At my core, I am a teacher. 

I could say I “was” a teacher since I no longer work in a school, but teaching goes beyond the classrooms walls and I view most of the work I do today in my capacity as The Screentime Consultant as still a teacher– one who instructs, yes, but also, as one Middle English root of the word “teach” itself indicates, my job is actually “to show.”

As a 7th grade English teacher for many years, my students and I spent a lot of time doing what you’d expect in a middle school language arts class: reading, writing, and revising (almost entirely without laptops or digital tools, by the way, except for word processing final essay drafts). I can’t tell you how many times I talked to my students about the importance of “showing” vs “telling” in their writing. It is far more interesting to be guided as a reader to my own conclusions rather than having the obvious pointed out. Plus, it’s more fun! Not only did I have my students read books independently, but I also read many books out loud to them, which allowed me to both instruct and show how writing generates emotions and ideas (and shows vs. tells).

I do miss my time in the classroom (though not quite as much the hours I spent grading those 7th grade essays). However, I find that in my current work, I can continue my role as “one who both informs and shows” via the presentations I do for parents, professionals, and school communities. (Forgive me in advance, as for the purposes of this essay, I will indeed do more telling than showing.)

Here is How the School Presentation Process Works:

First, I am contacted by someone connected to a school inquiring about my services. While most of the details are listed on my website, in order to get the ball rolling, we need someone to contact us to let us know of their interest. I estimate that most of these first contacts come from a member of the PTA or parent organization, though occasionally, I hear directly from school guidance counselors, and slightly less frequently, from school administrators or superintendents. 

Then, my assistant and I set up a Zoom meeting to discuss details and goals. Some questions we might ask:

• What are you hoping to accomplish with a presentation? 

• What challenges is your community currently facing around screen use?

• Who is the audience (parents of young children, middle school parents, school community or general public, etc.)? 

• Do you have a specific time frame or budget to work within? 

In our Zoom conversation, we’re able to both listen to what someone is looking for, and to explain what we can offer. One of our goals is to make sure that what our potential customer is seeking is something we can provide. While there are several experts who offer school presentations, one thing that sets our services apart is our use of customized community surveys that we administer prior to a presentation. We find that when we solicit input and comments from the community prior to our visit, we can fold in the personal and hyperlocal concerns and challenges that are applicable to this particular community. The surveys are flexible and can be adapted to each particular community’s needs and goals. Depending on the scope of our work together, we can survey parents, teachers and staff, and sometimes even students. All survey data is anonymous and we do not collect email addresses. 

It’s important to me to be clear up front about what I can and cannot offer. For example, I occasionally get asked to help parents set up parental controls. That is not the focus of my work, but I can offer a talk that helps parents see the limitations of relying on parental controls and help them find more effective alternate solutions instead. 

Pro tip: Even if you’re not sure or are concerned about your time frame or budget, it never hurts to reach out to us and ask. We are very supportive of creative solutions to funding and we want to work with you to make it happen, where possible. 

Next, after our Zoom meeting, we send a PDF proposal that summarizes our conversation about goals, timing, budget, plans for the survey, and anything else, like travel. We are more than happy to travel to your school or community and travel rates within the continental United States are included in our fee structure, so no extras once we set the budget and Statement of Work. At this point in the process, the person who contacted us often needs to consult with other school or parent leaders to discuss schedule and budget. We make our proposals valid for 30 days, but always appreciate a faster turnaround, especially when trying to schedule a date. If the school or group approves of the proposal, we immediately send a Statement of Work, contract, and invoice for the initial deposit (usually 50% of the total, but we discuss these details in our Zoom meeting). 

At this point in the process, it’s helpful to have all of the paperwork processed quickly, because if we’re administering a survey, we have to have some lead time to get the survey approved by school administrators, administer the survey (usually a two-week window), analyze the data, and incorporate it into the talk. From first contact to school presentation, we typically need a minimum of six weeks, though sometimes we can work within a tighter time frame. One important note: we provide your community with marketing materials to help promote the survey and advertise the event. This includes a bio, headshot, logos and graphics, and copy. We want to make this as easy as possible for you to promote and share!

Later, once the contract is signed and the first deposit received, I get to work on customizing the survey for your community. I can incorporate specific questions that a community might want to learn more about, and I tweak the tone to be appropriate for the audience (for example, parents of younger children vs. parents of older children). We ship a draft of the survey off to school leaders for approval or feedback. Occasionally we are asked to adjust a question or two, and most likely, that’s a quick and easy fix. Most of the survey is multiple choice questions but we also ask some short answer questions, which can generate a lot of powerful insights. We usually require about two weeks to administer the survey– it sometimes takes a few reminder email nudges and the more responses we get, the more vivid a picture I can paint (or SHOW). 

