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Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

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Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#91

Post by lancesells »

burmer wrote: post #63
donatj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am well aware that they don't police it. What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly? Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.

A walkman costs like what, $20? A cell phone is hundreds. Do you, as a teacher really want thousands and thousands of dollars of students' electronics stashed in your drawer?

Phone lockers. My kid puts his phone in before class and gets them out with each class.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#92

Post by tivert »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #18

[flagged]

> Why does HNs readership, a group of people who got their start in computers as kids by likely using technology in ways that were subversive (I.e programming calculators to solve test problems that peers had to solve by hand as intro to programming), seem to support banning cellphones for students?

Because cell phones and the internet can be a never-ending black hole of customized low-effort distraction.

Pretty much everything before had natural limits built in that kept them from being as problematic, e.g.:

Video games: every game gets boring eventually, and it'll be awhile before your parents will drop $45 on a new cart (~$105 in today's dollars); TV: you can only watch what's on, which at least occasionally is nothing that you like; etc.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#93

Post by libraryatnight »

donatj wrote: post #19

As a former student of a Minnesota district right outside Minneapolis, it's interesting to me that they were allowed at all. When I was in school in the late 90's / early aughts we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property. We all had them of course, but if they were seen they could be confiscated - I think it was largely an empty threat but I never saw anyone push it. Some tea…

This was always a curiosity to me, too. Same in my schools, no gameboys, graphing calc use monitored and restricted to specific classes, whether cheating or distraction things weren't allowed - smart phones are all those things and more.

It didn't feel oppressive, either, it felt appropriate - like setting a tone, even when we were defying the rules lol

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#94

Post by gamblor956 »

talldatethrow wrote: post #49
lozenge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up." And what do you want her to do? Stop the lesson until the student respects her? Remove the student from the classroom?

One, students that don't listen used to be removed. So, potential totally yes. Two, I expect her to put a lot of personal effort into becoming at expert in motivation, behavior management, discipline for kids. I expect her to at least read ONE book about this. She complains for 2+ years about this that I've known her. I recommend books, she gets insulted and explains why it's not relevant. IMO a teacher being paid $9…

IMO a teacher being paid $90k a year for 7 hours a day of work, 10 months a year, should be working hard to improve.

Teacher salaries for San Ramon (and California generally) are publicly accessible (by band, and for some counties like San Ramon by name), so I doubt very much your soon-to-be-ex girlfriend is making $90k as a sixth grade teacher. She'd have to be fairly old and well-established as a teacher, or have multiple graduate-level credentials in multiple subjects (in which case she wouldn't be teaching 6th grade).

That would be out-of-band, especially considering what you claim to be extremely subpart performance on her part.

Indeed, it sounds like you're making this up to try and claim that teachers are overpaid and underworked. They're not, and it's especially rich coming from someone who is clearly an overpaid, underworked tech employee with enough free time this afternoon to devote all of it to commenting in this thread instead of doing valuable work.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#95

Post by bquinlan »

talldatethrow wrote: post #49
lozenge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up." And what do you want her to do? Stop the lesson until the student respects her? Remove the student from the classroom?

One, students that don't listen used to be removed. So, potential totally yes. Two, I expect her to put a lot of personal effort into becoming at expert in motivation, behavior management, discipline for kids. I expect her to at least read ONE book about this. She complains for 2+ years about this that I've known her. I recommend books, she gets insulted and explains why it's not relevant. IMO a teacher being paid $9…

> IMO a teacher being paid $90k a year for 7 hours a day of work, > 10 months a year, should be working hard to improve.

I don't disagree that she should work to improve, but you are using $90K as if it were a lot of money. According to census data [1], the median household income in San Ramon is $173,519/year and the median rent is $2,557/month.

In San Ramon, you can get paid $65,000/year as an assistant manager at Starbucks without getting a 4 year degree plus teaching credentials.

Plus, how is she earning so much? The San Ramon teacher salary schedule is public: [2]

[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanramoncitycal...

[2] https://www.srvusd.net/documents/Employment/Employment-Resou...

