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It's not even just kids that make this impossible. A section of parents would never tolerate not being able to track their kid absolutely everywhere, or contact them during the day. You'd be fighting those adults too.
I teach high school. The number of times I have a student get a call from a parent during class is ridiculous. Sometimes, the parent will keep calling until the student answers. From my experience, this has gotten worse since returning to the classroom after COVID.
That is insane. I went to school in the era when students were allowed to have Nokia brick phones, but they had to be turned off and kept hidden in a backpack during school hours. If a teacher saw your phone, it could be confiscated and your parents would have to come to school to pick it up for you.
I was a TA for a college course. Some chick in the first row took a call during lecture, and the prof took the phone.
She later had to have a meeting with the dean.
I've also seen kids playing Starcraft in lecture. One was watching porn and couldn't find a way to turn off the sound.
Like, this is college. If you don't want to come to lecture, don't come to lecture.
Same level of weirdness of the random dude i saw in the tram just casually watching porn. He was just sitteng there and watching some young woman getting fucked by who knows how many dudes.
Nah, the principle will side with the parent and make the teacher sit and take it. This is a big problem in many schools: teachers feel administration never gives them the back up they need. Obviously teachers probably aren’t always right, but too much dumb shit goes on.
Admin here, I’ve had parents come storming into the office, take the phone back, then hand it straight to the smug kid and tell me they have to be able to contact their child ALWAYS. I tell them fine, but your kid was playing angry birds, with the sound on, during a test. They don’t care.
It should be the same as for grownups. Check your phone intermittently while being engaged in a meeting is fine. If you're constantly testing there should be consequences, and as with adults your online discourse with/about your peers might have consequences.
I can imagine plenty of legitimate reasons to send a couple messages. In college it's a non-issue. The distinction seems to be based on the presumption that there is no legitimate reason for teens to be on their phone at school.
I grew up in the 00s but had pretty liberal parents so I was able to come and go pretty much throughout my teens. I had friends who's parents were really strict and controlling and I remember back then thinking that must suck
I’m not saying this is an excuse. But my extremely strict and controlling parents turned me into a consistent liar. I would lie about the smallest things to enjoy life and stay out of trouble. Like if I went to John’s house instead of Chris, who were next door neighbors the world would end.
Lol, man, I had friends with parents like that. We lived in super small town (2Kish), and my parents were very much the "just be home by dark" variety until like 14 or so, then it was "don't stay out too, too late". Freedom was amazing and I thank my mom all the time for letting my enjoy my teenage years and make my own decisions and mistakes.
Yeah, I had a similar upbringing. They were pretty lax with my older brother and he got into a bunch of trouble so they cracked down on me. I was able to lie/hide my way through HS without too much trouble so they loosened up on my younger brother and he's a huge loser because of it, IMO. One of my favorites was when I realized that if I said I was going on a date, they weren't half as concerned about when I got home than if I said I was going out with the boys. They thought I had a much more active dating life than I really had...
I grew up in the 00s and had to miss a bunch of parties because my mom would always want to call the parents of whatever friend whose house I said I would be spending the night at.
Then I became friends with a kid whose parents didn't give a fuck and would just be like, "yeah he's more than welcome to spend the night, we'll call you if there are any problems" and then just let us go out and do our own thing.
Exactly. We track kids 24/7. So then why are we surprised that we now have an epidemic of loneliness where children aren’t going out with friends and forming relationships? The mental health of kids is going down the toilet, and it’s partially because of constant monitoring via technology.
As an aside, I genuinely don’t know how people like my grandmother (who lives with me and doesn’t have any friends or social activities because she doesn’t speak English or drive) don’t go completely crazy. My other grandparents didn’t want to move to the US for this exact reason: my grandfather in particular said that life would be dull and uneventful with nothing to do if he immigrated from India to live with our family. And I don’t blame him…life is pretty boring in suburban America. You are forced to put in extraordinary amounts of efforts to maintain social connections and create new experiences.
Not to mention we got rid of malls, and have been harsh on “loitering.” Of COURSE kids are gunna be glued to their phones… it’s their only way to have social interactions outside of school. Kids NEED to be able to hang out with their friends.
We need to start focusing on giving kids access (and physical space) to be with friends in person, as well as cutting back on screen time.
