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Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
161–170 of 242 posts
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#162Our middle school has banned phones during school hours, and it's been great. Even though most kids own phones and have them in their backpacks, they aren't seen. There are less problems during classes and kids have to talk to each other during lunch instead of going head down in their phones. Parental pushback has been really minimal - most parents love it, and it's good for the kids. Making no phones a blanket poli…
it's all good until that thing that happens at American schools, happens... That is my one hang up here. It would be idealistic to believe that the Police would protect kids, but in reality there are far too many cases of them being grossly negligent in this exact circumstance... in many of those cases, having a phone played a pivotal role in security. I don't want to get too far into details on HN for the sake of ke…
Or live in a country where the last school shooting was more than 25 years ago?
Seriously this is such a weird comment. You don't want to say "school shooting" at risk of being uncivil but you think kids should always be prepared for a live gunman to walk into their lives. From my perspective, that's the uncivil part of your comment.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#163my kid has a phone that is so boring to use (only snake, texting and calling) that he has it in the bottom of his backpack and only takes it out when he needs to call me its truly amazing and i hope to keep it this way forever. meanwhile the rest of his class mates have smartphones and stare at it from the moment they leave their home ... and i assume till it runs out of battery. they dont even watch where they're go…
I dread the day when my daughter (who is now 3) tells me that she is a laughing stock and pariah because she misses out on every event that happens at school because she doesn’t have a smart phone/no social media. The only way to correctly do this is to outright ban kids from having smart phones and accessing social media nationwide. Being the handful that selectively buck the system is a hard road.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#164my kid has a phone that is so boring to use (only snake, texting and calling) that he has it in the bottom of his backpack and only takes it out when he needs to call me its truly amazing and i hope to keep it this way forever. meanwhile the rest of his class mates have smartphones and stare at it from the moment they leave their home ... and i assume till it runs out of battery. they dont even watch where they're go…
I had a gameboy with a special cartridge loaded with roms I ordered from a strange European import site that took 3 months to arrive, and this was 2002! I played video games in every class. I was a bad student. I set a bad example.
Yet learning how to load roms on it, the firmware, the command line. My poor mother didn't know what to do with me - I was constantly late, skipping school, in detention, hanging out with burn outs. My siblings didn't do that stuff until college.
And now I'm wealthy and the most successful graduate of a 700 person class! Food for thought for the parents of "burn out" tech addicted youths...
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#165I went to high school when cell phones were common and most students had them. But, at least at my school, if you had one out during class it was instantly confiscated and returned by the front office after school. I assumed this was the norm, so articles about "cell phone bans" as a new policy are surprising to me. I assumed it always was this way. When did schools start allowing cell phone use during class? Do teac…
> When did schools start allowing cell phone use during class?
I wonder to what extent this is an effect of the age of the teachers themselves. The median age of a teacher in the US is ~40 years old, so a significant proportion of them are accustomed to phones being an essential part of social life and hence may be a bit more lenient to students occasionally checking their phone when it appears to be non-disruptive. Needless to say though, this easily becomes a non-fallacious slippery slope.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#166Our middle school has banned phones during school hours, and it's been great. Even though most kids own phones and have them in their backpacks, they aren't seen. There are less problems during classes and kids have to talk to each other during lunch instead of going head down in their phones. Parental pushback has been really minimal - most parents love it, and it's good for the kids. Making no phones a blanket poli…
it's all good until that thing that happens at American schools, happens... That is my one hang up here. It would be idealistic to believe that the Police would protect kids, but in reality there are far too many cases of them being grossly negligent in this exact circumstance... in many of those cases, having a phone played a pivotal role in security. I don't want to get too far into details on HN for the sake of ke…
Dumb phone turned off and in backpack would serve fine for this scenario.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#167I mean, I somehow understand the motivation behind a phone ban. But Fitbits? I understand there's probably a problem creating a clear separation, but in times where lack of movement and exercise is causing major health problems, we probably shouldn't disincentivize young people using fitness devices.
I'd guess it's because even small thing as band can provide some of kids distraction. It's not about if you can play games on such device but play with it, touch, wander around the interface - had enough distraction to not focus on class and teacher. Bands are being perceived as digital rattles here.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#168my kid has a phone that is so boring to use (only snake, texting and calling) that he has it in the bottom of his backpack and only takes it out when he needs to call me its truly amazing and i hope to keep it this way forever. meanwhile the rest of his class mates have smartphones and stare at it from the moment they leave their home ... and i assume till it runs out of battery. they dont even watch where they're go…
I had a gameboy with a special cartridge loaded with roms I ordered from a strange European import site that took 3 months to arrive, and this was 2002! I played video games in every class. I was a bad student. I set a bad example. Yet learning how to load roms on it, the firmware, the command line. My poor mother didn't know what to do with me - I was constantly late, skipping school, in detention, hanging out with…
And yet for every one "you", there are thousands of "them" who simply type out a few commands, load the firmware once, and then just play the games.
Maybe two decades ago, there was an article going around about a person who became a commercial pilot thanks to World of Warcraft (WoW improved his English through raids). That doesn't really mean that playing WoW is a good way to become a pilot though.
I suspect that in your case, even without the Gameboy, you'd end up where you are now.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a phone during class was indeed never an option, but, can I ask you since you went to school with smartphones (I am much older): Is your experience that most students pull their phone out as soon as they exit the classrooms? Do they spend most of their breaks on their screens? If so do you have the feeling you have poorer conversational skills because of this and would you not rather have just enjoyed school en…
Banning cell phones from class hours doesn't actually change the social media rat race in any way. You still have to maintain presence. That's just part of being social. We had the same distractions before smart phones. We would just hide in the computer lab and browse the Internet while playing games and trying to look busy. A hundred messages sounds like about a half hour of conversation on any chat platform. We wo…
I went to grade school in the 80’s and high school and college in the 90’s.
It wasn’t anything like you describe at all. For better or worse people did actually talk to each other.
And while we did call each other on the phone reasonably often, generally when you weren’t in the room with someone you weren’t communicating with them at all.
Re: Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't it still be an unnecessary distraction for the student?
One way, inbound sms is like 1 out of 100 in distractions, whereas having a phone with internet, social media, bidirectional messaging is 100 out of 100.
What if you go to the toilet andtype a message to 8 people?