Beyond the Screen

 The next episode takes you all to how a kid amazed me by choosing books and human interaction over devices...

The first half hour before beginning the class is quite challenging, as we have to engage the kids with games and memory time. Before we ask them to do something, they already have something in their minds.

They would play with their friends,

a few would cry thinking about their mummies,

and a few would still be in sleepy mode.

So today, a boy arrived. He was the first one, so no one was there to play with him. I took him to the class. Before going in, he took a book from the bookshelf — a story and memory book.

He literally stood there, looked through each and every page, and gave work to his mind by solving memory trick questions. He wanted me to be his audience, helping him and cheering him on.

Eventually, the other kids who came later joined him. Literally, page after page, until I asked them to close it, they weren't ready to.

This made me realise that it's about how we guide kids. If we give them phones, they'll use them. And other kids will imitate that too. But if we give them books, they are going to read — or at least look at the pictures — but still become intimately involved in that creative process. Other kids follow that too. But this way, the goodness increases, and so do their minds.

Because reading gives an abundance of good things:

Patience,

Memory,

Understanding, comprehension,

Improved language,

and a whole self.

Another incident was when my neighbour's kid came into my home scrolling through YouTube Shorts on her mom's phone. I told her to keep it down. But that kid, who was deep into that reel world, didn't hear me — or pretended not to.

Then I said, "If you don't turn off your phone, akka won't talk to you... so go and keep it away."

Suddenly, she ran to her home.

I thought she would cry or sit there and continue watching reels. But she did something that shocked me.

She kept her phone away, told her mom she didn't want it, and came running back to my home, touched me, and said, "I've kept my phone, akka. Now let's talk..."

It's not about this one incident alone.

I've noticed multiple times hearing her say, "Don't use phone, akka. Please talk to me..."

This shows how much these kids want human interaction and attention over phones.

So, maybe the change is still possible...

and still in our hands.