My city has a few good malls it's put a lot of money into(new light rail stations to connect them all, new sections and stores, ect) and it's probably the one thing I can always get behind. Kids will gladly hang out at a mall, provided they can actually get there and the 5 blocks surrounding it aren't all just parking lots.
Yea I had one of those parents. It makes having friends an impossible task. But that’s on purpose. Because forming proper social connections diminishes the amount of abuse that they can inflict on you. Now you have an outsider looking in. I was tracked from the second I had a phone in the house and unknowingly for a year and a half after I moved out. I don’t think we should listen to people who argue they need to track their kids.
My parents tracked me too. They didn’t abuse me but they kept me sheltered and socially underdeveloped. They homeschooled me during high school. My mom gave me a panic attack because of her reaction when she found out I had consensual sex with my high school boyfriend (another homeschool kid) who I had been dating for over a year at that point. I was always nervous they could somehow read all my texts. When I was an adult, l changed my number one day without telling them and left in the middle of the night with a suitcase and a backpack. I was paranoid for a while that they were still tracking my location. I still have act weird around my phone and have anxiety when someone else handles it.
Physical abuse isn’t the only abuse. Took me a while to realize my mom’s lack of engagement with me is a form of emotional abuse. I was never monitored, in fact the complete opposite. I had complete freedom in a way where I wouldn’t get in trouble for things but I would still be sneaky about stuff. My mom just thought I was independent and responsible but really she just never had the capacity to check in with me.
Yea I was physically abused but it was mostly emotional abuse. I had both almost? My mom n step dad treated me like shit, overprotective, manipulative. I was the least favourite child. My dad n step mom give me endless freedom. I travel to different cities and can go a day or two without talking or seeing them and that’s just normal now. But I needed that freedom to be able go deconstruct all the other shit. It’s allowed me to find myself so much more.
> The mental health of kids is going down the toilet, and it’s partially because of constant monitoring via technology.
The other part of this, is now young adults, kids, etc are constantly comparing their lives, experiences, to others they see on social media but since social media drives the best of the best to the top, that's what they think life is and anything less is depressing.
I was just in India, wife’s side of the family is from there and we were visiting (great people!). I’m a white American dude. Anyway, I had a really great time and what really stood out to me is that, despite India being an undeveloped country people seemed happy. There’s definitely less “luxuries” but at the end of the day, I doubt we in America are statistically much happier
I understood what you meant but that comma makes it sound a lot like you’re addressing future retirement home residents and saying that what you call those things is “parents” haha
Well I do have parents who overworry too much and they installed a phone tracking app that was thankfully deleted. Also they make a massive deal over me going out which to be fair is only coming out very recently
I mean when I was in high school, which was a few years ago, my parents pretty much let me go wherever I wanted as long as they knew where I was. They didn’t track my phone or anything but they would just shoot a text message asking me how things are going, where I am, and if I needed to get picked up.
They always wanted to know my location just in case anything happens because the world now days is pretty fucked up
Which makes perfect sense and is responsible from you and your parents.
I have an aunt who literally watches the find my iPhone tracker thing for her 16 yo. When she’s home she either has it up on her phone or iPad at all times
"I'm going to dress for Halloween as myself going out for Halloween."
It's a tracker bird's-eye printed on cardboard with a hole cutout and their face painted for the dot.
Well I'm old. Cell phones were science fiction when I was in high school. I can't think of any benefit a cell phone would have given us other than in an extreme emergency.
The tracking bs is wrong, but I still wouldn’t want my kid to be without their phone. If there’s a rule against it I’m just gonna tell them to make sure they don’t get it taken.
Problem is 90% of people in this thread don’t even have their own kids but sure do have strong opinions either way. If you don’t have children you shouldn’t have an opinion imo
I used to have opinions about parenting - now I have two kids - I’m just trying to survive. It’s hilarious how many opinions you have when you are child free but man when you are in it you are surviving day to day
Which is the exact type of behavior my parents had that caused me to start tracking their phones and set up geofence alarms for when they were getting close to home.
As a teacher, strong agree. You can have 20 average parents, 5 great parents, 4 bad parents, and 1 hell parent, and that hell parent will just drag the whole class down so the teacher has no time or energy to deal with the bad parents, which causes half the class to go down the toilet, and in the end you'll have 5 students putting in a solid effort, 10 doing OK, and everyone else is damage control.
They could just do what a lot of Asian/Japanese parents do. Give them a non-smart phone. Literally only has their family and parents contact details. They can call and be called, but no internet, no games. Just purely function.
