All Around This World classes are energizing, interactive experiences for children and their grown-ups, carefully crafted for children of all ages to enjoy together. Experiencing music class in person is a full-on multi-sensory experience that deepens relationships between grownups and kids and exercises many parts of every student’s brain.
All Around This World teachers believe in the benefit of satisfying real world relationships between parents and their grownups. We don’t encourage parents or teachers to place their children in front of a screen in general but we especially discourage “screen time” when it replaces real world interaction. When we provide class by video, we consciously keep graphics minimal and have the teacher front and center, making the experience more like a video chat from a relative than a sales pitch from a corporation.
While we generally support the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations that families be cautious and deliberate about screen time, and fully agree with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood that kids should be allowed to grow free from a barrage of the ads that screens often bring, we also realize that today’s screen-saturated society makes a complete ban on screens more and more complicated. This is particularly true in a household teeming with children of multiple ages, and especially in a family with school-aged kids whose teachers assign an increasing amount of work online. We also appreciate the many ways the existence of the internet enables connections between people across international and cultural barriers — when used sparingly and conscientiously, information coming into your household or school room via a screen can be a tool, not a weapon.
All Around This World intends to use the internet as a tool that facilitates interaction between people and inspires real-world educational experiences. When we send an e-mail to supplement your music classes full of links to videos of people playing global instruments or dancing traditional dances, we would love you to learn about the world using that information and to share that knowledge with your kids in ways you deem appropriate. When we add video recommendations to our elementary school curriculum packets we encourage teachers to use those videos of people in different parts of the world sharing their own cultures as a supplement to the in-classroom singing and dancing the children are doing themselves. When we teach classes via webcast or create any other educational videos, we’re creating video we hope will be the start of a conversation — not the end of it. The beginning of a journey, not the destination.
If you’re coming to All Around This World for your multi-generational educational experiences we trust you are parents and teachers who make conscientious decisions for your children. If you continue to be both mindful and engaged you won’t let inertia dictate the way your children exist within the world. We at AATW join you in trying to do the best we can, and in doing what’s right for our kids.
Varying research and differing opinions about screen time:
“Facing the Screen Dilemma” : Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
“Screen Sense“: Zero to Three
“Media and Young Minds“: American Academy of Pediatrics
