybe even some Sesame Street hits) and dance! Or at least that is what these two Millennial Moms recommend. Jordan shares the final update to her community grant project: all of the screen-free activity bins are now out! Then we dive into all of the details of the recent Meta settlement. In case you didn’t see the news, Meta will be paying up to $17.1 billion to forty-eight states over the next ten years and will be making several platform changes to improve safety and mental health for users under eighteen. Fun fact: $17.1 billion is a lot of money...unless you are Meta and that is only 1.16% of your $1.47 trillion current total value. Some of the settlement is dependent upon whether or not other social media companies (Snap, TikTok, and YouTube) reach a financial settlement with states and agree to implement platform changes as well. Helen and Jordan wish that some of the changes Meta has agreed to, such as only seeing accounts you follow in your feed, were available for all accounts, not just teens. The settlement money is going to divided between the states to fund youth mental health supports and education. Jordan shares a non-tech-funded/-influenced (unlike Common Sense Media) digital literacy resource: ScreenStrong: Kids’ Brains & Screens. We then talk about the global impact and crises that Meta has contributed to across the world. Helen tries to close with a profound thought, but her internet had some other ideas.

Find Helen on Substack at⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Join Jordan in⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.

Sometimes when one of the Millennial Moms has her basement flood for multiple days, you plan nothing for your episode and instead go for a “grab bag” of topics. Turns out that works out great because we got to talk about a variety of important and interesting things! Jordan shares about several upcoming webinars for parents, educators, or literally anyone--all shared on the ever-growing Google doc. Two of the webinars will feature Natasha Singer, who has a new book, Coding Kids, releasing on September 8th. We then dive into Singer’s latest New York Times article, “How Big Tech Captured American Schools.” This creates some discussion about what is school actually for when the tech industry influences so many aspects of education. We then talk through what happens when a digital product company like Google makes a change to their product and how that impacts users. Helen shares her classroom technology policy for this semester in her role as the Clinical Coordinator for the English Education program at Illinois State University where she teaches future teachers. Helen teaches Jordan there is a version of Instagram you can pay a monthly fee for, and Jordan thinks it is ridiculous...because it is. This, of course, leads to Jordan sharing all about the purse obsession she had in her younger days with the designer Paul Frank. Helen’s purse style has been (and always will be) thanks to Kohl’s.

Find Helen on Substack at⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Listen to Helen's friends on Go Kvetch!

Join Jordan in⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.

We kick, we stretch, and we kick because this is our FIFTIETH episode! Helen shares how she made it out safely from a scary storm, and Jordan has been busy baking treats. Helen then promises that when our podcast gets seven (or more!) reviews, she will share an incredible first-day-of-seventh-grade story. Jordan gives details about The UnPluggEd Project meant for schools and families to embrace and lean into human connections and away from the distractions of technology in October. She also shares about the Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education that Illinois Families for Public Schools is asking Chicago Public Schools board candidates to sign. We then dive into the world of tech monitoring devices for babies and how they normalize surveillance and tracking in our day-to-day lives. We talk about how these baby tracking devices are often marketed to stressed-out, anxious, and fearful new parents as a way to “help” bring peace of mind. We talk about the devices and apps we did use in our early days of motherhood and how we feel about them now. Our conversation was sparked by a recent New York Times article, “Aw, It’s Baby’s First A.I. Surveillance System.” We question the long-term implications of being constantly tracked. Jordan points out a part from the article where one of the companies claims that infant sleep data might be interesting to future pro-athletes and how ridiculous that sounds.

Just in time for back-to-school, Jordan shares all about the Distraction-Free Schools Policy Project (DFSPP) that she has become involved with over the past year. DFSPP is a joint initiative between the Becca Schmill Foundation and Smartphone Free Childhood US that advocates for a better, safer educational experience for every child through legislation with 3 model bills: Phone-Free Schools, Social Media-Free Schools, and Intentional School Technology Use. In addition to being the Illinois DFSPP co-lead, Jordan is now joining the national leadership team to help support and strengthen existing and new state teams. We then talk about the differences between the Senate’s Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the House’s Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act. We share our excitement about two upcoming book releases: Natasha Singer’s Coding Kids and Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath’s re-release of The Digital Delusion. Jordan gives the tech-related updates for her school district in Morton, including a bell-to-bell cellphone policy and the removal of direct student access to YouTube on school iPads, and she overviews the recent board meeting discussion about whether 1:1 devices should continue in grades K-2. Jordan ends by reading a few recent article titles from her ever-growing Google doc resource that has been shared across the country.