Finally, once the survey is administered, I take all that data and nerd out. One great use of technology is how the digital data allows me to play with the questions and responses and look for trends. At the same time, I use good ol’ paper and pen to write out the themes and common threads I see in the responses. Then, using the responses and often citing some of the (anonymous) comments in the survey, I generate a highly-customized talk for the community. 

The presentations are my favorite part of all this work. Getting to share my ideas and community feedback with an audience in real time is such a powerful experience. (Note to audience members– I love to see you nodding along as you listen!). I always make sure to leave time for a robust Q and A session at the end too, as sometimes the best parts of a talk emerge from those moments.

After the presentation, I provide the school or contact person with a high-level summary of the survey responses (not the raw data). Depending on the scope of the contract, following the presentation, I also can meet with school leaders to share policy recommendations that would support a school further in helping its community become more tech-intentional. 

Of course, any presentation can be customized to meet budget needs and goals of the community seeking support. I can do talks with or without the survey; I can do in-person or virtual; I can offer customized professional development workshops or small group parent discussions. We just need you to reach out to ask– we are more than happy to have a conversation and see how we can help.

As with children, no two school communities are the same. So our approach to School Presentations will vary a little, but always be rooted in my Tech-Intentional philosophy:

• Later is better

• Less is more

• Relationships and skills before screens.

One thing I pride myself on is my non-judgmental and empathetic approach. I am a parent, so I do understand the challenges we are up against as the at-home adults. I am also a teacher, so I understand that there are many complex issues at play in the “screentime” challenge facing students and educators in a school building. 

I don’t often toot my own horn, but you can see from the testimonials I have received that my talks are well-received:

• "Emily is a true expert in her field. I walked away from her presentation with information on how to help balance technology at home and steps to put it into practice. Emily presents with first-hand knowledge, well-researched material, humor, and always without judgment."

-K.A., attendee

• "You gave me hope when I had lost a lot of it lately. Your expertise and the way you were able to break down the knowledge you have and keep a crowd engaged was admirable and priceless. I truly enjoyed myself. Who would have thought I would laugh so much at a parent education presentation?!"

-Kim O., Mother of Dual Household Children

• "I have been in awe of Emily’s work for a long time and was reminded of why as she presented to our community. Her ability to capture the complicated nature of all of our relationships with the digital world and help to provide strategies that work through the complication rather than around it was absolutely the thing our parents needed. There were aha moments, moments of gratitude, and deep sighs of relief that were vocalized by our parent community because Emily saw them, which is no small task when partnering with various constituents.”

-Dr. Lauri Conner, Head of School, Lake Washington Girls’ Middle School

• “Emily’s talk was the best parent education presentation I’ve ever been to.”

-J.K., PTA President

• “The reason we feel compelled to listen to Emily is because she is so authentically herself. She is approachable, serious, and deeply caring. The ripple effect of her efforts will spread because people need to hear the truth.”

-Slocumb L., Father

• 
  "I had no idea just how much I would get out of this one little speech. Not only did Emily give me tools that I was able to implement right away, but also, I left feeling like I have also been doing a lot of things "right". That gave me a newfound feeling of confidence around this ever-changing issue; during these challenging times, that is priceless to me."

-Beth G., Mother

• “Emily’s presentation wasn’t just super informative but chock-filled with information and data from our schools. You could tell she was super passionate and personable about the topic of screen time in schools, and this truly showed throughout the process. Outstanding all around!!!”

-Colin Anton Samuel, Chief Technology Officer The Brearley School, New York City

• "Emily is such an engaging, easy-to-listen-to, relatable speaker and parent. I liked her quick takeaways, but also her longer explanations about how we can work with our kids (not against them) to be more tech-intentional. She emphasized the importance of role-modeling we need to do as parents and didn’t shame or blame us, but she also didn’t hesitate to point out the risks of being too lax with our children’s screen usage either."

-N.B., attendee

If you’d like to learn more about how I can support your school community, please fill out this form here or send us an email at info@thescreentimeconsultant.com. 

P.S. I did something sneaky in this blog post. If you look at the start of each of the above paragraphs, the words used are: First, Then, Next, Later, Finally. When I taught 7th graders, this was a strategy I used to help them organize the events of a chapter or story section so that when they were annotating in their books (yes, I let them write in their books– their physical books!-- because annotating– by hand– is a great way to cement learning). Abbreviated, this spells “FTNLF.” Often for homework I would ask the students to read and annotate, and then to end the chapter with a brief FTNLF of what had occurred as a way to track the events of each chapter (we used a lot of other strategies too, but this was a good one for summarizing chapter information). Then, when we were reviewing the text in class during discussions the following day, the students would be able to see their quick summaries of the chapters to recall where something had occurred in the story.

To summarize the FTNLF of this essay, then, you have:

First, contact Emily and schedule a call.

Then, meet with Emily to discuss goals, time, and budget.

Next, turn the proposal into the paperwork.

Later, administer the survey and analyze the results.

Finally, present a great talk and provide the school or community with a summary!