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When phone addiction gets brought up, someone usually says that phones just serve the same function newspapers used to. I don't remember being in high school and everyone in class was reading the newspaper instead of paying attention to the teacher. Or that they would carry a spare newspaper in case one of their newspapers was confiscated.
I didn't have to confiscate a single phone over the three years before I walked away from the job. Lots of internal chuckles from me brought on by complaints about the signal quality in my room. Granted, this only worked because we had no student accessible WiFi.
I did worry about students being unable to reach out during an emergency, but cell phones were supposed to be left in their lockers during the day anyways and there was a landline in the classroom.
I wonder if any schools are thinking about legal jammers or even building new classrooms that are effectively large Faraday cages?
Access to phones and social media is a global phenomena. Is the supposed academic issues equally global too?
Parents in other countries may back teachers and admin in banning or heavily restricting phone use in schools, at higher rates than they do in the US.
There's a phrase for something that people can't stop using -- addictive substance. We (and companies) need to ditch the equivocation and be honest about what we created. ( Edit ) > Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency. Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging. Someone shouldn't be texting…
> Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency. Then buy a 30€ dumb phone. 100% of the parents I spoke with justify themselves with "all his/her friends have it, I don't want to create a social pariah".
But many students — who use their phones for listening to music, arranging rides home, checking on grades or assignments — are unhappy with the crackdowns. Some check in with parents or coaches by text. Some think the decision should be theirs, not a school dictate. Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency. What kind of emergency can’t be han…
Of course schools are already way overburdened, but maybe a solution here has large enough positive externalities to be worth it.
Teachers have a difficult job as it is, not to mention that they are already mistreated - they have almost no authority over students since they never have backing from parents or school administrators.
I recently came across a post on Reddit[1] where a student pepper sprayed her teacher because he confiscated her phone during an exam. One of the commenters claimed that the same teacher was previously punched in the face by a different student for taking their phone away after catching them cheating on a test. It is disconcerting to say the least.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1397n4l/teacher_t...
Why do parents need to "check-in" on their kids during school hours? The fact that some parent are calling students in the middle of class is particularly egregious.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging. We live in Plano, TX, just a few minutes south of the Allen Outlet massacre. Yesterday my son texted me at noon "Shooting threat at school" and "It’s a rumor though but a lot of people are leaving anyway". You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving th…
I understand your concern towards the difficult situation and your immediate action to look out for your family. However, your anecdotal experience is still a "false positive" (fortunately), which doesn't allow us to conclude that, in the case of an actual emergency such as a school shooting, children with phones are statistically safer than children without phones. But I'm genuinely interested in such a study, and I…
Nothing physical has happened to _us_. I can't stand up and say, "I lost a family member due to gun violence!". I still feel like things are spiraling out of control and there's nothing I can do about it. How do you stop going outside where other people are for fear of a shooting? How do you send your only child to school knowing what's going on?
I hope I can cope and hope that everything turns out OK.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't worry. I've seen lot of school administration treat students as things to be controlled, not people.
They're half-formed people who do often need their behavior controlled in some way. Some students or student bodies may be mature enough to be responsible for themselves, but not all.
I've experienced both. Some schools are really good. The private K-12 religious school I went to treated kids like people and still set boundaries. The local public high school did the same. The public grade school was a horror show. College was particularly interesting. Most of the administration did not care about students as people. Everyone else did.