Live data from Hacker News

Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

newsnationnow.com

181–190 of 228 posts

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

#181
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that basically every human context includes the possibility of physical violence, usually for sufficient transgression the boundaries of others. If you walk out your door start groping people or try to run off someone's child, you will encounter violence pretty fast.

Considering the behaviors children typically get spanked for, these are severe crimes. Do we have a higher standard of behavior for children?

I don't know what scenarios you are imagining but I think standard should be lower for children than adults, and the punishment less severe, but that doesn't preclude any violence.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The very first thing you did is write a program that prints a pixel-perfect "memory reset successfully" message to the screen as if you had just cleared it yourself :)

yep, remember doing exactly this for the ti-84+ CE. god bless third-party TI-BASIC documentation websites.

better than making it seem like you had just done it yourself, you could use the Menu() function to simulate all the menu navigation necessary to actually get to that screen!

funnily enough, jabbing all the buttons on the calculator and having to select functions via menu listings created one of the comfiest development environments I've ever used. after a while, banging out a screensaver or fake menu became second nature.

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

#183
post #48
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the answer was in your post- most students allowed the policy to continue. They used the Walkman out of sight without open defiance and unreasonable use. Once enough students tip over to "I'm going to use it and I don't care", the school can't do anything about it.

> Once enough students tip over to "I'm going to use it and I don't care", the school can't do anything about it. The school can totally do something about that, they just have to be willing to confront the student and enforce the rules.

I don't know your background, but this definitely reads like someone who either isn't, or doesn't have a family member or friend as faculty in a public high school. You enforce the rule, and confiscate the device. You have an irate parent now emailing you constantly, coming in and demanding that their child be able to have their several hundred dollar smartphone back, to which they will hand it back to their child, give them a weak "don't do that again" at best, and likely forget the incident ever happened.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think your response captures it in a nutshell. Dog’s, chimp’s and giraffe’s primary concern is addressing the problematic behavior. Modern parenting’s primary concern is with congratulating themselves for their enlightened values.

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

#185
post #8

Schools should just be allowed to have cell jammers.

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!

Landlines do still exist.

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

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It was just annoying to me. They take away trading cards and game boys and at the same time this was when they were removing monkey bars and tether ball courts due to lawsuits. What do you want students to do during recess? There's only 1 full basketball court and 2 single courts. We only had access to half the grass field for whatever reason so that limited soccer (and yeah, no full contact so Murica Football was so…

I went to a tiny Catholic school that didn’t have a playground. We had a parking lot with two moveable basketball nets.

We played “touch” football on the asphalt where touch was only a strong suggestion. We went to the nurse a lot.

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

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

More kids die in their parents car than in schools. Maybe parents should put the phone down and drive.

ooh, a whatabouter, cool. Maybe schools should focus on providing safe bus and walking routes to school instead of preventing kids from using a phone while sitting safely in a classroom. Now you do another non sequiter!

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

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC the commenter regretted not being reachable by phone, and was cautioning others not to ignore calls that look like spam! But hey, if you think a school will go for cell phone blockers, be sure to try to convince one and let us know how it goes!

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

#189

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?

Imagine if you snuck out your phone to do something, and the response was forcing a factory reset.

If you're not treating kids' devices as special in a bad way, you'd never even think of making that the rule!

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

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think your response captures it in a nutshell. Dog’s, chimp’s and giraffe’s primary concern is addressing the problematic behavior. Modern parenting’s primary concern is with congratulating themselves for their enlightened values.

As opposed to archaic parenting being about what exactly?
Post reply on HN