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Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

yle.fi

221–230 of 491 posts

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#221
post #150

It had to be a law because children are people in Finland and most Nordic countries with rights that adults just can't take away. Current legislation allows the teacher to tell a student to put their phone away in a pocket or backpack, for example, where it will not be a distraction. The use of phones during breaks cannot be completely banned, as students have fundamental rights. The Constitution guarantees everyone…

So wait did they ban it for teachers and staff as well?

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars exist and are foundational to modern living yet we do not push kids to learn to drive until their later teenage years. Some countries wait until they are 18 and others choosing a couple years sooner.

Honestly if driving was teached at school and you get license once you graduate, that would be amazing

In NL, cycling proficiency is tested at school (around 10yo). You don't get a license though, and it's not really taught as many children already bike to school at a younger age.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter brings her phone to school with her - If he bus doesn't show up, she can call and ask us to come drive her to school - If she wants to go somewhere after school, she can call us and let us know she won't be home at her normal time - If she forgot something at home, she can call and ask us to bring it - etc, etc, etc There's a ton of reasons for her to have her phone on her. Enough so that, when she gets p…

All of those reasons can be solved with her using a public phone. My school growing up had a phone in the hallway by the main office for those reasons.

No they cannot. My school had multiple doors that could not see each other - more than once my parents were waiting for me at a different door from the one I was standing at waiting for them. We did find each other, but only after a lot of searching - sometimes we even passed each other as we both switched doors to wait at.

Okay, it did work out, but not nearly as well as a simple cell phone. Smart phones add additional functionality. (I can see on google maps where each kid's phone is)

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#224
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition didn't work for booze, doesn't work for drugs. Why would you be expecting better results for this ?

Smoking ban in bars and restaurants seem to work. So doing same with phones in schools during lesson time does not seem unreasonable.

This and taxes, it's much much harder to get cigarettes as a teenager now because of the price

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#225

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.

My daughter brings her phone to school with her - If he bus doesn't show up, she can call and ask us to come drive her to school - If she wants to go somewhere after school, she can call us and let us know she won't be home at her normal time - If she forgot something at home, she can call and ask us to bring it - etc, etc, etc There's a ton of reasons for her to have her phone on her. Enough so that, when she gets p…

> If she forgot something at home, she can call and ask us to bring it

Curious what this will lead to.

When she'll get a job, if she'll forget her laptop at home, will she call you and ask you to bring it to the workplace?

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#226
At my daughters' school, the rules are roughly:

* no phones during classes or during breaks (with the exception of lunch break, I think)

* phone can be allowed by teachers for a particular class and purpose

* if a student uses a phone while it's not allowed, the phone will be confiscated until the end of the school day

* (there might be a more severe rule for repeat offenders)

IMHO this strikes a pretty good balance between allowing phones for coordinating transit to school and back home, and no distraction in the class room.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#227

[flagged]

The point of schools is an attempt to provide uniform education to all pupils that are funneled through the system. Whether or not they succeed on this is irrelevant for the point. Also forcing kids of an age cohort to socialise with each other, which can be used for things like networking and forcing social interactions across class boundaries, which is why home schooling for example isn't regarded that well here in Finland.

In other comments you've made the point that we could have children do something else other than 12 years of schooling. And so I want to turn the question to you instead. What would be an example of an alternative to schooling? What would you have preferred, especially since you seem to have gotten what you need from university education.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#228
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a dumb-phone is the reason a pre-teen neighbor of mine got bullied. So much that she ended up stealing money to get herself a smartphone. Shortly afterwards the parents folded and became less strict with their anti-consumerism stance.

yeah but isn't that precisely what banning smartphones in schools fixes? Nobody said anything about outside of school.

Sorry, I was not clear.

Absolutely smartphones should be banned, at least during lessons, and at best during the whole time in the school, recess, etc.

Giving a child a dumb-phone in an environment where everybody else uses a smartphone doesn't work. If smarphones are not banned then _all_ will end up with a smartphone, and socialisation difficulties, etc...

This is a case where individual freedoms end up in collective damage. Maybe I'm an outlier here but I'd ban all kinds of social media all the time.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#229

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.

My daughter brings her phone to school with her - If he bus doesn't show up, she can call and ask us to come drive her to school - If she wants to go somewhere after school, she can call us and let us know she won't be home at her normal time - If she forgot something at home, she can call and ask us to bring it - etc, etc, etc There's a ton of reasons for her to have her phone on her. Enough so that, when she gets p…

Those are good reasons to have a smart watch with cellular capabilities.

They are not good reasons to have a phone at school.

In terms of QOL: there is a meaningful body of research about the impact of giving a teenage girl access to a phone on their quality of life.

https://adc.bmj.com/content/109/7/576 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245195882...

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#230
post #196
post #150

It had to be a law because children are people in Finland and most Nordic countries with rights that adults just can't take away. Current legislation allows the teacher to tell a student to put their phone away in a pocket or backpack, for example, where it will not be a distraction. The use of phones during breaks cannot be completely banned, as students have fundamental rights. The Constitution guarantees everyone…

> It had to be a law because children are people in Finland and most Nordic countries with rights that adults just can't take away. It's a strange concept to hold that there are rights that can't be taken away, but then take them away merely by passing legislation.

Can't "just take away" ie, there has to be a law prescribing the removal of the right. Lawful rights vs inalienable human rights. Same thing exists in US. You have a right to certain things, like the right to privacy, but that right can be lost in the right circumstances as determined by law.

The difference here is that in the US, children don't by default inherit the same legal rights as adults and instead have a different set of rights which often means they never had a legal right to, for example, privacy or ownership, in the first place.

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