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France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

theguardian.com

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Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#271

Post by zacpdx »

irrational wrote: post #242
criddell wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my kids' school, they encourage appropriate cell phone use in the school. For example, if there is a homework assignment on the board, rather than wait for everybody to copy it down, kids are told to take a picture of the board. They also insist on the kids using some kind of calendar to track everything and most kids use their phone calendar. There's some kind of Twitter-like service that is used for teacher-stud…

My children do not have cell phones (if they want one they can buy it and a data plan themselves - so far that hasn't happened until they are about 18), but teachers assume that every student has a cell phone. The teachers then ask the kids to do things with their cell phones like you are describing. When my kids say they don't have one they are not believed and receive failing grades for the assignment. I've complai…

congrats you are actively making your children the weird ones

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#272

Post by marchenko »

virtualized wrote: post #179
Montezuma_II wrote: post #25

I think this is a mainly positive move. Mobile phones are massive distractions to children, especially in a school context. When it comes to young children, I am skeptic to the use of digital technology in education in general. School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as reading books, and nailing reliance on phones into children is not something we want to be doing in schools.

Cave walls are massive distractions to children, especially in a school context. When it comes to young children, I am sceptic to the use of painting in education in general. School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as listening to stories, and nailing reliance on walls into children is not something we want to be doing in schools. That's what your comment will sound like in 100 years.

Unless those cave walls could be neatly concealed in a pocket or under a desk and served up a stream of rapidly-changing Skinner-optimised content, accompanied by irregular purposefully distracting notification signals, I don't think this is a good analogy. Why is it so hard to believe that we are getting better at hacking our attention spans?

Indeed, the cave wall comparison highlights the difference between stimulation and distraction. Daydreaming while staring at the walls of Lascaux would be a significantly more useful activity than having your attention micro-partitioned by the demands of a Snap streak.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#274

Post by wincy »

downandout wrote: post #268
irrational wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My children do not have cell phones (if they want one they can buy it and a data plan themselves - so far that hasn't happened until they are about 18), but teachers assume that every student has a cell phone. The teachers then ask the kids to do things with their cell phones like you are describing. When my kids say they don't have one they are not believed and receive failing grades for the assignment. I've complai…

Assuming you can afford at least some kind of inexpensive phone for your kid(s), this is kind of a messed up position to take. Your children are failing classes because you want to make them purchase their own phones and plans, which of course is not realistic. So they failed because of something completely beyond their control and entirely within yours. As a parent, I’d be ashamed of myself if I had allowed that to…

It's not his fault that the school makes assumptions about the lifestyle that he has chosen for his children. I don't plan on giving my children cell phones, either, and would home school sooner than I would be strong armed by the state into buying a device with limitless potential for evil. I don't think children are prepared to own them, even with internet blocks children end up being constantly bombarded (or seeking out) pornography on school issued laptops, smartphones, or any other internet enabled device. I practice what I preach, and have a phone that is only capable of making phone calls because I believe that constant internet access is a detriment to my concentration and my well being. I am proud of being the bulwark my children need to grow up to be well adjusted adults, and I'm not going to let some administrators think they're the bosses because they were appointed by some bureaucracy that I had no say in whatsoever, or be "ashamed" because some stranger on the Internet says I should be.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#275

Post by reaperducer »

irrational wrote: post #242
criddell wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my kids' school, they encourage appropriate cell phone use in the school. For example, if there is a homework assignment on the board, rather than wait for everybody to copy it down, kids are told to take a picture of the board. They also insist on the kids using some kind of calendar to track everything and most kids use their phone calendar. There's some kind of Twitter-like service that is used for teacher-stud…

My children do not have cell phones (if they want one they can buy it and a data plan themselves - so far that hasn't happened until they are about 18), but teachers assume that every student has a cell phone. The teachers then ask the kids to do things with their cell phones like you are describing. When my kids say they don't have one they are not believed and receive failing grades for the assignment. I've complai…

Similar thing happened to me way back in the 80's. The history teacher assumed that every family had a video camera, and the big assignment for the year was for each student to make a video.

When I protested that I didn't have a video camera, she didn't believe me.

