181–190 of 242 posts
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What a vulgar situation. Policy made from a moral panic and - look at that - it is negatively impacting actual people who exist.
It's not a moral panic. There are loads of studies indicating that disconnected classrooms produce better outcomes for students. I'm not sure what argument there is for allowing all students unfettered access to their phones, but feel free to present one.
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Why is that?
The obvious reasons. People who do not have political agency should not have decisions made that prevent them from using their own devices in a setting that they are legally required to be in. That's not how things should work. One group of people should not be setting policy for another group of people in this matter. The victims of these policies aren't infants; they will be adults in about five minutes. Blankets b…
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The whole "browser game" industry is built on this phenomenon. It's about getting kids on school laptops mindlessly looping on something while shoving ads in their face. Honestly, get the tech out of classrooms. A few 8 bit machines that can run LOGO are far more genuinely educational than all the gunk they have today.
What? Browser games were half of what made flash popular back in the day before laptops were even a normal consumer device. You're spot on with classrooms not needing tech though. They add complications and distractions on top of an already difficult task.
They almost let us play RuneScape (something something medieval history?) until they saw me firebolt a rat and declared it unacceptably violent.
I visited my old school once, a few years after graduating, and was startled to see many people on their laptops in the hallways. I guess they had become required. I had graduated right around the time smartphones came out, and we didn't have laptops either. (You'd see a laptop at school occasionally but it was a rare sight.)
I'm glad the fanciest thing I had was a TI-84, because it got me to spend most of my time socializing, which I think was pretty good for my development.
its a blanket rule, which has almost no exceptions. So there are some silly parts. One of my kids is in band and the school uses YONDER pouches. They have had to dig out some really, really old analog tuners to use. They have a fraction of the capability of a $4 IOS app, but the kids are supposed to keep their phones in a special sleeve with no exceptions... (so many kids break that rule, or throw an old dummy phone…
Tuning by ears is an important skill for musicians, learning that is beneficial. For example, you cannot rely on apps to tune your signing voice during performance.
A whole band tuning by ear? Ouch!
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> We're talking about kids, not adults. Frankly, I believe the world would be a better place if we did a lot more banning of smartphones for adults, too. They are like crack.
I quit all social media (unless you count hackernews I guess), killed all notifications except calls and text messages, and regularly leave my phone in another room while I'm working or doing anything that requires prolonged attention. Helped a lot.
UK here. My kid's school is insane. They think they are so progressive because they banned personal phones entirely, which is fair enough. But they forced us to buy marked up Yondr pouches, which is not fair. However this isn't the only problem. They also force us to pay monthly for iPads with wonky ass Logitech cases to be issued on which they do everything on Google classroom. Google Classroom is an abhorrently bad…
Kids in Gen Alpha and beyond cannot fathom using analog tools for school work. Their collective minds would break.
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It's not a moral panic. There are loads of studies indicating that disconnected classrooms produce better outcomes for students. I'm not sure what argument there is for allowing all students unfettered access to their phones, but feel free to present one.
There are no reputable studies showing both correlation and causation there.
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There are no reputable studies showing both correlation and causation there.
I'd link to some of the many studies published by reputable sources, but I suspect you'll brush them aside with your caveats
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It’s a lack of enforcement due to unruly, unparented children , in most regions’ school districts.
I tend to avoid placing the blame on individuals (parents in this case) when the problem being described is so widespread. People act as rationally as they can, so if it's that common, it's a systemic failure. Scolding the masses is a fool's errand.
We’re talking about underdeveloped minds in the face of excruciating social and physiological pressure.
I’m pretty sure the systemic failure is, in part, that parents are, en masse, abdicating their responsibilities of guiding their children through the minefield of modern technology, from iPad kids on up.
The reasons why vary - and include being addicted themselves.
I’d love to hear any anecdotal evidence to the contrary - not just a dismissal, or being called a fool.
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Way back when I was in school (2004 or so) I set up a proxy on my personal website to get around them blocking email, because I don’t want to have to save things to a damned floppy drive. I then let a teacher use it because he was frustrated half of his search results would get blocked. From there, it spread like wildfire. Eventually they blocked it and from then on the IT guy would give me a side eye whenever we cro…
Yeah, back when I was in school it was a cat and mouse game of finding a new proxy every week when the last one got blocked. The minute someone found a new one, it was everywhere. I decided to sidestep the whole game and run my own proxy at home. I didn't have enough bandwidth for multiple users, so it was just me. I don't think IT ever caught on.