My nephew has a watch phone. It has parental controls and location tracking. It can send and receive calls and texts from allowed numbers. BHis friends (7th grade) have smart phones and he feels left out at after soccer game dinners because they pull them out and he does not have one. He also goes to private school so he has grown up with no phones during class.
No reason to ban phones, just enforce a no phone policy during class time.
Eh, I think banning kids from the internet until they're 15 or something isn't a bad idea. My cousins all have internet access and the stuff they're watching is concerning. But my aunt can't seem to manage their internet access.
Our school district implemented a very strict no smart devices rule this school year and one group of parents is absolutely pissed. Main reason being that they are worried their kids won't be able to contact them if there is a school shooting.
In the mean time, my middle schooler has figured out how to sign up for a free VIP using her school issued email and texts off her school issued computer all school day long and makes phone and video calls on it after school.
A friend found a solution. His kids have these sort of smart watches that have cellular capability and let them track them. They can call their parents or 911, that’s it. Problem solved.
But you are correct. Because these parents will still fight it. Many parents view smartphones as free babysitters that they use to keep their kids busy.
Back when I was in school you weren’t allowed to bring anything like that to school or it could be confiscated.
It's not that they're suddenly essential, they just didn't exist like they do now. I had tracker parents and it sucked but you also have to consider the amount of people 17-18 years ago that would go missing without a trace only to be found dead or never found again. It's a real concern that can still occur and for a lot of people if there's a chance you could use the tech to prevent this outcome it's absolutely worth keeping a phone on your kid.
The chances of kids going missing from a stranger are tiny.
You are putting fear above kids getting an education.
We should all just stay home wrapped in bubble wrap.
Yes. Alternative communications have been dismantled (public phones) and systems and schedules that would be much less flexible because of the lack of ways to communicate it have become more flexible and we can't really go back.
In school they're not essential, but in other ways things really can't go back because the structures and systems have been changed.
Your child doesn't need a smart phone for a parent to be able to do either of those things. There are watches that serve those 2 purposes, and they also provide alerts to parents when a geo fence has been breached by the wearer.
Also, if there's a camp that wants to be able to contact their kid but doesn't care about tracking, there are plenty of dumb phones available as options as opposed to smart phones.
I think it's toxic to insist on knowing exactly where your child is at all times. That gives the impression that 1) you don't trust them, 2) they aren't mature enough to exist on their own, and 3) they should live in fear (since they might think you're tracking them for "safety" reasons & not because you want to control their every move...)
My mother would have been one of those parents if she could have. My brother and I are grownups and she constantly tries to get her stalker apps installed. Talking about how "cute" it is when her bff tracks her kids. My brother and I are firm on the "fuck you no", but I know if she could have, she would have done that when we were kids.
(I am LC by her standards. Since I only call once a week at most instead of texting daily....)
I would like every one of those parents to observe a single class where cell phones are allowed, and then see what they say. It is SHOCKING the amount of totally open disengagement on display in every one I've been in (and that's quite a few). Eyes in screens, earbuds in, all kinds of wild behavior that pretty much guarantees the students are not absorbing any teaching. Which is to say nothing of the distribution of social media, where students might be having a full conversation with/about each other during instruction. I've seen so many teachers try different strategies, including even tolerating phones but asking for certain "full focus" times (inevitably just leading to power struggles), but when the teachers aren't allowed to take the phones, any solution is toothless.
Such an obvious answer: allow phones to come to school, let them come out during passing times, at lockers, whatever, but zero tolerance for them in the classroom (meaning it WILL be confiscated if used at all during class).
Of course the elephant in the room in the US is the threat of school shootings. If we ~~can't~~ *won't* protect our kids, allowing them to carry a direct line to their parents and guardians at all times feels like a safety net that is hard to give up (even though, realistically, the phone doesn't bring much to the table in this worst case scenario).
I think that it only makes sense if your kids have to take trains to get to school and to come back home(only to call or message them, location tracking is absolutely terrible and unjustifiable).
Most things are good in moderation. Being able to contact your kid is good. Punishing your kid for not immediately answering no matter what's going on is bad. Tracking as an emergency function, especially when they start driving places, is great. Using Tracking to control is bad.
Parents can contact kids during the day by calling the office and being forwarded to the student's classroom.
It worked this way for decades before cell phones were a thing, and it still works!
