Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

yle.fi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 491 posts

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#361

Post by intellectronica »

akie wrote: post #298
intellectronica wrote: post #293

If I were a Finnish child I would start working hard on getting my parents to emigrate, or at least send me on an extended exchange program to a country where I can still use modern tech to connect to the global network, meet other likeminded people, have access to all of humanity's knowledge, and learn any subject I'm interested in.

What a ridiculous reply. We're talking about banning smartphones during *class time*. There's nothing here that warrants leaving the country. Jeez.

Classes in Finland are not so much better than anywhere else that they make giving up the internet worthwhile. Children learn more in 15 minutes on their iphone than they do in 15 hours at school.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#362

Post by sureIy »

CivBase wrote: post #355
theshrike79 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland the confiscation is the problem (or rather WAS the problem, until this law). Children are people, people have specific rights. A teacher is just a random person as far as the law is concerned and can't take someone's phone away any more than an usher in a movie theatre can take someone's phone for being disruptive.

By that argument, it sounds like schools in Finland have zero authority. How does punishment work? What's stopping a kid from going anywhere they want at any time or doing litterally anything that isn't outright illegal? If Finnish children have the same rights as adults, does that mean the children are also subject to the same legal punishment as adults? Can a Finnish child be jailed or fined for the likes of theft,…

I don't know, but I would hope that it works because parents are expected to teach their children to behave. Also just because they can't take their phone or punish them, it doesn't mean that they can't suspend students or fail them.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#364

Post by lotu »

RHSeeger wrote: post #326
dfxm12 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first two aren't in school. The last doesn't actually require a cell phone. It's worth noting, according to the article, the law gives school officials leeway to allow kids to use their phones in some circumstances. So, the law doesn't stop any of the use cases you've listed.

The first two require she bring her phone to school with her. Could they collect every phone before school and hand them out after? Sure.. but that's a nightmare. The last one doesn't require a cell phone, since the school has phone lines. But it's certainly more convenient to let her use her own phone than have 20 kids in line at the office every morning calling their parents. > It's worth noting, according to the a…

> > Could they collect every phone before school and hand them out after? Sure.. but that's a nightmare.

Yes they could for years NYC schools banned cellphones in schools which ment kids could not bring them in the building at all. Kids left their phones with nearby bodegas or in a van parked outside the school for a small fee. Basically a coat check for phones. This worked perfectly well and required zero effort on the part of the administration.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#365

Post by lotu »

CivBase wrote: post #355
theshrike79 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland the confiscation is the problem (or rather WAS the problem, until this law). Children are people, people have specific rights. A teacher is just a random person as far as the law is concerned and can't take someone's phone away any more than an usher in a movie theatre can take someone's phone for being disruptive.

By that argument, it sounds like schools in Finland have zero authority. How does punishment work? What's stopping a kid from going anywhere they want at any time or doing litterally anything that isn't outright illegal? If Finnish children have the same rights as adults, does that mean the children are also subject to the same legal punishment as adults? Can a Finnish child be jailed or fined for the likes of theft,…

Presumably there are laws that give teachers some rights to act in the place of parents and control students. However those laws did not include the ability to confiscate property preemptively.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#366

Post by kspacewalk2 »

ysavir wrote: post #338
PeterStuer wrote: post #3

If the goal of school is to develop children into young adults with good reasoning and analytical skills, a basic wholesome world and social model and some practical skills and basic physique, smartphones seem to contribute little and distract a lot from those aims.

I agree with your take on the purpose of schools and that smartphones contribute little. But my concern is that actions like these teach students an additional lesson: That it's okay to coerce people into specific actions or forfeitures if it serves your purposes. Children and teens absorb a lot, and while they don't always absorb the contents of their lectures, they do typically absorb how they're treated and how th…

>But my concern is that actions like these teach students an additional lesson: That it's okay to coerce people into specific actions or forfeitures if it serves your purposes.

Well, of course it is. Organized society largely rests upon this principle. In the oppressive ones coercion is exercised arbitrarily or by a select few, and in societies based on rule of law it is exercised, well, using law.

>The ultimate problem with education (at least in the US, can't speak for other countries) is that students are given very little motivation to participate in the educational process. Their participation is demanded and their disengagement is punished. There's little about the system that actually motivates and rewards their participation. If we really want students to spend less time on smartphones at schools, we should be looking at how we can restructure our approach to education so that students would actually feel encouraged to participate and ignore their smartphones.

