Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

newsnationnow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 228 posts

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

#141

Post by simoncion »

gnicholas wrote: post #58
morelisp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not really disagreeing, but - that was absolutely normal and near-universal just 15 years ago.

Yes, people had different ways of dealing with things in the past, but things are different now. I recall seeing a comment on HN last week that said the commenter ignored a call assuming it was spam, and was only alerted to the fact that his kid was in the hospital when someone from the school showed up at his door. People assume they can reach you by phone these days, especially if you're the parent of young-ish chi…

> People assume they can reach you by phone these days, especially if you're the parent of young-ish children.

Sure. But in this story the school fell back to the "old-fashioned" way and sent someone along to the guy's house. It seems clear that the guy got along just fine without being reachable via telephone.

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

#142

Post by simoncion »

pmorici wrote: post #14
timenova wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A blanket ban on cell phones in schools will hamper teachers and staff too. Plus, the usual reason why jamming is illegal in most countries: dialling emergency numbers!

I wonder if they could wire the jamming system into the fire alarm. Pulling the alarm turns off the jamming.

Why go that far?

Get approval to run your own short-range cell site that has a whitelist of IMEI (or IMSI, if that's not available) numbers, and blocks all non-emergency calls made by any phone that's not on the list.

Put the staff on the whitelist, and give parents the option to put their phones on the whitelist when they're visiting.

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

#143

Post by willsmith72 »

josephcsible wrote: post #124
WolfeReader wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally owned, in my former school's case.

If I found out a school deleted files from one of my kid's personal devices without my permission, I'd be livid.

if a kid was playing banned games in my class, i'd want to do the same. why are kids' devices so special?

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

#144

Post by WheatMillington »

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?

This is a very American thing. Here in New Zealand, you just refer to the year you're in. No one says "freshman" (whatever that means), or "senior". It's just "I'm in year x". Same at university - I don't know what all the names you give your years refer to exactly, and doesn't it get confusing between 3, 4 and 5 year programmes of study?

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

#145

Post by WheatMillington »

irrational wrote: post #100

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?

How did this become about WFH?

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

#146

Post by arp242 »

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…

> we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property

Or your Tamagotchi! That was probably much more similar.

Our school wasn't too strict about walkmans and the like, because no one was really distracted by it during classes. Tamagotchis on the other hand...

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

#147

Post by oh_sigh »

willsmith72 wrote: post #143
josephcsible wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I found out a school deleted files from one of my kid's personal devices without my permission, I'd be livid.

if a kid was playing banned games in my class, i'd want to do the same. why are kids' devices so special?

They aren't - in no other situation would anyone be allowed to delete random information off the device of an adult who broke some private rule. The only thing they could generally do is kick you out of wherever you are and tell you to not come back.

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

#148

Post by MeImCounting »

willsmith72 wrote: post #143
josephcsible wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I found out a school deleted files from one of my kid's personal devices without my permission, I'd be livid.

if a kid was playing banned games in my class, i'd want to do the same. why are kids' devices so special?

Why should a teacher or anyone besides the childs parents have any right to mess with in any way somebody elses property? Students are people not property.

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

#149

Post by Vicinity9635 »

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…

>They were also VERY suspicious any time you had your graphing calculator out outside math class, and some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

That would have been a huge bummer becuase I wasn't playing games on mine, I was writing programs. It was actually the start of my professional programming career technically. I sold a copy of the program I wrote via link cable to a fellow student for $1... 8 years before apple was selling $1 mobile apps ;)

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

#150

Post by spaceribs »

tiahura wrote: post #138
jmcqk6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a mammal that doesn’t utilize corporal punishment to set boundaries? Does every dog / chimp / giraffe that got nipped by mom for being a brat need therapy?

Are you comparing a human child with dogs, chimps and giraffes? Are you saying it's appropriate to communicate with physical violence in this context? What other human-to-human contexts are there where physical violence or the threat of physical violence is okay?

I'm genuinely curious about this worldview, because I personally cannot empathize with this. It's abhorrent to me and my values.

Post reply on HN