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France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

theguardian.com

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Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#251

Post by keyboardhitter »

craftyguy wrote: post #206
sridca wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same can be said for video games. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170622103824.h...

I believe my parents said their parents told them same thing about TVs, and their parents parents told them radios, and so on.

Well, true, but television in itself back then had much less "immediate reward" potential whereas video games and mobile devices are hands-on, and the experience changes much more quickly at the users' expense. The only comparison I can think of to the tube in that way is around switching channels on the tube on demand lol. The content is markedly different as well, often designed to generate easy feedback loops. Yes, TV originally did cause massive changes to social life and can also have negative impact. but I do not think it's a good idea to be dismissive of a potentially larger impact simply because of some similarities in technological progression through generations.

Though. I do see your point and maybe in a few more generations it will seem like just another bump in the road. Can't say I am optimistic in any case.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#252

Post by abootstrapper »

aluhut wrote: post #74
abootstrapper wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut parents some slack and give children some credit. Everyone is going to be just fine (possibly better) if dad gets a tiny break and junior gets a small taste of independence.

This has nothing to do with independence. Kids need the attention of their parent. We are social beings. Those zombie parents kids develop into something the parents will later want to medicate shifting the blame on the kid. In no way will there be something BETTER.

You're inferring a lot by viewing a parent on their smart phone.

RE Independence: I dare say a child can play for some minutes with other children without the need to interact with their parent. In fact, I'd go far as to say, interrupting a child's play is more detrimental than leaving them be and looking at your phone. In either case, I'm sure the parent has more insight than a third party passing by and is making an informed decision.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#253

Post by curt15 »

surge wrote: post #220
germinalphrase wrote: post #153

TLDR: As a high school level teacher, this would be less of a problem if teachers had stronger enforcement powers. Since we often don't - I would strongly favor a ban. If students need a computer, we have them available all day, every day. As a high school level teacher, I appreciate the attitude that there are amazing opportunities for learning and skill development with computers. I agree with this wholeheartedly.…

It'd be kind of neat if the phones had a mode similar to the "car mode" on Apple phones, where it goes into a DnD mode and becomes inconvenient to unlock and use when at a certain location. So a kid can use the phone, but texting or other features are harder to access in a non-obvious manner and notifications are muted. Almost like being in Airplane mode by default except during in between class breaks. They are usef…

Tasker on Android is probably comes closest ( http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/change-your-android-phones-set... ).

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#254

Post by ashark »

mschuster91 wrote: post #215

Jeez. I had not thought the Macron government to be so backwards. IMHO there are two issues at place: 1. teachers not adapting to new times. In ye olde days, teachers had the attention of the students basically guaranteed (as the only thing students could do instead of paying attention to the teacher was drawing messages on papers and passing them around). That frontal instruction is bullshit and should be a thing of…

> 1. teachers not adapting to new times. In ye olde days, teachers had the attention of the students basically guaranteed (as the only thing students could do instead of paying attention to the teacher was drawing messages on papers and passing them around). That frontal instruction is bullshit and should be a thing of the past could be ignored. Now, however, teachers have to compete with the Internet for the attention of the students - but instead of embracing the change and throw some rotten traditions over board, they ban phones. LOL.

What? We had Gameboys. Electronic football, before that. Guess what? You couldn't take them to school, or you'd (at least temporarily) lose them, if anyone saw you.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#255

Post by dsfyu404ed »

davidgh wrote: post #228

As a parent of three adolescents I enjoy the fact that I can reach my kids whenever and Find My Friends allows me to confirm that they made it to school safely on a snowy day, for example. However. I did some volunteer teaching for a couple of years at my son’s school. Interestingly, I didn’t seem to observe students reaching in and initiating engagement with their phone very often. It was almost always in response t…

>Having every student disable all push notifications during class time would have solved nearly all the problems I witnessed.

Back in highschool IT would heavily rate-limit sites that were doing real time updates (basically just Facebook) because our pipe was small enough that 50% of people having Facebook open in a tab was a big enough amount of traffic to care about. We also implemented network level ad-block and really aggressive caching.

I'm sure there's similar things being done on a piecemeal basis in schools located where cell service is terrible enough that you want to be connected to wifi at all times. Most kids don't text much anymore so traffic goes through resources the school control. Dropping some arbitrary amount (say 95%) of facebook messanger, snapchat, etc. traffic on the student subnet/vlan except during the time slots between classes would be easy and everyone would just assume that the wifi sucks.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#256

Post by criddell »

andrepd wrote: post #239
zxd1098 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At work, you’d take a picture of the whiteboard with your phone. It’s a valuable life skill.

It's snapping a picture of a whiteboard. It's not a "life skill".

The life skill is the responsible and appropriate use of technology. The worst thing the school can do is come up with constraints so narrow that the kids get through school without having to exercise judgement or restraint.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#257

Post by criddell »

devmunchies wrote: post #213
criddell wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my kids' school, they encourage appropriate cell phone use in the school. For example, if there is a homework assignment on the board, rather than wait for everybody to copy it down, kids are told to take a picture of the board. They also insist on the kids using some kind of calendar to track everything and most kids use their phone calendar. There's some kind of Twitter-like service that is used for teacher-stud…

> For example, if there is a homework assignment on the board, rather than wait for everybody to copy it down, kids are told to take a picture of the board just post the assignment online. Not a reason to allow phones in class.

Some do that as well. Generally though, I support teachers pushing a little bit more responsibility onto the kids.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#258

Post by daveFNbuck »

germinalphrase wrote: post #238
noobermin wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a luddite view and frankly almost a power tripping view. Have you thought that they are "addicted" to being social with their friends like normal teenagers are? It already is against policy in most places to have smart phones during class, why ban them during breaks? It's during freaking breaks. How about let kids be kids for once and stop trying to grope into their personal lives! Why do you need to pol…

Take a breath. My students have full access to their devices during breaks. They have full access to their friends. They have significant opportunists throughout eh day to socialize. That's not really a problem. The ability to maintain some sustained attention to a task is a pretty fundamental developmental skill that I - as an educator - am tasked with helping my students develop. Many of my student display a compul…

The break thing is a reference to the ban. The second sentence of the article is "Children will be allowed to bring their phones to school, but not allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks." So the ban sounds like your current situation, plus a ban on using phones during breaks.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#259

Post by pixl97 »

zxd1098 wrote: post #226
pixl97 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If pure sugar is providing children with more instant gratification, healthy food should improve their product by adding way more sugar and salt too! If heroin is providing adults with a better escape, real life should step up its game! Or, maybe we should teach our children a modicum of discipline.

Yeah, it’s called “Aiden! Don’t look at your phone while I’m talking. What did I just say about multiplication tables?!”

Yes, and after you say that to all 30 students you've wasted 1/3rd of your class time.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#260

Post by scott_karana »

zxd1098 wrote: post #222
exDM69 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyberbullying is another big motivator for banning mobile phones. Perhaps even bigger than the distraction aspect. It's also frustrating for teachers when bullying is happening online, outside of school hours but it still takes place between students in the classroom. It should not be the teacher's business but it obviously impacts schoolwork in the classroom. I think this is a smart move unless someone can show a st…

Right, protect kids from the world so they don’t know how to handle bullying as an adult.

This ban doesn't protect them from regular in-person bullying.

Just crowd-sourced, Internet scale bullying.

Ever had your photo released mockingly, and been laughed at by an entire school? Or even millions?

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