Being a resourceful youngster, I managed to get my hands on a second-hand security camera and interface it with my parent's VCR. I ended up getting a D on the assignment because the resulting video was in black-and-white.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#276

Post by slededit »

welly wrote: post #168
mgraczyk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because something annoys you or you find it conflicts with your values does not make it unhealthy. I remember life before smartphones. I remember boredom. It sucked. I would never go back to the agonizing pain of sitting in the DMV for three ours or standing in line at a grocery store just for some "missed moment" where I study the shitty tabloids in line or DoT pamphlets. Romanticising the past is not new. Whet…

With all due respect, I think this says a lot about you if you honestly equate boredom as pre-smartphones. Millions upon millions of us led a boredom-free life prior to the smart and/or cellular/mobile phone. And there's far more to do these days.

Please tell how you passed the 3 hours at the DMV without boredom pre-smart phone?

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#277

Post by baldfat »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #255
davidgh wrote: post #228

As a parent of three adolescents I enjoy the fact that I can reach my kids whenever and Find My Friends allows me to confirm that they made it to school safely on a snowy day, for example. However. I did some volunteer teaching for a couple of years at my son’s school. Interestingly, I didn’t seem to observe students reaching in and initiating engagement with their phone very often. It was almost always in response t…

>Having every student disable all push notifications during class time would have solved nearly all the problems I witnessed. Back in highschool IT would heavily rate-limit sites that were doing real time updates (basically just Facebook) because our pipe was small enough that 50% of people having Facebook open in a tab was a big enough amount of traffic to care about. We also implemented network level ad-block and r…

Why in the world would a school have public access wifi for phones? That is about the worst network policy I have heard of.

Also bottle necking WiFi will not make people think the WiFi sucks but that the IT Department sucks by both students and staff.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#278

Post by baldfat »

Montezuma_II wrote: post #25

I think this is a mainly positive move. Mobile phones are massive distractions to children, especially in a school context. When it comes to young children, I am skeptic to the use of digital technology in education in general. School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as reading books, and nailing reliance on phones into children is not something we want to be doing in schools.

Children given unsupervised access to the internet is ridiculous. People freak out if a predator lives int heir neighborhood but they let their child be accessible to millions of predators via their phone or table.

This is why kids initial exposure to porn is 8 in the US and 10 when kids are getting addicted. This is all happening prior to puberty.

I still remember working with children and teens and found out, through the police and parents, that a few of the kids 11 to 15 were using their webcams to get people to buy them stuff online. This was in the late 90s.

I am a dad of 5 now. I don't own desktop computers and they are in common areas. When my oldest were teens they were their phones but they are in my room after 9 PM. Saved the drama of messaging fights and drama. No phones at dinner, no phones on family events unless it was end of the visit. My job as a parent is to help them become awesome adult selves and learning not to be addicted to anything from drugs, alcohol, laziness or phones is part of being a parent.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#279

Post by zelos »

ChiliDogSwirl wrote: post #219
watwut wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on another thread, everyone complains about parents following childen around on playground and not allowing them a little bit of independence.

Any stick is good enough to beat parents with, if you're a childless 20-something on a tech forum.

38 with two children.

Re: France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

#280

Post by chrisper »

baldfat wrote: post #278
Montezuma_II wrote: post #25

I think this is a mainly positive move. Mobile phones are massive distractions to children, especially in a school context. When it comes to young children, I am skeptic to the use of digital technology in education in general. School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as reading books, and nailing reliance on phones into children is not something we want to be doing in schools.

Children given unsupervised access to the internet is ridiculous. People freak out if a predator lives int heir neighborhood but they let their child be accessible to millions of predators via their phone or table. This is why kids initial exposure to porn is 8 in the US and 10 when kids are getting addicted. This is all happening prior to puberty. I still remember working with children and teens and found out, throu…

As someone who had unsupervised access to the internet as a child, I turned out to be just fine. But maybe beacause the internet was way different back then. (I am talking dial up era intrent).

To me after all these years the "new" internet got a dystopian image.

If I had a child, I'd provide them unsupervised access to the internet I remember, but certainly not to the one from today.

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