Find Helen on Substack at⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Join Jordan in⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.

Check out the following articles and resources mentioned throughout our conversation:

A state-by-state breakdown: PhoneFreeSchoolsReport.org

A major win for child safety: “Meta fined $567m”

An intriguing conversation: “DSFPP & SBS Present: Skills Before Screens”

A powerful read and watch: “Why Did We Let Big Tech Take Over Education?”

An upcoming webinar: “Big Tech’s Battle to Remake Education”

And for more, check out Jordan’s always growing, always helpful (and hopeful! And disheartening! And empowering!!) doc of Links and Resources.

We kick off our episode with a brand new segment we’re calling “Gratitude,” complete with Helen’s on-the-fly segment theme song! Helen is fresh off the first day of her new job as the Clinical Coordinator for English Education, and Jordan has shared another newsletter for her reConnect Morton community group. For this episode, we’re talking all about a recent piece published in The Atlantic, “What if It’s Not the Phones? An evolutionary psychologist is challenging the popular understanding of kids and technology.” The article discusses Peter Gray’s (a founder of Let Grow) stance that smartphones and social media did not lead to the mental health crisis they’re facing; he thinks Common Core is to blame. Jordan shares her frustrations with Gray’s position on internet exploration for children, given that he is such a champion for childhood independence and play. Gray refers to social media age minimums as a “violation of human rights,” and we talk through how as a society, we age-gate many things such as drinking, driving, and voting. We add yet another new segment called “words I didn’t know before but now I do” after Jordan comes across a word in the article she didn’t know.

Find Helen on Substack at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Join Jordan in⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.

Put your party hat on because we are celebrating the 1st birthday of our podcast! It’s hard to believe we’ve shared a year of so many different Millennial Mom Thoughts with our listeners. After Jordan shares about her recent trip to visit family in Indiana, Helen delights us with her impressive sound effects. We then talk about how Meta recently reversed a decision to give users a feature allowing anyone to alter public Instagram account photos with an AI image generator. This leads to a conversation about a situation Jordan encountered where a friend uploaded a photo of her son into an AI image generator app. Jordan shares how she handled it and why these are discussions we all need to have. After a birthday party celebration, Helen realizes she has discovered a new passion: creating stickers! Helen then details her teaching experiences with the Upward Bound Summer Institute. A new Common Sense Media report details how Google’s AI search poses an “unacceptable risk” to students, which sparks a discussion about how AI is impacting education and how we navigate that as educators and parents (including reading Fairplay’s call for a pause on AI in schools and considering Schools Beyond Screen’s email template to district leadership). We then reflect on the many conversations we’ve had over the past year and how much fun we are having making this podcast. We’re looking forward to another year of great conversations, new guests, and plenty more laughs!

Find Helen on Substack at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Join Jordan in ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.

View the recording of the Skills Before Screens webinar.

We are thrilled to share our conversation with Kevin Stinehart, a fellow millennial who is a leading voice on what modern childhood is missing. Helen first shares with us her incredible running accomplishment: taking third place at the Cry Me A River Trail Half Marathon! And Jordan drops a small hint about a future project she’s working on. We then get to talk to Kevin about his amazing work and what is like to be featured in the global phenomenon book, The Anxious Generation. Although becoming an educator wasn’t his original plan, he has been recognized as Teacher of the Year in his school district and is now a doctoral candidate at Clemson University. We discuss the transformative Play Club initiative he began at his school in 2019, including both the local impact on his students and the global interest in its successes. In a recent essay on Substack, Kevin discusses what happens when we don’t allow kids to be kids and instead use devices to quiet or distract them. Kevin shares some of the amazing stories from his school Play Club that allows students the opportunities to play without adults leading the activities or interfering, even when conflict arises. Helen and Jordan have so many more questions than we have time for, so we hope to bring Kevin back for a part two!

Find Helen on Substack at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Resonances⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Join Jordan in ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠reConnect Morton⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ through Four Norms.