St. Anthony Catholic School continues lessons on AI, social media and digital habits
When eighth graders at St. Anthony Catholic School in Washington, D.C., learned how social media platforms are designed to keep them scrolling, Dominican Sister Mary Simon noticed something in their reaction.
They were angry.
“They do not want to be manipulated,” said Sister Mary Simon, a Dominican Sister of St. Cecilia who designed and taught St. Anthony’s “Theology and Technology” unit while serving as the school’s eighth-grade homeroom and middle school theology teacher last spring.
Sister Mary Simon, who now teaches third grade at St. Anthony, said students wanted to know what they could do once they understood how many of the apps they use every day are designed to capture and hold their attention.
“They want to be free, and when they realize these programs may inhibit that, they want to know the steps to free themselves from it,” she said.
St. Anthony plans to teach the unit again this school year after its first group of eighth graders completed the program in the spring.
The unit began after teachers became concerned about the effects excessive technology use could have on young people and started seeing some of those effects among middle school students.