The educational landscape has changed radically in recent years. Screens have entered classrooms—and students' lives—to stay.
Mobile phones, tablets, learning platforms, and social media are part of everyday school life. But, along with their enormous possibilities, they also bring new pedagogical, emotional, and social challenges.
Today, teachers don't just teach content: they also mediate between students and their digital world. What used to happen in the playground or at home now moves to WhatsApp groups, TikTok, or online games.
School no longer competes only with television or the street, but with a universe of immediate stimuli that shape attention, motivation, and relationships.
In response to this, educational institutions are called upon to educate in the digital realm without losing the human element, combining technological innovation with close support, critical thinking, and values.
The daily challenge of teachers school of sexuality
For many teachers, screens are a source of constant stress.
On the one hand, administrations and families demand technological innovation; on the other, there are fears of the distraction, copying, or isolation that devices can generate.
Added to this is the emotional and relational pressure caused by the hyperconnectivity of students: conflicts on networks, insults in groups, recordings without consent or digital harassment.
Teachers are forced to intervene in situations that extend beyond the classroom but directly impact school life. And often they do so without specific training or clear protocols.
This reality generates burnout, a feeling of powerlessness, and, at times, a growing distance between teachers and students. Therefore, the first step is not to prohibit or renounce technology, but to understand its role in the lives of minors and redefine our own role as adult role models.
Digital risks from an educational perspective
The digital environment amplifies the same conflicts we find off-screen: need for acceptance, peer pressure, impulsivity, low self-esteem.
When a student records themselves in class to upload a video, when a group mocks another classmate on social media, or when a teenager shares photos without considering the consequences, it is not a technological problem, but an emotional and educational one.
Screens act as a megaphone for the same old dilemmas: identity, belonging, limits, and respect.
Therefore, the response must be educational, not just regulatory.
Punishing without guidance does not educate; explaining, reflecting, and offering alternatives does.
The schools that best manage these challenges are those that have incorporated digital and emotional education into the curriculum and coexistence, not as occasional workshops, but as part of their school culture.
Teaching how to think and feel in the digital world
Digital competence is not just about knowing how to use devices, but about thinking and living critically in technological environments.
The teacher's role is not so much to teach how to "use" a tool, but to help interpret it, contextualize it, and give it meaning.
Educating in the digital realm involves addressing questions such as:
- What image do I project on social media and why?
- How do I feel when I don't get replies or when I don't get "likes"?
- What are the consequences of what I share?
- What does it mean to respect privacy and difference on the internet?
Answering these questions with students does not require being a technology expert, but rather being willing to listen and support.
The classroom can become a space to analyze viral messages, influencers, advertising, or hate speech from a critical and educational perspective.
Digital education, properly understood, is also ethical and emotional education.
The teacher as a digital role model
Adults continue to be role models, even in the digital realm.
If teachers use technology with balance, respect, and purpose, they convey much more than any preventative discourse.
In contrast, when something is prohibited without explanation or judged without understanding, students disconnect from the message.
Being a digital leader doesn't mean being up-to-date on all platforms, but showing consistency: using technology to communicate, learn, cooperate, and create.
Teachers who integrate digital tools in an educational way —blogs, audiovisual projects, online collaborative work— show that the internet can also be a space for knowledge and community, not just for consumption.
Today, educational authority is based less on control than on credibility and approachability. And that is only achieved when the student perceives that the adult understands their world, even if they don't fully understand it.
Taking care of the teaching staff so they can support
Digital overexposure also affects educational staff.
Emails, workgroups, platforms, tasks, and constant communication can generate technological stress.
That's why taking care of teachers' mental health is just as important as educating students.
You cannot provide support from a place of exhaustion, nor can you educate for balance from a place of saturation.
Schools should promote training in digital wellbeing, establish reasonable connection times, and create spaces for pedagogical reflection on the use of technology.
Digital balance is also a professional skill.
Educating without disconnecting from the real world
Educating in the age of screens does not mean declaring war on technology, but rather rebuilding the educational bond in a new world.
The key is to preserve the human relationship amidst digitalization: listening, looking into each other's eyes, accompanying the processes, teaching how to think, feel and live together.
Because, in the end, no application can replace the presence of a teacher who believes in their students, who sets limits with affection, and who teaches them to discern between what dazzles and what matters.
Screens change the forms, but the educational essence remains the same: an adult who accompanies, guides and trusts in the potential of each child.
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