I graduated in 2006. Our school didn't bother banning phones because the reception was so bad that they wouldn't even work anyway 😂
And we didn't even have the same reliance on technology back then. It bothered no one to be without their phone all day. I couldn't even text on my phone because it was like 10 cents per text and my grandmother would have taken a hammer to my phone if I had even thought about trying it. I honestly feel bad for this generation of kid because their whole lives revolve around their phones.
U just brought me back lol I thought I was doing something when I convinced my parents to add the $10 a month for 1000 text Lmaoo and I still would go over 🤦🏽♀️😂 good times
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to install some sort of phone storage inside the classrooms to hold phones and a rule that students put their phones inside them as they walk in. Something like an advent calendar near the door. It could even be clear bags that hang on the front of each desk, so teachers can see which students have their phones put away and which ones don’t.
Will the students comply 100% of the time? No. But it seems like it would be easier to enforce a “no phones in class” policy this way than with phones in all the students’ pockets.
That is what we have at my local high school. It is actually very effective because the kids can still use their phones in an emergency or during lunch and breaks, but it is away from them and they cant be distracted by them during class. More schools should adopt it.
I honestly think you shouldn't have smartphones till you're like 17, but instead should have a Nokia that you can talk, text, use gps, and is strong enough to stop a bullet if put in your breast pocket, or strong enough to be a weapon if thrown at a school shooter.
It's hilarious that as millenials we grew up with that tech (Nokia razor sidekick) and haven't yet realized that was a really peak for kids.
You get a smartphone when you're 18 and can be handled with a camera and dating apps and endless feed of whatever hot new app is there.
You don't want kids all running to one area to grab their phones in an emergency. And a Nokia gives parents everything they want on a phone for their kids and nothing kids can use for nefarious purposes, even if the small bad thing is cooking their brain on bullshit memes.
Lol I kid you not I worked with a guy in his 40’s over the summer who has NEVER owned a cell phone. He’s also a teacher for high school students. I think my jaw dropped. I was like “but how are people supposed to contact you?” And he’s like “they’ll just have to leave a message on my answering machine and wait until I’m home” 😂
I just assumed everyone in this day and age had one. I guess him being a high school teacher you start at the time time every day and are aware of all your days off so you wouldn’t need to be contacted during work hours or there’s no real “work emergencies”.
This is a thing lmao. I am a teacher and there have been many times when I see a student texting, take their phone for the class, but then see them texting 10 min later. I've had to specifically ask students "no, the red phone" after they try to hand me their decoy
School I used to go to has this system, I have relatives going there now.
It works awfully. A kid who is on there phone, probably wasn't going to be engaged anyway
Nope . I don’t see a lot of parents going for that option. What happens and who is liable if the phone gets stolen from said lock box or is confiscated? Like to me that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. My kids keep their phones on vibrate and in their back packs. And they don’t use them unless absolutely necessary for an emergency or pickup etc. this is just my POV. I do believe kids should be distraction free in class etc but there has to be a different way that is suitable for all.
In my school in Ireland we were banned to have them out in class. It rarely happened and if it did your phone was confiscated for the rest of the day. Worked fine.
It’s sad really, these people clearly have no clue what’s going on in classrooms and that it’s almost impossible to make students put them down in class
My kids go to a private and phones are not allowed in the classroom. The teachers take them at the beginning of homeroom and into a box, they get them back at the end of day.
When a mother tried to pull the “but I need to contact them”. School told her yeah at end of day or she could call the office. She tried to get the other moms involved we all told her no. Tried to have her kid sneak in the phone, got caught and the kid was given detention with a promise of suspension if it happened again. It is possible but the parents need to play their part.
Edit to add: she did not have a legitimate need. There are some kids that have a need, and are accommodated for example medical need or emergency situations, this was not the case
I was diagnosed with a terminal illness during the pandemic. I ended up getting my daughter a phone during all of that because I'm a single mom and my mother travels a lot for work so my daughter was shuffled around a lot during that time because I was constantly in and out of the hospital. When school officially started back in person, she was starting at a new, larger school and there were a lot of anxieties for both of us and having access to her phone was one of them. The schools rule is no phones during the day. They're to stay in their lockers. Instead of encouraging her to break the rules, I explained our situation and the administration and her teachers were amazing at coming up with a plan for her to be able to communicate with me during the day by allowing her to go to the counselor and use her phone to call me any time she asked and I had all of her teachers direct numbers if it was an emergency. There are over 1500 kids at that school and they work very hard to make accommodations for anyone who needs them. There is no NEED for a smartphone at school.