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#96

Post by tivert »

talldatethrow wrote: post #83
ksenzee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38524596 is a publicly accessible URL. That’s what I meant. You’re assuming it doesn’t matter because she’s not smart enough to find it and recognize herself.

Lol you're talking about having respect for someone I assume, but then you assume there's 'intelligence' in finding a random link in the world? Let's say she was a damn genius. Do you expect her to have Google alerts setup for non official spellings of her school districts name? Is a genius supposed to be checking my browser history on my phone? How smart would she have to be to find what I wrote?

>>>>> People will think poorly that I’m talking down a romantic partner

>>>> Well, yes. Relationships don’t do well when one of the partners has this much contempt for the other. There’s a difference between knowing in your own mind she’s not the best at her job, and calling her a “ditzy” “illogical” “girl” in public.

>>> I don't call her that in public.

>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38524596 is a publicly accessible URL. That’s what I meant. You’re assuming it doesn’t matter because she’s not smart enough to find it and recognize herself.

> Lol you're talking about having respect for someone I assume, but then you assume there's 'intelligence' in finding a random link in the world?

> Let's say she was a damn genius. Do you expect her to have Google alerts setup for non official spellings of her school districts name? Is a genius supposed to be checking my browser history on my phone?

> How smart would she have to be to find what I wrote?

How **** do you have to be to fail to realize "in public" does not mean "to her face?"

This is a public forum. Everything posted here is in public.

You're not as clever as you think you are.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#97

Post by jmcqk6 »

beaeglebeach wrote: post #65
s1artibartfast wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>she has trouble controlling her own students because I believe they themselves have realized she's inconsistent and illogical, so anything goes. They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up This really shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Even 2 year old children can understand authority, power dynamics, and contests of will. For that matter, a 6 month old puppy will understand…

Children are often hardest on their own caregivers though, so the more you look like a parent figure the more they rebel. Of course nowadays corporal punishment is 'child abuse' so the child is emboldened knowing they can do whatever they like, including violence, with absolute impunity from physical pain.

corporal punishment is child abuse.

It does not mean children can do whatever they like.

You might find it difficult to find alternatives, but better alternatives than violence exists.

Save your children the costs of therapy as adults, and focus on real emotional health.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#98

Post by aidenn0 »

donatj wrote: post #27
tempsy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a weird comment. Did you really think most schools widely police cell phone usage in the year 2023?

I am well aware that they don't police it. What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly? Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.

In Northern Virginia schools, late '90s, cell-phones and pagers were banned[1] (not even allowed on campus) because they were perceived as tools for accomplishing drug-deals. I think that perception has definitely changed. We also had a half-dozen pay-phones in the school lobby for students to make calls if needed.

1: IIRC automatic suspension on first offense. Note, however, with most of the "zero tolerance" policies that were in place at the time, the offenses were significantly under-reported by the faculty.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#99

Post by klyrs »

gnicholas wrote: post #88
klyrs wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well technically, we call it "grade 8" rather than "8th grade" (and that I slip up here is a tell that I'm a foreigner) and it's technically "secondary school" but I don't hear people call it that. High schoolers don't have cutsey names for the grades. They're just... in grade 8, in grade 12, etc. This is in Canada.

They don't refer to "senior year"? I don't think of that as cutesy at all — just descriptive. Do you refer to university by these 'cutesy' names? Or is it grade 13-16?

Caveat, my kid is still in elementary school, and I don't really interact with high schoolers yet.

In my time in university here, I didn't hear that language being used. Wikipedia tells me that Canadians use "first year" to indicate its first year students, but "frosh week" is a thing. I did my undergrad in the US, though. Even there, if I ever heard somebody say "sophomore," it would have come from the mouth of a confused freshman.

Re: Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

#100

Post by irrational »

Is this like how office workers "seem happy" after being forced to return to office? We have no data, but we are sure they are happy now. My work did lots of surveys about work from home, but have done zero surveys since forcing everyone to return to office. Gee... I wonder why?
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