How Teachers Fight Students' Shortening Attention Spans Shorter Activities, Hands-On Projects, and Meditation (msn.com)
(Sunday April 26, 2026 @11:34AM (EditorDavid)
from the school-daze dept.)
- Reference: 0182772922
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/04/25/066224/how-teachers-fight-students-shortening-attention-spans-shorter-activities-hands-on-projects-and-meditation
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-tricks-teachers-are-trying-to-fix-students-shortening-attention-spans/ar-AA21CpYS
The Washington Post reports that some teachers are now [1]implementing "brain breaks" in their classrooms to cope with shorter attention spans , "including limiting screen time; cutting the time students spend on one activity; adding more engaging, hands-on projects; and practicing meditation."
> Some teachers say the efforts are helping, at least a little... To engage students, teachers say they often feel the need to deliver teaching not only in shorter bursts, but also in more entertaining ways. "The new word is 'edutainment,'" said Curtis Finch, superintendent of Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona. "How can you make your lesson applicable, interactive? Teachers are going to have to be more engaging for students...."
>
> In a kindergarten classroom at McKinley STEAM [a K-8 public school], students start the day with a meditation. The classroom of two dozen children is perhaps its quietest during this short activity every morning. Imagine you're in the Arctic, a voice from a meditation video tells them, with snowflakes melting on your skin. Silently, the children lay down on the carpet and close their eyes for a moment. After the meditation, the students gather in a circle and do a few deep breathing exercises before taking turns proclaiming what they are capable of each day. "I can be a good student," one little boy said before the child next to him replied: "I can listen to the teacher." The goal is that these mantras will stay with the children hours later, when they have to sit through the more tedious lessons of the day.
An instructional coach at McKinley STEAM says the strategies are working students aren't reaching for their phones during class and sometimes actually get drawn into lessons.
The article also explains why some teachers find this necessary:
> In recent years, educators say, it has grown more challenging to get students to pay attention. Eighty-eight percent of respondents in an [2]international survey from 2025 of more than 3,000 teachers believed their students' attention spans were getting shorter. In a study published last year about kindergarten through second-grade classrooms in the United States, [3]75 percent of teachers said attention spans had dropped since the coronavirus pandemic, when the use of laptops and other technology for schooling spread rapidly. A growing body of research says that excessive [4]screen time and [5]short-form content such as TikTok videos are part of the problem. At least [6]36 states , including Ohio, have laws requiring schools to have some form of a cellphone ban.
>
> There is debate over whether screen time reduces people's ability to focus or their desire to — many developmental experts lean toward the latter, suggesting that it is possible to help students regain longer attention spans.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-tricks-teachers-are-trying-to-fix-students-shortening-attention-spans/ar-AA21CpYS
[2] https://assets.foleon.com/eu-central-1/de-uploads-7e3kk3/43822/navigating_the_future_report_v125.53c43416cd8a.pdf
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-025-01996-7
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35430923/
[5] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.03714
[6] https://www.edweek.org/technology/which-states-ban-or-restrict-cellphones-in-schools/2024/06
> Some teachers say the efforts are helping, at least a little... To engage students, teachers say they often feel the need to deliver teaching not only in shorter bursts, but also in more entertaining ways. "The new word is 'edutainment,'" said Curtis Finch, superintendent of Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona. "How can you make your lesson applicable, interactive? Teachers are going to have to be more engaging for students...."
>
> In a kindergarten classroom at McKinley STEAM [a K-8 public school], students start the day with a meditation. The classroom of two dozen children is perhaps its quietest during this short activity every morning. Imagine you're in the Arctic, a voice from a meditation video tells them, with snowflakes melting on your skin. Silently, the children lay down on the carpet and close their eyes for a moment. After the meditation, the students gather in a circle and do a few deep breathing exercises before taking turns proclaiming what they are capable of each day. "I can be a good student," one little boy said before the child next to him replied: "I can listen to the teacher." The goal is that these mantras will stay with the children hours later, when they have to sit through the more tedious lessons of the day.
An instructional coach at McKinley STEAM says the strategies are working students aren't reaching for their phones during class and sometimes actually get drawn into lessons.
The article also explains why some teachers find this necessary:
> In recent years, educators say, it has grown more challenging to get students to pay attention. Eighty-eight percent of respondents in an [2]international survey from 2025 of more than 3,000 teachers believed their students' attention spans were getting shorter. In a study published last year about kindergarten through second-grade classrooms in the United States, [3]75 percent of teachers said attention spans had dropped since the coronavirus pandemic, when the use of laptops and other technology for schooling spread rapidly. A growing body of research says that excessive [4]screen time and [5]short-form content such as TikTok videos are part of the problem. At least [6]36 states , including Ohio, have laws requiring schools to have some form of a cellphone ban.
>
> There is debate over whether screen time reduces people's ability to focus or their desire to — many developmental experts lean toward the latter, suggesting that it is possible to help students regain longer attention spans.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-tricks-teachers-are-trying-to-fix-students-shortening-attention-spans/ar-AA21CpYS
[2] https://assets.foleon.com/eu-central-1/de-uploads-7e3kk3/43822/navigating_the_future_report_v125.53c43416cd8a.pdf
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-025-01996-7
[4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35430923/
[5] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.03714
[6] https://www.edweek.org/technology/which-states-ban-or-restrict-cellphones-in-schools/2024/06
The headline says "fight" (Score:2)
by MpVpRb ( 1423381 )
But the rest of the comment implies surrender
Instead of teaching concentration and focus, teachers are dumbing down the class to feed the students what they want
"a kindergarten classroom" ??? (Score:2)
by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 )
"strategies are working students aren't reaching for their phones during class" Huh?
I don't get it (Score:2)
by Baron_Yam ( 643147 )
I promise this old man diatribe has a point...
There were no smart phones when I was a kid. They were about a decade away from being mainstream consumer devices when I graduated high school. If you wanted to know something, you went to the library and looked it up (which almost nobody did!). If it wasn't taught in school, shown on TV, or told to you by your parents, it didn't exist.
We still managed to be distracted and bored in class, we just didn't have as many options for dealing with it and ended up p
Seriously? (Score:2)
> "An instructional coach at McKinley STEAM says the strategies are working students aren't reaching for their phones during class"
Why would ANY classroom allow students to "reach for their phones during class"?? And we wonder why children have zero attention spans?
I am 100% behind trying to make classes more interesting, more interactive, more engaging, more varied in approach. Not all children learn or engage in the same way. But discipline has to play a major role as well. Allowing students to be d