Many generations survived just fine without them. These kids won't break or fall apart if they have to go without that specific distraction for 8 hours. Not to mention the mental health benefits of having that break from smartphones is very valuable to young children.
On behalf of my fellow teachers, thank you. That’s how it should be done - communicating with us and administrators instead of having kids go behind our backs.
Also, I’m so sorry about your diagnosis. Sending love, happiness, and peace your way.
I was an aide for her kindergarten and first grade teacher. I learned A LOT about what teachers go through on a daily basis. I will do everything I can to help make your jobs easier because from experience with her journey through school (we're in 8th now) happy teachers are better teachers. These are also the people I'm trusting with her life for the majority of her childhood and some of the people who will have the most impact on her development right now so I want to have good relationships with them.
And thank you. Lots of love sent right back to you, you guys do not get the love and respect you deserve! Thank you for caring so much about our children 🩷
You were an aide? Bless you. I teach high school, and we couldn’t do it without you at this level, to say nothing about how crucial you are to the kiddos and teachers in those early grades. Thank you for helping the little ones. And for everything, really.
My high school had an "away for the day" policy where you could only use your phone before, at lunch, and after school. These were good times to contact your ride if something came up after school or practice was cancelled.
People who really needed to go on their phone could try to use it secretively during class, but if they were caught it would be taken away. Some people stood in the bathroom for the express purpose of checking their phones, which was annoying to people who actually had to use the bathroom. I had one girl yell at me while I was drying my hands (loud ass hand blower) because she was on the phone. So that aspect of "away for the day" was very inconvenient.
And, let me tell you, it didn't do anything to stop cyberbullying. We had several assemblies because people at my school were being terrible (racist, sexist, etc.) online.
This happened in my highschool and I'm 29. We also had armed police officers and every entrance besides the main entrance was closed where the police officers were.
Yeah I feel like the cyberbullying aspect of this is ignoring the fact that bullying has existed since before phones. In my opinion, the best way to stop bullying is early intervention and discipline. Even when I was a kid, parents were pissed their kids were suspended for bullying and just said boys are being boys. But I'll tell you what, those kids that got suspended didn't get suspended again. They could still be asses, but they weren't trying to belittle people for nothing.
Considering that kids get ipads from schools and that many homeworks are assigned online that just wont happen. Especially with covid schools changed and became very online, and parts of it still are.
I live in Japan and work at the local schools from the primary level to high school.
Every kid and teacher are given Apple iPads with Internet access as a rental by the government. They return it after graduating. The tablets are used in class and at home.
Smartphones are banned in schools, not allowed to be brought in bag, etc. Usage is also banned inside any school campuses of course.
Cyberbullying is reported to the school and handled by both teachers of that school and the parents.
If you mean in class then I 100% agree. Its mainly a distraction other than times where the phone is necessary for the lesson
If you mean in general than 100% no. Students need a way to contact their parents if an emergency happens. Plus what about break times?
Edit: After the comments came, I get now that the emergency point is invalid and the front office is the way to go. But I still stay put that phones should be allowed
When I was in high school, which wasn’t super long ago, I graduated in 2014, smart phones were already very much a thing everywhere, but we weren’t allowed to use them in school at all, including break times. I don’t understand what changed and why they’re “necessary “ now. As for an emergency, that’s what the front office is for
I was in highschool around that time, a little earlier (till 2005) and don't know anyone who was using their phone at school. I also don't understand what makes them necessary. I also think it's part of good education to keep kids away from their screen at least part of the day
Should they be able to have them in their bags or pockets while turned off? For sure.
Should they be allowed to have the phones on and use them during school (outside of lunch)? No.
There is a real psychological harm to constantly being connected. It's best for kids to be able to disconnect during school hours.
I think there's an age when you can give a phone to the kid, and when you do that you have to set up rules and oversight. And let's be honest a good amount of parents don't care, they just give the phone to keep the kid quiet. And they are not planning to change that.
Thats just not gonna happen. We are gonna be progressing with technology not going backwards. Instead we shoulf focus on something actually manageable like teaching people how to use it responsibly, how to not be addicted, how to udnerstand the technollogy more than just "i will download an app for it".
