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NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

gothamist.com

271–280 of 352 posts

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understandable, I never finished Lord of the Flies despite not having a smartphone at the time.

I think it's a prerequisite for a book to become required reading in schools to be boring as shit first :)

I couldn't disagree more. And it was the one thing that surprised me every time we cracked open a new book. "All Quiet on the Western Front" sounded terrible to a 14 year old me, but after starting it, I couldn't put it down. Same with Lord of the Flies. Fahrenheit 451. The Giver. I loved Animal Farm. And the Great Gatsby (though I get people not liking this one). The Outsiders was good. The Old man and the Sea was pretty boring I'll admit. Who thinks To Kill a Mockingbird is boring as shit?

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#272

> In the cafeteria, Ryan Tripathi, 16, was paging through “Lord of the Flies,” which he said is slow-going. “I'm just not used to reading,” he said. “I’m usually on my phone.” Damn, that hits pretty hard.

Understandable, I never finished Lord of the Flies despite not having a smartphone at the time.

Lord of the Flies is a short book telling a simple story in which lots of very identifiable stuff actually happens. It’s not exactly Ulysses. Sixteen year olds used to routinely read more complex works of fiction for fun.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like we have had a long history of overreacting to new things. "D&D is the devil", "Rock music is evil", etc. But we have just encountered one of the rare times where something new actually was harmful. But it rolled in so rapidly that it was universal before we had the chance to push back. I think chatbots and AR glasses are going to supercharge these social problems at a rate much faster than phones and face…

> But it rolled in so rapidly that it was universal before we had the chance to push back. This can't be it. I was in high school when smartphones were coming out and there was zero tolerance for them or any other electronic devices (dumbphones, ipods, palm pilots, etc) in the classroom. I don't know when or why it happened but allowing smartphones in school was a conscious choice and a policy change.

TBH, I think banning smartphones in class is entirely justified and reasonable.

Banning smartphones completely (including during breaks / lunch)? A different matter entirely.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see what you're saying. Are you saying people must think the same things as you do for it to be independent thought? Indeed you don't; let me help you out then: Arguments must be made in good faith; and when you hear anyone saying anything I mentioned above it is immediately obvious that they are not arguing in good faith. If they think they are, then their decision making centre is compromised by cnbc and…

You can't just declare any opposition to your point of view as being in bad faith. (which is ironically in bad faith) > If they think they are, then their decision making centre is compromised by cnbc and fox news and their opinion must be dismissed. I hope you're trolling, because if not...

Those statements as described earlier were made in bad faith:

> 1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."

A public school intervenes between the parent and their children to tell the student what is good work and what is not. Parents do not always know best. (Yes, there are policies which let the parent appeal, but the parent does not have final authority.)

Child protective services can take children away from parents who are egregiously poor parents.

I don't see this as a good faith argument.

> 2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."

If we believe in educating citizens then we set rules to help educate citizens. There is a long history of prohibiting certain electronics at school. At https://archive.org/details/makingvaluejudgm0000elde/page/38... we can read that over 50 years ago some schools prohibited transistor radios.

If the claim is in good faith then it's also saying that laws and rules forbidding smoking in school must be repealed. I certainly want to keep them in place, so I don't see this as a good faith argument.

> 3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."

Which is an argument that if the child wants to play video games all day and is getting Ds or worse in every class, than teachers should like the child continue to make that mistakes. I don't see this as a good faith argument.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#275
AFAIK know phones are banned in all secondary school (and primary school) from the start till the end of the school day. My daughter just started secondary school and one kid was trying to text her mum to add credit to her lunch money account in the first week and got a one hour detention for getting her phone out during school. This was in the canteen, not in a lesson. Bit harsh but seemed to get the message across.

Ironically most homework is done by the kids on their phones so when I tell her to get off her phone she always has the excuse that she's checking/doing her homework, or looking at her timetable online.

[edit] note this is a UK perspective, not sure why this got downvoted

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inane appeals to tradition are boring as fuck and completely useless. We should continue to circumcise infant males because we did it for decades (centuries?) and got by just fine! This says nothing about whether kids having access to cellphones is worthwhile and everything about how garbage your argument against them is.

what's wrong with circumcision?

What's wrong with genital mutilation of children? Really?

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban: 1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best." 2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain th…

Forbidding things doesn't work. Not for kids and not for adults. Hence speakeasys and the end of prohibition, or the war on drugs (which was won by drugs).

Where can I buy some radium water?

An x-ray device to see if the shoes fit correctly?

Leaded paint for my asbestos shingling?

Can I sell my vote for the next presidential election? (It used to be common!)

Hotel owners are forbidden from discriminating based on race. You want to allow it? Even if not perfect, it still works.

As someone without security clearance, I'm forbidden from a lot of places with secret information.

Even if there is still an underground market for elephant ivory in the US, forbidding its trade greatly reduced the demand.

Seems like on average forbidding things has been pretty effective.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty simple really, we're basically all [1] addicted to smartphones, so we basically all [1] advocated for this. After all, to admit it was a problem for our kids, we'd have to also admit it could be a problem for ourselves. Even I find myself holding onto my phone during most of the day when not on my computer, I don't even know why. It's an incredibly addictive piece of technology. [1] - to a first order of appro…

Did we ever allow the students to smoke in the classroom?

In the class room? No. But students could smoke during breaks at the schoolyard.

Funny that we as a society were winning for a while until somebody invented vapes.

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a prerequisite for a book to become required reading in schools to be boring as shit first :)

I couldn't disagree more. And it was the one thing that surprised me every time we cracked open a new book. "All Quiet on the Western Front" sounded terrible to a 14 year old me, but after starting it, I couldn't put it down. Same with Lord of the Flies. Fahrenheit 451. The Giver. I loved Animal Farm. And the Great Gatsby (though I get people not liking this one). The Outsiders was good. The Old man and the Sea was p…

I read quite a bit when I was in school, but I honestly don't remember a direct assigned book I actually liked. There were times we got to choose what we were reading for school and in those cases I read some that stuck with me like "1984".

Re: NY school phone ban has made lunch loud again

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An electronic version of coal rolling. "You can't tell me this is unhealthy, and I'm going to prove it!"

People "roll coal" it because it is kinda amusing to do it, and it is a middle finger towards people they perceive to be preachy. I accidentally "rolled coal" in my 90s Landrover because I was in totally the wrong gear going up a steep hill. It was amusing in the way of "oh shit! I kinda just blew a load of black smoke in the driver face behind me". Obviously, I don't do this deliberately.

Yes, people do all sorts of nasty and cruel things because they think it's kinda amusing. That doesn't justify the behavior.

The act of riding a bicycle in and of itself is not "preachy". That happens. "six bicyclists training for a road race were run over by a 16-year-old who was rolling coal", at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal .

Rolling coal nearly always implies deliberate intent, not coincidental timing. Some examples from state laws listed at that same Wikipedia page: "knowing release of soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions", "with the intent", "may not knowingly or intentionally cause", "intentionally release significant quantities of soot, smoke, or other particulate emissions"

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