Of course, staff are not subject to this, because while evidently a deadly poison to the 16 year old brain, they become an essential professional tool as soon as you acquire your teaching loicense.
Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
111–120 of 192 posts
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have kids? I have a 4-year old girl. And while parenting is so much harder without iPad and iPhone, my daughter is genuinely more interested in the world and imagination play than looking at screens. At age 2, was curious about the other kids with iPads, but now she shows no interest in screens. And we’re doing fine with static or minimally electronic toys. She has a whole adolescent/adult life ahead of her of…
Good for you, and good for her. I wish I had kids, but sadly not yet. Myself, I grew up with a Commodore 64, whose user manual didn't only teach me to code, but was even part of me learning to read. But everyone is different, what worked fine for me isn't necessarily even a good idea for others. > This is about a developing child’s mind and the cautionary principle of knowing with the evidence we have now that it is…
Right, as they get a bit older, a wholesale screen ban is generally not the answer, we have a ban on consumption-oriented devices, but they have free rein to a raspi 400 with raspbian on it, and kidpix+dosbox/tuxpaint/scratch/other creative software.
Something like a c64 would be even better.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have kids? I have a 4-year old girl. And while parenting is so much harder without iPad and iPhone, my daughter is genuinely more interested in the world and imagination play than looking at screens. At age 2, was curious about the other kids with iPads, but now she shows no interest in screens. And we’re doing fine with static or minimally electronic toys. She has a whole adolescent/adult life ahead of her of…
Good for you, and good for her. I wish I had kids, but sadly not yet. Myself, I grew up with a Commodore 64, whose user manual didn't only teach me to code, but was even part of me learning to read. But everyone is different, what worked fine for me isn't necessarily even a good idea for others. > This is about a developing child’s mind and the cautionary principle of knowing with the evidence we have now that it is…
There are so many ways to teach kids to code and read that a smartphone/tablet is totally unnecessary. I refuse to believe for a second that my kids are at any disadvantage for not having screen time at home.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#114My son (15 in London) has moved schools more than I'd like and they've all had smartphone policies that ranged from "must be in your bag", via "must be in your locker", to "must be left at home". None have allowed phones to be out during school hours, or on school grounds, other than in very limited circumstances, generally with prior permission, so I'm more surprised that so many schools, apparently all in Southwark…
> parents wanted to be able to check in if e.g. they were running late)
this one is just so funny to me. dumbphone argument aside, what do these parents think happened when they, themselves, were running late from school? somehow, their parents managed without a direct, 24/7 line.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#115I think many of the comments in opposition to this are coming from people that do not have children. Many of those in support do. I speak as a parent of a child, and I think “parent brain” will affect your thoughts on this. Having said that, I grew up on dial up and very low tech HTML. Not social media which is an entirely different beast. There is a book called The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Child…
As a father of a 4 year old boy, I plan to remove smart phones and pads from my son for as long as possible. He can watch TV or play console/PC games but absolutely no mobile games for as long as I can. He will get a dumbphone maybe with a snake game when he grows up a bit.
In the mean time, I'll try to bring him to hiking, camping and other outdoor activities. If he is very into electronics then I'll introduce gaming and programming.
I'm also considering a no smartphone policy for myself. I cannot persuade my wife who is deep into scrolling hell already, sadly.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#116I think many of the comments in opposition to this are coming from people that do not have children. Many of those in support do. I speak as a parent of a child, and I think “parent brain” will affect your thoughts on this. Having said that, I grew up on dial up and very low tech HTML. Not social media which is an entirely different beast. There is a book called The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Child…
Isn't banning smartphones rather an example of overprotective parenting?
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#117What was the impetus for schools to become "smartphone-friendly"? In the 00s, phones/smartphones in class weren't a thing.
Our society isn't equipped to handle new developments like this, and they "just happen" before anyone gives much thought to whether they will lead to bad outcomes down the road. When an immigrant who was handcuffed and tazed subsequently died in Canada, the investigation started asking questions about the use of tazers. They wanted to see the testing and data that showed they were not lethal or long-term harmful for…
Nonsense. I was in my teens when children getting cell phones was barely a thing, but there were already things like pagers and Gameboy and PDAs.
None of those things were allowed out of your locker from the moment you got to school until you left.
Children having smartphones in class is a significant deviation from the norm.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#118We have schools doing this in the Netherlands. Students actually report liking it because they are now more in real physical contact with their fellow students directly instead of immersed in their phone every chance they get. I think that shows that indeed it should be a rule, voluntary will not work because of something akin to the network effect. When we get interns at our company many of them, instead of communic…
It will change the same way it changed for the generations before you. The old guard will retire and the young will become old. It's the circle of life.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
+ discord. 90%+ of my sons social media use is private discord servers.
The little familiarity I have with discord makes me think maybe it’s not quite as bad? More like IRC with a more modern interface, and not as much designed to be a total time and attention sink? Would be curious about others’ takes. I get kids may still spend a lot of time talking to people in there but how different is that from when my sister spent all her free time talking to friends on the phone as a teenager…
Well. That depends on who are on a given server. Having multiple friends spamming with calls can be disruptive, and convincing them it's ok to turn off notifications is hard because many of them seem to worry they'll be excluded from the group etc. if they're not involved, and sometimes they do egg each other on with respect to misbehavior.
I'm not generally all that negative to social media as long as they know how to deal with it, and Discord is probably towards the better end, especially if your kid has some self-discipline about which servers they join, but it can be nearly as bad.
Put another way: If your kid hangs out with the "good" kids, it's probably fine, ranging to good. E.g. my son started spontaneously cleaning his room today because one of his friends had ribbed him about needing it. But if your kid hangs out with the "bad" kids, Discord provides an easy way for them to do that without it being obviously visible to you, so it needs you to keep an eye out.
I think the fact that it's so easy for it to fly under the radar is the biggest problem.
Re: Group of 17 London secondary schools join up to go smartphone-free
#120I was curious about the legal grounds that schools have to confiscate student's phones for up to a week, and I found this document from the UK government: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62d1643e8fa8f... Some things that concern me: - Page 19: Staff may examine any data or files on an electronic device they have confiscated as a result of a search, as defined in paragraph 57, if there is good reason to…
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