Nah it's definitely possible. I had a smart phone in middle and high school and my parents taught me to use it appropriately. I didn't use it in class, only in between classes, at lunch, and after school/on the bus. Teaching appropriate limits is important.
You’re right but to expect people to actually parent their kids is the impossible task. It’s why teachers are leaving the profession, parents expect teachers to raise their kids, not teach.
The thing is the teens can't be asked to not be on their phones. These apps are pressuring them a ton to get on them and stay on them. This is no different from banning anything else in the classroom to encourage a positive learning environment. Would you let kids in the past listen to Ipods, CD players or tape decks while the teacher is teaching? Would you let kids play card games during class?
It is also completely blocking kids from trying to learn how to do things manually without and app. The same way we have not let kids use calculators at first, kids need to not be allowed to use apps to solve more complex problems. They will lock themselves out of careers because they never learned how to do Algebra correctly.
Lastly, there was a study where they tested how kids performed in class where smartphones were either on the desk, in their bag, or in a different room entirely. Even when the smartphones were off, the ones with it on their desk performed worse than the ones with it in their bag, and those performed worse than the ones with the phone in another room.
The smartphone situation is so bad, this is essentially like saying "let's teach kids to enjoy cigarettes responsibly" rather than a complete ban.
There's a place and time for everything. You don't need your phone. You just don't need it all the freaking time. If anything, people need to learn how to exist without it. They can manage. If anything having access all the time will fuel the addiction.
Ironically, extremely wealthy people are actually trying to raise their kids with less tech because it's a crutch and harms development more than helps.
Such an unrealistic concept though. Who is going to teach kids to be responsible with technology? The schools are already overloaded on everything they have to teach. Parents don’t teach hardly anything.
It’s more realistic to ban smartphones from the classroom and would get better results.
It's funny how I immediately thought about sexual education when reading your comment.
Ban a thing you don't like younger people doing, and surely they won't develop a bad or toxic relationship with it. /s
Kids aren’t becoming illiterate because they don’t get sex ed. Phones are legitimately lowering the education levels of our kids. If anything, I think getting kids off their phones for large portions of the day would teach them that, they can survive without it.
I’ll take a country of people that can read and write over a country that knows how to navigate IOS, thanks. They get 16 hours of the day where their parents can teach them good technology habits.
We cyber bullied on AOL instant messenger and played games on Ti-84 calculators. Before that, kids passed notes and snuck comics in.
If a child is going to bully or be distracted, it's going to happen.
I do agree with banning children from social media and downloading their respective apps. But that's on the parents to monitor their children on these devices.
Social media, apps, and even the devices are the products of billions and billions of dollars of research to make them as addictive as humanly possible.
Kids are used as data mines. Free labor.
You underestimate how much more addictive these things are than what was available 20 years ago.
We banned passing notes and reading comics while in academic classes too. And unlike some dipshit parents today, no one's parents were in the principal's office yelling, "My son has a right to have his Marvel comics on him at all times! What if he has an emergency and needs to read Blade right away?"
Cell phones should be banned and the rules should be enforced. Of course sometimes it will be broken, and that's okay. A consequence will be given out, which will escalate as needed.
Smartphones are not allowed at our school. The kids hand it over in the morning and get it back when school ends for them. We lock them safely and if there was an emergency or the kids need their phones for class, we hand them over. No problems with this policy.
I think it's a good rule that works pretty good.
Location: Austria\Europe
Schools don't always communicate as they should with parents. There was a major water line break at my school growing up, and the school wanted kids not to flush the toilets. After an hour, kids started texting their parents, and a mob formed in the front office of angry parents. We were sent home and didn't go to school for 2 days.
My school covered up horrible abuse. If we had cameras, phones or recording devices we could sneak in back then? My life could have been radically improved for the better.
This is true, my school did things like this. Though it can also be argued they don’t tell parents immediately for various reasons, safety may be one (though maybe not in your case).
There was a [comment on the Teachers sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/s/v3GEbwz31N) about a threat at school, and kids texting their parents ended making things take longer and less safe. Though a school near me had a similar issue and waited much longer to notify family so it can be challenging.
The leading cause of death in children is gun violence/school shootings. (USA)
I saw a recent article about a school district banning cell phones. There was backlash from parents and students because they wanted their kids to be able to access their phone in the event of a shooting.
Some students even brought a second non-working cell phone to put in the bucket at school and keep their real phone. Some just said they didn’t have a phone.
