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I wonder if there's any alternatives to this that teach actual discipline when it comes to phones. Methods that actually attack the reason kids are using phones in school (boredom, social anxiety, uninterested in school etc.).
If the goal of school is to develop children into young adults with good reasoning and analytical skills, a basic wholesome world and social model and some practical skills and basic physique, smartphones seem to contribute little and distract a lot from those aims.
Is that the aim of schools? It certainly did not appear to me that way, here in Germany. There was a lot of time spend sitting in a room and "learning", yet I basically learned nothing. For the other things you described I do not think they were ever considered. All around school was a giant waste of time.
Not necessarily causative, but we'd want to be very sure the educational fence isn't contributory before we tear it down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There was a lot of time spend sitting in a room and "learning", yet I basically learned nothing Do you think that was because their methods were bad, you didn't bother and they couldn't force you, or that their methods were not adapted to the way you learn? Also, I'd find it surprising if you really learned nothing. From what I know of German schooling from people who went through it, you certainly learned at least…
>Do you think that was because their methods were bad, you didn't bother and they couldn't force you, or that their methods were not adapted to the way you learn? It was because they had nothing to teach. I still remember trying to learn fractions from a teacher who clearly did not understand fractions either. Just to be clear, I did very well in school. Given their standards I would be considered a "successful stude…
School is about more than the part where you sit in class. The social skills, time and project management navigation etc. is all stuff you learn and do because of school but outside of class.
Kids should not have access to anything more complex than a Nokia with a flashlight.
Is it possible to fight Internet addiction without banning stuff? While it helps to ban smartphones during school, it won't stop these kids from logging on for 5 to 7 hrs after school. We need to find ways to make people (not just kids) more resilient to Internet addiction without resorting to widespread bans, which are both hard to implement, unlikely to keep people away long term and dangerous for other reasons.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have put your finger on something - the actual purpose of school is to socialise children (it isn't very efficient as a teaching system - tutoring is better and what the people who really care about educational attainment use). But a side effect is teaching them a lot of useful things. And telling if time spent learning is wasted is actually quite hard - if you know something and everyone else knows something it…
>the actual purpose of school is to socialise children I agree that this is probably the most important thing for children to learn. My point is that sitting in a room for 8 hours does very little to accomplish that. >And telling if time spent learning is wasted is actually quite hard - if you know something and everyone else knows something it often fades into the background and nobody notices. But it still makes a…
What can I say; I like arguing. We don't actually have to choose a single goal - everyone can have different goals. If schooling isn't compulsory then you could have a mass of different people doing different things for different reasons and it all gets called 'schooling'.
If schooling is state managed ... the same interest groups exist, they just have to fight over the curriculum in parliament or the Department of Schooling. The end result will be a weird hodge-podge of compromises that nobody can confidently say satisfies them completely and doesn't have a clear goal.
It happens that we cannot say that there is a goal of schooling. Some people may have one goal, but other people may have alternative goals. There are some really tricky edge cases, like History - should Mongolian schoolchildren be taught that Ghengis Khan was a hero, a scumbag, a disaster, a triumph, a fact, a national symbol or someone best forgotten? That is not a question where a reliable and enduring consensus can be reached because real life is too complicated to take a final universal stand on something that happened 1,000 years ago.
If the goal of school is to develop children into young adults with good reasoning and analytical skills, a basic wholesome world and social model and some practical skills and basic physique, smartphones seem to contribute little and distract a lot from those aims.
The thing is: smartphones exist. The young adults these children will become will live in a world where smartphones are an essential part of their life. Using a smartphone is a practical skill. That's why I don't think banning smartphones is the best idea. It is probably better than unrestricted access, but I feel that school should teach how to use them well instead. It is a bit like with calculators, there are clas…
Frankly, smartphones should be discussed in health class, much like drugs and alcohol, and in a similar tone.
If the goal of school is to develop children into young adults with good reasoning and analytical skills, a basic wholesome world and social model and some practical skills and basic physique, smartphones seem to contribute little and distract a lot from those aims.
The thing is: smartphones exist. The young adults these children will become will live in a world where smartphones are an essential part of their life. Using a smartphone is a practical skill. That's why I don't think banning smartphones is the best idea. It is probably better than unrestricted access, but I feel that school should teach how to use them well instead. It is a bit like with calculators, there are clas…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you met a 16-year old?
They are old enough to drive certain vehicles and old enough to buy alcohol. If we trust them with that surely we can let them do things during the day without constant adult supervision.
Where us the drinking age 16?
If the goal of school is to develop children into young adults with good reasoning and analytical skills, a basic wholesome world and social model and some practical skills and basic physique, smartphones seem to contribute little and distract a lot from those aims.
The thing is: smartphones exist. The young adults these children will become will live in a world where smartphones are an essential part of their life. Using a smartphone is a practical skill. That's why I don't think banning smartphones is the best idea. It is probably better than unrestricted access, but I feel that school should teach how to use them well instead. It is a bit like with calculators, there are clas…