Tea at Trianon: Is Technology Destroying Children's Education And Mental Health?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, December 8, 2025

Is Technology Destroying Children's Education And Mental Health?

From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

One issue that never was dealt with before or since the pandemic, but was often brought up by teachers, was the fact that students didn't actually learn any better with computers. In fact, test scores kept declining and students became less inclined to do their own work. The system removed cursive writing, memorizing math facts, doing research in a library with books, using textbooks etc. Who needed that with a computer at your desk?

Twenty years later, we are finding that those things we have outlawed, along with explicit instruction from a live human being, are critical to human learning. Technology, according to Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, is not only detrimental to human learning but the mental health of our young people.

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath is a neuroscientist, educator, and author specializing in the science of learning. He is best known for bridging brain research with classroom practice and for his book Stop Talking, Start Influencing: 12 Insights from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick. (Read more.)