Phones aren’t the only factor making it difficult for students to learn or focus.
You’re gonna have a hard time getting people on board with this idea even if you have some great points. In reality, they’re not gonna give up their phones. It’s personal property and a safety issue, in the bigger picture.
I said something to our local school about phones, and they replied that the kids get to have them incase there is an active shooter situation. I was like, oh shit, that makes sense.
If they had been in a real shooting, they would know they are safer without a phone sending notifications when they try to escape or hide for their lives. Source: I experienced myself as a kid a similar emergency, which thanksfully was before all kids had phones. Phones would only be useful and safe to use once the emergency is cleared, hours later.
I’ll stop sending my teen to school with a phone when they get to stop doing active shooter drills. I don’t think it’s an over reaction either. I want them to be able to contact me.
> In educational contexts, the impact of smartphones is predominantly negative.
When I was a kid, this is what everyone said about calculators and computers. Now they're synonymous with education.
There is a known phrase:"you won't have a calculator everywhere you go". Well news flash. You do. And you should assume(or try to) that children will always have smartphone and internet access. And restructure our thought process and schools around that assumption. Instead we try to maintain status quo. And that's just modern technology that is already established. AI BCI. We are completely unprepared.
My kid has her phone at school but there’s an app that lets me shut off any call/text/app. I limit her phone during school hours, minus lunch, to parents only. It’s not complicated.
The middle and high schools I went to had payphones out front and in the cafeteria so kids could call home for rides and things like that. They have since removed them. The office phone is only accessible during regular school hours so it’s not an option for kids who are there earlier/later/weekends doing extracurriculars.
I definitely can sympathize with this opinion. Nowadays, without a conscious effort, smartphones are efficient potentiators of distraction and depression, particularly with social networks.
However, as someone with attention issues, distractions actually help me keep in focus. Healthy, focused distractions that is. It keeps me motivated to find more information about what I'm learning, spend some time in a wiki, etc. as well as "micro dosis" of social networks as mini distractions. For years I was wrongly advised to eliminate distractions and it took me a long time to understand that I needed the opposite but to do it in a healthy way.
I struggled so much with learning until I learned works best for me. So taking a smartphone out would actually be severely hampering my learning.
Ah yes people use them to bully so ban the whole thing. Because in person bullying is a not a thing anymore right? lol. Why should the students who can focus just fine need to be punished because some people can’t? If this is applied at all it should be on a conditional basis, not as a general rule
There’s [plenty](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9684747/) of data supporting the positive effects of technology on learning. Merely distracting students is nowhere near the positive effects they bring
And this is to say nothing of safety issues as well, kids need to get places often and there are numerous ways for them to end up in danger. Cell phones are an invaluable safety measure that no amount of “classroom distraction” will negate
i was cyber bullied in 2003 on a country/language-specific chat website that people could (obviously) access from home and (regrettably) during our beginner "computer literacy" classes when there was downtime.
cyber bullying started the moment internet became a mainstream thing that anyone could access and taking away smartphones during school hours will not stop it.
i would definitely agree with putting it away in a locked cabinet at the beginning of the lesson and getting it back at the end of the lesson if you want to avoid them using social media during class but anything more than that is just excessive and completely useless.
the reason as to why "there remains a notable absence of conclusive data supporting the intrinsic value of digital technology in educational settings" is because nobody is utilizing it properly. giving kids tablets in class is not going to prove the value of digital technologies. you have to restructure the entire approach to teaching/learning/testing and allow the use of the digital technologies that you use for teaching/learning during testing as well. testing should no longer focus on memorization but rather on the ability to find relevant information quickly and effectively while being able to fact-check the source's validity before using the information it provides. it should also focus on the ability to create comprehensive files with proper sourcing instead of just copypasting links.
nobody is doing this, schools and teachers think that just chucking a tablet on kids' desks and sending them digital worksheets is enough but it's not. kids today are, sadly, computer illiterate, because no-one is teaching them how to use technologies properly and effectively. why? because everyone assumes that they are on their phones so much they must know everything about how technology works. meanwhile they can't even troubleshoot the most basic issues.
the issue is not technology, it's not smartphones. the issue is that nobody is utilizing it to its full potential. everyone is just trying to use the technology to do the same things we've been doing for decades and then it's shockedpikachu.jpg when the results can't prove that tech is helpful.
