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Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

washingtonpost.com

201–210 of 252 posts

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: a client went to see their daughter, and their classmates approached him and hugged him, and this was seen as highly inappropriate, and they ended up having to move schools. That was California. The world is a hugely different place now.

I'm in my 30s and in the Southeast so definitely a different world, positively and negatively, but I don't see how that's inappropriate unless he forced the classmates into hugging him or made some kind of scene. Duly noted!

That's the thing, with context, it doesn't seem inappropriate, especially as kids approached him, and I would almost argue that the failure was on behalf of the school for letting someone walk in and be near kids, but they didn't see it that way.

But in today's climate, they informed the parents what happened, they socially ostracized him and his daughter, assumed the worst because they were denied the full context of intent.

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#202
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way I see this being something that's truly time critical is if they're using "emergency" as a euphemism for school shooting. Parents are regularly getting notified about school shootings several minutes before the police. I absolutely do not want a school taking my kid's phone in this increasingly common case.

I hope your kid is never in a shooting, but what would you knowing 3 minutes before cops about a school shooting accomplish?

Thats easy: get out before the cops gets even more killed like Uvalde.

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taking away their phones because others can't handle themselves is wrong. Why, if it's during the school day? What's the advantage of having a phone during class?

There doesn't need to be any advantage. They're not causing any disruptions - nobody should be telling them where to put their property. A phone contains private photos and conversations, has authorized access to email, chat and (in other cases) social media accounts, it's a second authentication factor, it has payment cards, saved passwords, browser history, potentially health data (for example, period or medication…

Ok, then just don't bring it in?

I don't why America constantly acts like we have unique problems no one does. Most schools in EU just bans cellphone usage during school hours either by taking it away or barred from bringing it in and it's just effective.

Humanity dealt with periods/medications/emergencies long before smartphones and can still do.

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't need to be any advantage. They're not causing any disruptions - nobody should be telling them where to put their property. A phone contains private photos and conversations, has authorized access to email, chat and (in other cases) social media accounts, it's a second authentication factor, it has payment cards, saved passwords, browser history, potentially health data (for example, period or medication…

Ok, then just don't bring it in? I don't why America constantly acts like we have unique problems no one does. Most schools in EU just bans cellphone usage during school hours either by taking it away or barred from bringing it in and it's just effective. Humanity dealt with periods/medications/emergencies long before smartphones and can still do.

I'm right in the middle of Europe.

Why not bring it in? I don't understand why they should behave as if they lived in 19th century. They're people living in 21st century, making full use of new technology - nothing wrong about that.

It's bullshit to demand they have to go home to get their phone before they go on with their day after school - not to mention they use the phones before school too. My siblings buy breakfast and lunch with the virtual payment cards (from our parent's Revolut) they have in the phone.

Even their public transit tickets are apps - it's a QR code, and because the transit company wants to reduce staff, you pay 20% less if you buy tickets in the app. Will the school reimburse the additional 20% they caused them to pay? I guess not, right.

And remember Covid? Here in Europe the vaccination/test pass is an app too, and they needed it to get into the school building, the cafeteria, the public transit etc. Soon the ID and driver's licence will be apps as well.

The school itself is sending them homework and grades into an app, btw. It has web access, sure - but they access web on their phones. It's bullshit to make them unable to check their grades or homework assignments during schooltime.

Sure, they could go back to 19th century life with paper calendars, letters, money and transit tickets. But their quality of life would go significantly down. Schools have no right to demand that. Nobody has.

And as I said, school day is not 100% class time. What they do during breaks is their own business.

> Most schools in EU just bans cellphone usage during school hours either by taking it away or barred from bringing it in and it's just effective.

No, they don't. In my state it's very wrong to touch the phone - could be a fine and suspension (for the teacher/school employee) or even a crime, depending on what they did.

The school can demand it's turned off during class time (doesn't apply to breaks) but they have no way to verify or enforce. They can write a teacher's note in case of a disruption or take the student out of the class in serious cases, but they can't touch the phone.

Currently, the trend here is to integrate smartphones into the lessons. Make students use Google search, YouTube, Wikipedia, ChatGPT and other tools.

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article "Most school systems already had cellphone bans in 2020, according to federal data, " ~77% of the school system had a ban in 2020.

Sure, so what are the other 23% doing? It seems blindingly obvious. In a lesson you either pay attention or twiddle your thumbs. In my schooling you'd get in trouble for, say, doing Biology homework in Physics class, and rightly so.

Now a days you could have a wwf match complete with chair throwing and nothing would happen

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#206
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m sure that’s what happens in theory but there’s absolutely no way any of them are actually handing their phones in

I literally saw the teacher returning the phones to kids in the afternoon when I went to pick up my son. I also spent a day with him there when he was doing a "trial week" a few months before the end of kindergarten and I saw no kids using phones that whole day (and I saw a lot of kids throughout that day).

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#207

> “We’re not trying to infringe on anybody’s freedom, but we need to have full attention in the classroom,” said Nancy J. Hines, superintendent in the Penn Hills School District, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. It's disappointing that a school superintendent needs to make this statement. School is entirely about infringing about students' "freedoms". No child would be sitting through any class if their freedoms were no…

No, learning is not at all boring. Even for primary grades. Sure maybe some kids prefer other subjects over others.

Can't deal in absolutes like that, come on..

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't (and likely hurts, by clogging cellular infrastructure and roadways). But parents want to know ASAP so they can rush to the school and "help". Probably because police in the US aren't actually required to actively protect people. And have proven incapable of doing the job.

In practice you will show up and wait outside while your kid dies and the police prevent you from helping.

Yep, that's why "help" was in quotes - there's nothing a parent can do from the parking lot. And allowing them into the building probably doesn't help either. It's a shit situation for everybody involved (and better solved at the root - we're just unwilling to do that).

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#209
post #2

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…

I agree that phones/apps/social media/video games are addictive (the ones that aren't just don't get popular) but I disagree with your proposed framework for identifying "addictive" things for children in schools. Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation and self-agency for young developing human children. Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, orig…

> Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, origami, annoying people around you, etc.

False. If any of that were addictive, the student would continue doing it even when other options exist, and continue doing it despite negative consequences.

> Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation

Correct but misguided.

Schools are artificial environments with imposed constraints. You're supposed to derive stimulation from being interested in the nature of the world around you, but that's boring, so at least derive stimulation from entertaining yourself within the constraints.

Everyone here has a story about hacking the school computers to play Doom (a learning experience and achievement, however subversive), but 30 years from now, none of these kids are going to be talking about how awesome it was to mindlessly watch TikTok during math class. None of them will remember what they even watched.

The phone has endless "stimulating" content, but it's not stimulating you to actually do anything but repetitively scroll through content you'll quickly forget. It's junk food for the brain, and only "stimulating" in the way stool softeners stimulate a bowel movement-- you shit it out long before you absorb anything of nutritional value.

Re: Students can’t get off their phones. Schools have had enough

#210
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m sure that’s what happens in theory but there’s absolutely no way any of them are actually handing their phones in

There is a way, and it happens in many countries including mine. It’s not nice to assume everyone acts like the cohort you’re familiar with.
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