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Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

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Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#251

Post by closewith »

doublerabbit wrote: post #129
Ghoelian wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so the PR never gets approved and their work never makes it into prod, right?

No. I put my view on to reject PR and they go to the next best person to approve. Blag the senior with bullshite of: "I will fix this in the next revision, it works for now" and don't.

I'm not to engage further as you're only ever going to repeat yourself in more obnoxious ways, but I will say that if you treat people in real life the way you comment here, you will only ever be tolerated at best. Never respected and never liked.

Even the people you consider peers will abhor that you think and speak like this about people.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#252

Post by bluGill »

roenxi wrote: post #66
constantcrying wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> To talk about schooling we first have to make clear what the goal is. 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 jus…

We do need and have a goal. As a taxpayer I'm paying for school for kids other than my own. If there is no goal of that, then I am wasting my money: give me that back so I can go on vacation. Let those kids play in a park or whatever instead of spending time in school.

The goal is wide and open ended, but there is a goal. Likely others can word it better than me, but it goes something like this: "to produce kids that grow up to be productive adults that contribute to society and make the world a better place."

We all are not the same, and even if we were there are many different needs. I need someone to haul my trash to the wherever it is handled, but my city only needs a few hundred such people (thousand?). A few other people need to ensure I have clean water. A lot of people need to ensure I have food. Some of them need to provide medical care. Thus we need to have multiple different outcomes (if you are just hauling trash you need less education than the medical doctors, while the person designing the dump needs more education than a basic nurse).

Because of the different needs in society there will and must be debate over what the curriculum should be. There is no way to teach everything. Time spend teaching one subject is time that cannot be used for a different one. There are many different ideas how to teach, and we need better science to figure out what really works.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#253

Post by DocTomoe »

adverbly wrote: post #221
nabla9 wrote: 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?

If you look into it, you will find that some animals are more equal than others.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#256

Post by DocTomoe »

cheschire wrote: post #54
GuB-42 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

On the other hand, we don't teach kids in school the mechanical basics of automated locomotion, how to distill oil into usable fuel and how to mill an engine block before we allow them to get a driver's license.

Unlike modern education, which puts a massive emphasis on teaching how to do menial, useless things before going the sensible route [e.g. I remember vividly how we were tortured by doing table of values calculations in maths for what felt like weeks before we were allowed to use derivatives. I loved maths. Until that point. Then I hated the course (not the subject) with a passion.

Lo and behold, I enter university, and the first thing we do in Mathematics 101 is 'let's forget everything we have learned, we're going to start from the beginning'. Joy.]

I want to stress the point: Smartphones exist (and have existed for 15 years - a more modern 'scary new tech' would probably be LLMs). Banning these things from school will only keep teachers happy because they can keep their teaching methods from the 1890s alive for some more time, instead of using what is available to get kids educated better.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#257

Post by [deleted] »

Gormo wrote: post #196
nabla9 wrote: 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.

[deleted]

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#258

Post by DocTomoe »

kube-system wrote: post #167
constantcrying wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not take me twelve years to learn to read and write. What an awful excuse. What made me good at reading was reading books outside of school . In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school.

> I did not take me twelve years to learn to read and write. It takes people twelve years to learn to read and write at a 12th grade level. You could study it for another 4 or more years at university if you wanted to develop your skills further. > What made me good at reading was reading books outside of school. This is your personal experience. I learned to read and write quite well at school and was well-prepared…

> It takes people twelve years to learn to read and write at a 12th grade level.

Nah. You are mixing up the skill 'writing glyphs on a piece of paper and retrieving that information via optical means' with 'being well-grounded in a wide array of subjects so you can express an idea in a way that is mentally stimulating to a potential reader'.

Neither takes 12 years to learn. The first, we teach within a year, at most. The second we do not teach at all, and the best 'writers' often are those who were challenged outside of school, by parents who gave them a rich, intellectually interesting environment, not within it.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#259

Post by dfxm12 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #172
PeterStuer wrote: post #3

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…

The first two aren't in school. The last doesn't actually require a cell phone.

It's worth noting, according to the article, the law gives school officials leeway to allow kids to use their phones in some circumstances. So, the law doesn't stop any of the use cases you've listed.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#260

Post by bluGill »

constantcrying wrote: post #96
roenxi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To talk about schooling we first have to make clear what the goal is. 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 jus…

>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'. I completely agree. If I wanted anything from current schooling it would be giving students more abilities to develop themselves. Obviously that doesn't mean a 16 year old playi…

I disagree. Most kids need to be forced a bit to learn something hard. Sure the kid who likes sports should play. However only exceptional kids will ever be good enough to make a good future playing sports. Most kids will grow up to realize that much as they love the game they will never make a living at it. Thus we need to ensure those kids don't spend all their time getting better, but instead spend time getting useful life skills that they will need as an adult. Much as "post scarcity" people like to think otherwise, we are still not in a world where many people can "slack off".

Kids learning how to develop themselves is a good thing ONLY if they choose the "right thing" to develop. You can get really good at video games, but as you already said probably not a good only investment (a fine hobby, but keep it a limited time hobby). There are some sports that because of injuries should really be banned (but I won't list them because as soon as I do there will be a lot screaming from people who live that sport). What we need is kids who develop themselves into something that makes them good productive adults - for some jobs we need adults to do this is boring and so kids won't do it unless forced.

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