161–170 of 252 posts
What's the situation in China, Japan, Korea, India, Nigeria, Brazil? Phones and social media are global and I think there are school children there too.
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Former teacher. There is no reason. Parents can always get in touch with students via the office if there's a legitimate need. That never stopped parents from calling and texting their kids during class time of course.
As a student (over a decade ago) I had hundreds - maybe even thousands over the 13 years of education, actually - of phone calls with my parents, siblings, grandparents, uncle, friends etc about various stuff I was doing after school, during school (and sometimes instead of school). I'm sure the school office would've loved to handle all the calls for us, lol.
It's a fig leaf rationale to keep phones in children's pockets during class.
Parents have not idea whatsoever of the destruction that phones have wrought on the education system, both in the large and in the small. Students who claim otherwise are gaslighting their parents. Parents are unfortunately all too willing to believe the lies because of course their child is above average and would never completely tune out of class for another hit on the electronic crack pipe. At this point, the pro…
Is this an American thing? Here in Germany my son is not allowed to have a phone at school. He doesn't have one anyway, but kids that do have to give up their phones in the morning, which are in a locked box and they get them back in the afternoon when they go home. Nobody ever asked us about it, it's simply school policy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a student (over a decade ago) I had hundreds - maybe even thousands over the 13 years of education, actually - of phone calls with my parents, siblings, grandparents, uncle, friends etc about various stuff I was doing after school, during school (and sometimes instead of school). I'm sure the school office would've loved to handle all the calls for us, lol.
I'm not even arguing kids shouldn't have a phone at all (OP is talking about during school hours ), but even so - why would you ever expect the office to do that? Communicate with your parent/child before school to make a plan or establish a routine for meetups as was done for decades before smartphones. It's a fig leaf rationale to keep phones in children's pockets during class.
For myself it was mostly that parents could simply call me 5 minutes before they picked me up for my dentist appointment (which I had at least monthly for 7 years due to having braces) instead of me waiting somewhere for who knows how long because there was a traffic jam (and missing more schooltime than necessary).
They could simply call me/send me a SMS and ask me to pick up my younger siblings when they had unexpected work and couldn't make it in time - but since they respected me as a person, I had to confirm that I will do it and don't have other plans. Obviously, if I saw the question only after school that'd be way too late and they would have to force me into it instead of simply asking the grandparents if I said I can't.
Because why the hell shouldn't we use modern technology if it's available to us? Thanks to it we were flexible, and we enjoyed it.
Yeah, I also used the phone during class. Because the lessons were shit. Though we had a few very engaging teachers and even though I had zero interest in their subjects, I never used phone in their class.
Schools have to improve, taking phones away is just bandaging the symptoms.
Parents have not idea whatsoever of the destruction that phones have wrought on the education system, both in the large and in the small. Students who claim otherwise are gaslighting their parents. Parents are unfortunately all too willing to believe the lies because of course their child is above average and would never completely tune out of class for another hit on the electronic crack pipe. At this point, the pro…
Is this an American thing? Here in Germany my son is not allowed to have a phone at school. He doesn't have one anyway, but kids that do have to give up their phones in the morning, which are in a locked box and they get them back in the afternoon when they go home. Nobody ever asked us about it, it's simply school policy.
Just depends on the school district.
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This is absolutely ridiculous to me. There's no way that parent could think that's acceptable. Do they not remember being in school? If you want to see your kid, come have lunch with them one day or something like that
This might be viewed as inappropriate to have uninvited adults on-site, even if they are parents.
Former US public HS Math teacher here. The summer before I started teaching I obtained a cell phone signal jammer (from the EU, where they're legally available) and quietly kept it in my desk. 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 becaus…
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> 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".
It has a real social impact if they don't have a phone. They will miss out on things. You might argue "but if they were real friends..", but the issue is they may never get to be real friends if they keep missing out on things. My kids get phones in 9th grade, but it is clear they aren't to be on them during school. What sets me apart from a lot of parents, though, is that I'll believe and support their teacher.
Like what?
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This might be viewed as inappropriate to have uninvited adults on-site, even if they are parents.
Possibly, but parents/elders coming to have lunch their child/family member is a pretty common practice. Not every day, for sure, but I always thought it was great whenever my older sister or parent/grandparent came to visit me for lunch when I was younger. I'm sure they coordinated with the office, it's not like they just showed up out of the blue. I would hope the world hasn't changed that much, but maybe it has
The world is a hugely different place now.
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I'm not even arguing kids shouldn't have a phone at all (OP is talking about during school hours ), but even so - why would you ever expect the office to do that? Communicate with your parent/child before school to make a plan or establish a routine for meetups as was done for decades before smartphones. It's a fig leaf rationale to keep phones in children's pockets during class.
You said that if there is a legitimate need they can call the school office or have the office call the parents - so I'd expect the office to handle it. For myself it was mostly that parents could simply call me 5 minutes before they picked me up for my dentist appointment (which I had at least monthly for 7 years due to having braces) instead of me waiting somewhere for who knows how long because there was a traffic…