Apart from classical or Montessori schools, technology use, including 1:1 device programs, is commonplace in U.S. Catholic schools. But as more and more studies come out showing the harms of heavy tech use in the classroom and beyond, some schools are starting to pull back.
August 19, 2026
Why some Catholic schools are going low-tech in the age of AI
The Catholic Sun • Zoey Maraist
As AI and screens become more pervasive in education, some Catholic schools are deliberately moving in the other direction—returning to books, handwriting, conversation, and face-to-face teaching. Their experience raises a deeper question for families and educators: not simply whether children can use technology, but what kind of attention, judgment, and human relationships a good education should cultivate.
The Catholic Sun
What we attend to quietly shapes the people we become. In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Nadezhda Gribkova about beauty-first education, the patient work of looking, and the relationships that make genuine learning possible. Drawing on Dostoevsky, Rowan Williams, Jane Jacobs, sacred icons, and her own experiences as a student and teacher, Nadezhda explores why formation cannot be reduced to transferring information. Her own education, as a fifteen year old in a new country, significantly shaped her life. Her teachers, she explains, took her seriously by tackling difficult books in conversation and asking good questions toward the person she would be but was not yet. She offers simple practices for recovering attention, including memorizing poetry, observing art without rushing to interpret it, and returning to the patterns that remind us what is true. Their conversation invites parents and educators to consider how beauty can deepen family culture, strengthen human connection, and orient an ordinary life toward flourishing. At the heart of the conversation is a hopeful claim: beautiful things are not luxuries reserved for experts. They are gifts that can ground us, enlarge our vision, and help us remember how to live.
After nearly 20 years of homeschooling, this mother is honest about both the work and the gift of educating her children at home.
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Classical Christian education in Africa is not a cultural import or a luxury reserved for the materially secure. It is a humane education that equips students to think, speak, serve, and flourish within their own communities.