Maybe. Or maybe the pesky slot machines and gossip aggregators are impossible to compete with, if you leave the adolescent attention economy in the hands of the almighty free market. Either way, banning cell phones certainly won't hurt efforts to engage students, if any.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#367

Post by ethbr1 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #330
ethbr1 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As part of the last generation to grow up without phones in (early) school, this. The endless rationalizing of why kids need to have phones at every moment rings hollow... Because grade school kids actually did just fine without them. Things functioned, people got where they needed to get, emergencies were handled, etc. Especially with pre- and post-school access, we're balancing a minimum of in-school utility agains…

> The endless rationalizing of why kids need to have phones Once again, for the people not paying attention. It's not about _need_. It's about quality of life. It's about easier, faster, better, safer. Are there negatives to having cell phones? Sure. That's true for adults, too. And the benefits of having a cell phone need to be weighed against those negatives. But saying "you don't _need_ a cell phone" is a straw ma…

> Because nobody (that I see) says it's needed; they said it's worth it.

Oh, "need" is definitely the first-reach in these discussions. You should see Florida school parents go apeshit at the prospect of not being tethered to their little angels 24x7.

Granted, on HN, it does trend towards worth.

But imho that's looking at smartphones with rose-colored glasses. As people in the industry, you think we'd have more realpolitik perspectives about what modern smartphones are designed to do -- grab, hold, and monetize attention.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#368

Post by mixmastamyk »

ysavir wrote: post #338
PeterStuer wrote: post #3

If the goal of school is to develop children into young adults with good reasoning and analytical skills, a basic wholesome world and social model and some practical skills and basic physique, smartphones seem to contribute little and distract a lot from those aims.

I agree with your take on the purpose of schools and that smartphones contribute little. But my concern is that actions like these teach students an additional lesson: That it's okay to coerce people into specific actions or forfeitures if it serves your purposes. Children and teens absorb a lot, and while they don't always absorb the contents of their lectures, they do typically absorb how they're treated and how th…

Agree school could be more interesting—but the idea it could compete with highly addictive drugs, er youtube et al is laughable frankly.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#369

Post by miki123211 »

Gormo wrote: post #196
nabla9 wrote: post #150

It had to be a law because children are people in Finland and most Nordic countries with rights that adults just can't take away. Current legislation allows the teacher to tell a student to put their phone away in a pocket or backpack, for example, where it will not be a distraction. The use of phones during breaks cannot be completely banned, as students have fundamental rights. The Constitution guarantees everyone…

> It had to be a law because children are people in Finland and most Nordic countries with rights that adults just can't take away. It's a strange concept to hold that there are rights that can't be taken away, but then take them away merely by passing legislation.

"can't be taken away" here means "can't be taken away by parents."

Different countries fall in different places on the scale between "a child is strictly a property of the parent, with which the parent may do as they wish", and "a child is a human being which the parent has been given an obligation to protect from harm, but not to control." The US is a lot closer to the former, most European countries, and especially the nordics, are much closer to the latter.

The former enables parents to send their kids to a private school with a decent curriculum if the state school forces propaganda on them, but it also enables parents to send their kids to a school where they teach creationism or prohibit being gay. The latter prohibits teachers from taking away children's rights to get a tattoo or use nail polish, but it also doesn't give schools the right to punish children for infractions or take away phones.

Those are extremes of course, and most countries fall somewhere in the middle, but that point is different in different countries.

Re: Finland Bans Smartphones in Schools

#370

Post by wildzzz »

RHSeeger wrote: post #327
zelphirkalt wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All problems you listed were solved differently before the age of smartphones.

ALL problems were solved differently before the age of smartphones. Breaking down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and having to walk miles to find some way to ask for help was a damned nightmare; especially for a single female. Lots of problems are solved in MUCH better ways now that we have smartphones. It's not about "can we do it", it's about "can we do it better / easier".

The school has phones in every classroom as well as the admin offices. Before I had a cellphone and needed to let my parents know I was staying after school or going home with a friend, I just used a landline.

Breaking down on the side of the road is completely different than being without a cellphone in a building full of landlines. It's disingenuous to compare the two situations. Breaking down on the side of the road is pretty much the impetus for portable communication systems. A kid being able to just text mom that they need a ride after school is convenient but not really critical enough to justify letting kids have their phones on them all day long.

Post reply on HN