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Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

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Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#31

We were told no phones in schools. I used my phone. They confiscated it for 2 weeks. I was like yeah fair enough. I don’t understand why this isn’t done now?

My kids were basically required to have a phone for school. In theory they could use a laptop for everything but in practice it was assumed you had a phone.

They were supposed to use the calendar for assignments (and were given time to use the calendar), the teacher would tell them to take a picture of the white board with their homework assignment on it, and they used some private app (don't know the name of it) for messaging the teacher.

This was a few years ago though, so maybe now the tide has turned?

Edit: The rules have changed:

https://tea.texas.gov/taa-letters/implementation-texas-house...

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#32
post #22

Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things? For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change? Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"? You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to pr…

> You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms

Children’s freedoms ought to be limited, yes.

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#33
post #22

Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things? For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change? Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"? You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to pr…

ALL modern electronics should be banned from regular classrooms, up to and including projectors. We now have evidence that at _best_ it does not help. At worst it's actively harming students.

(yes, yes, with obvious exemptions for special needs, computer science classes and so on).

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#34
post #22

Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things? For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change? Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"? You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to pr…

If something is hard to measure, is it automatically bad in your eyes ?

This was my takeaway. I'm imagining arguments against mitigating climate change along the same lines.

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#35
post #28

This doesn't go far enough, in my opinion. I think all screens should be banned from schools. No TV, no phones, no projectors, no slides. No shortcuts for anybody, no distractions. Everything handwritten. I know this sounds like I'm sarcastically criticizing phone bans but I'm serious. (Edit: obviously will need some accommodations for disabled students, and computer labs will have to exist for technical literacy cla…

TVs are good when used appropriately. We watched Macbeth for the literature class.

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#36
post #22

Do we have any actual evidence that this significantly improves things? For example, can we expect Czech PISA scores to go up by 50 points from this change? Or is this one of those "it feels like it should be good, therefore it's good"? Or maybe "we asked a bunch of people whether they think it's good and they said yes"? You've got to remember that measures like this are limiting people's freedoms, so they need to pr…

If something is hard to measure, is it automatically bad in your eyes ?

[deleted]

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#37
post #28

This doesn't go far enough, in my opinion. I think all screens should be banned from schools. No TV, no phones, no projectors, no slides. No shortcuts for anybody, no distractions. Everything handwritten. I know this sounds like I'm sarcastically criticizing phone bans but I'm serious. (Edit: obviously will need some accommodations for disabled students, and computer labs will have to exist for technical literacy cla…

How would that be beneficial? We don't need to make teachers' jobs more difficult than they already are by removing all the aid brought by digitalization.

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#38
post #27

I don't understand the legislative pushes for some of these things. Schools can already say "no phones during instructional hours". Many of them do. I guess legislating it can mandate the policy across a school district, state, country etc., so perhaps that makes sense. But others call for outright bans for kids, all the time. Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.

But if kids refuse to put their phones away during classes, teachers have no right to take them since they are the kids' personal property. And yes, it is in the school rules that you cannot use your phone during class. My SO teaches English and struggles with it permanently. Kids are on their phones and not paying attention to the lecture. And no support from the headmaster. Other teachers claim they do not have the…

> But if kids refuse to put their phones away during classes, teachers have no right to take them since they are the kids' personal property. And yes, it is in the school rules that you cannot use your phone during class.

Is this true? When I was in high school, teachers could take away your phones.

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#39

I don't understand the legislative pushes for some of these things. Schools can already say "no phones during instructional hours". Many of them do. I guess legislating it can mandate the policy across a school district, state, country etc., so perhaps that makes sense. But others call for outright bans for kids, all the time. Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.

> Parents can also restrict usage or set rules for appropriate use. Many do.

If you talk with teachers, some of them complain that kids are on the phone with _parents_ during the class time. And that parents loudly complain to the headmaster if the teacher tries to prevent their child from speaking to them.

Yes, it sounds crazy, but it's true.

Re: Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

#40
post #28

This doesn't go far enough, in my opinion. I think all screens should be banned from schools. No TV, no phones, no projectors, no slides. No shortcuts for anybody, no distractions. Everything handwritten. I know this sounds like I'm sarcastically criticizing phone bans but I'm serious. (Edit: obviously will need some accommodations for disabled students, and computer labs will have to exist for technical literacy cla…

Whether those things are distractions depends on what they're used for.

I'm fairly certain schools had projectors a few decades ago, and nothing bad came of it.

You don't really need to ban phones from schools; just ban them in class. I don't know why this stuff is treated as such a big deal. Students should pay attention in class, which means not using anything (not devices, paper, books, etc.) except as needed for instruction.

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