What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

#101

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 4:46 AM UTC

cwalv wrote: post #100

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's worse, in states with voucher systems, parents can remove not just their kid from the school, but their tax dollars too--so the teachers have to tolerate the phones or funding will dry up for the other students who are trying to pay attention. I think coupling where your kids go to school with where your tax dollars are going severely misunderstands the point of having there be tax dollars for schools in the f…

> I think coupling where your kids go to school with where your tax dollars are going severely misunderstands the point of having there be tax dollars for schools in the first place. It makes some sense considering the people with kids probably care much more about the details in how those dollars are spent. Not that there are not people without kids who are equally interested (esp. those who work in education), but…

Whatever influence a non-elected person has over their police precinct should be equal to that of all the other non-elected people in that precinct. The voucher thing is like if you had a different sized influence based on whether you have a criminal record, since presumably you would then have a different relationship with the effects of that funding.

It's just not how democracy works.

(It is, however, how pre-revolution France worked, the revolution was as much about getting rid of the system of privileges as it was about getting rid of the king. I think we should think twice about the extent to which we legitimize the practice of treating different types of people differently.)

Re: What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

#102

Post by M95D » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 11:40 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #26

egeozcan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as if the school doesn't have any phones they could use in an emergency.

An emergency like active shooter, not your child had an accident. During active shooter situations, the school isn't going to call the parents of the students. They have other things to worry about. The kids are calling their parents directly.

Imagine a kid hiding from a shooter and having his phone ring 'cause his parent is concerned.

Re: What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

#103

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 8:35 PM UTC

brayhite wrote: post #98

rootusrootus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for the rest of the country, but in our district smartphones were allowed for a couple years. I don't know the rationale about allowing them in the first place, but it happened in 2020. It took them two years to decide it was an unmitigated disaster and they promptly re-banned all electronics. No music players, phones, headphones, etc. Get caught and it gets confiscated and your parents have to come retri…

My 4 year old son has an iPhone, and we’d sooner homeschool him than keep him enrolled if the only schools we could send afford would confiscate or ban it. I recognize we’re an exception, but he has type 1 diabetes, and his iPhone is essentially a medical device that sends us updates on his glucose levels throughout the day. I’d hope schools at least make exceptions for cases like this.

> I’d hope schools at least make exceptions for cases like this.

Of course, they absolutely do. I imagine failure to do so would be an ADA violation, at least.

Re: What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

#104

Post by blackmesaind » Thu, Jan 18, 2024, 9:36 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #66

mstudio wrote: post #64

Great, but this is a private boarding school. I'm more concerned about the (over) use of Chromebooks in public schools. It's trivial for kids to tab over to Youtube or a gaming site in the middle of class. I would've done the same thing if I'd been given a laptop for 6 hours a day in school. When I see my kids trying to write math equations or use a virtual ruler/compass to do math homework, it really pains me. Let's…

I don't see why schools really need to provide access to the open internet. Providing computer access is fine, but the network should be internal. Wikipedia PR Britannica can me mirrored, as well as any videos that teachers decide to have cached.

Most schools utilize cloud-based education platforms (Google Classroom, Canvas, etc) that require connectivity. Local hosting requires infra + someone to manage it, not to mention that there aren't very many good self hosted edu software resources.

Re: What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

#105

Post by cwalv » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #101

cwalv wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think coupling where your kids go to school with where your tax dollars are going severely misunderstands the point of having there be tax dollars for schools in the first place. It makes some sense considering the people with kids probably care much more about the details in how those dollars are spent. Not that there are not people without kids who are equally interested (esp. those who work in education), but…

Whatever influence a non-elected person has over their police precinct should be equal to that of all the other non-elected people in that precinct. The voucher thing is like if you had a different sized influence based on whether you have a criminal record, since presumably you would then have a different relationship with the effects of that funding. It's just not how democracy works. (It is, however, how pre-revol…

> equal to all other people in the precinct

Sure. I was trying to contrast those who live within the precinct to those who live outside it.

And any influence is bounded by the amount of variation that's acceptable between precincts.

Re: What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation

#106

Post by ravenstine » Fri, Jan 19, 2024, 6:43 PM UTC

blackmesaind wrote: post #104

ravenstine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why schools really need to provide access to the open internet. Providing computer access is fine, but the network should be internal. Wikipedia PR Britannica can me mirrored, as well as any videos that teachers decide to have cached.

Most schools utilize cloud-based education platforms (Google Classroom, Canvas, etc) that require connectivity. Local hosting requires infra + someone to manage it, not to mention that there aren't very many good self hosted edu software resources.

Closed network != local network

> there aren't very many good self hosted edu software resources

I'm not sure if that's a problem, but that feels like one.