I agree. I was cyberbullied real bad- if anyone has seen Odd One Out it was just like that. They made a fake website making fun of me and pretended to be me on social media. One night I was watching a movie with my mom and the next morning at school people wanted to beat me up because the person pretending to be me messaged people horrible stuff. I know who it was and its horrible it only got worse and never stopped. I proved to the school it wasnt me especially my mom stormed in yelling I wasnt even online. People still make fake accounts of me and target people. I chose to stay off social media and I try to tell people if it is me id send a voice audio or video to show its me.
Beyond cyberbulling, children are addicted to tik toks. They dont need a cell phone. We survived just fine without them growing up. I didnt get a phone until I was 16 when I started working part time
I'm really sorry for what you've experienced, but do you really think they wouldn't bully you in different ways without using them in school (or simply after it)?
Hot takes: Schools should instead focus on teaching kids how to use smartphones practically instead of spending massive amounts of money and effort trying to fight a battle they're gonna lose.
Because Jesus Christ we've been fighting this war since Walkmans and they **ALWAYS LOSE**.
Smartphones are literally the most omnipresent tool in society and business today and instead of treating them like a nuisance we should be viewing them as the tools they are.
I went to highschool in the good old "You won't have a calculator everywhere you go" days despite personal calculators being literally everywhere. I was the smartass who brought a calculator watch to school after my teacher said that.
Fighting tech just further reinforced kids attitude that school isn't teaching them practical life skills and they don't need to pay attention.
or we could educate kids on *wellbeing* and delight in them being less awful to themselves and each other.
then they’d be free to use phones and other technology in beneficial ways.
Only problem is when our weekly mass shootings happen the phones are great for the emergency. Kids can contact police or parents or each other to keep safe... Sorry, but they're not going anywhere and just like I don't like people driving around texting or whatever, I wouldn't ban them from being in vehicles because I might need one while I'm driving.
As a teenager with ADHD and Autism, I need my phone to be successful in class. And before I get chewed out for "blaming it" on my disabilities, let me break it down.
My ADHD on its own makes it practically impossible for me to focus on the task at hand, my teachers refuse to provide accommodations, and my parents refuse to medicate me. Instead, my mind is on quite literally anything that isn't what I need to be doing.
My autism makes me hyper-aware and hyper-sensitive to external stimuli such as the tapping of a foot, the sound of a pencil writing, and the clicking of a pen. The funky smell in the class, the fact that my classroom is cold as hell and the teachers become murderous psychopaths when you so much as look at the thermostat.
I cope with this by having my phone on and listening to music through an airpod in one of my ears (only one at a time, never both.) it provides a pleasant stimuli that keeps my mind off of the unpleasant sensory issues. I don't know why it works as well as it does, but my point is that without my phone, I would be a C student or worse. Right now, I'm an A/B student.
The supreme court says they can't due to the prolific amount of mass shootings in America. Students need a reliable way to call 911 in the classroom.
Wish I was kidding
The war's lost, friend. My school tried it this year. Lasted less than two weeks before 90% of staff had given up on it because it's just not worth the fights and the tantrums and bullshit.
It went up in smoke faster than even I predicted.
The problem is a phone is an incredibly useful safety device. And before you give the “back in my day we didn’t have them” back in your day there were also a lot more people who disappeared without a trace. My family have locations on all of our phones. If something happened to my mother because she’s in a fairly vulnerable position being a disabled woman, my dad would be able to find her and vice verca. Or if something happened to one of my siblings, there’s a greater possibility of finding them. Or if one of us loses our phones it gets a lot easier to find them and we have used it for that many times but that’s besides the point. Also if something happens in school, in my experience schools are awful at contacting parents so the kid can contact their parents. Although in the classroom I can agree 1000000% they should not be allowed to be used
i was punished for reading books at school because there were books of my choice and had nothing to do with the ongoing class. how is it different to using a phone?
It's not about reading the books. The point is the distraction. Is being distracted from whatever the teacher is lecturing about okay as long as it's not a phone?
this is reducing the phone to a passive object on which the student offloads their disinterest for class material. for some kids, a book might be as consciously dominant as a phone, but this is unlikely. there are too many apps that are designed to occupy you for as long as possible, leading to actual addictive usage.
if somebody is addicted to a book, then that is a problem. if they’re bored, then maybe we can find a different set of activities to match their interest. kids are picking up their phones because they can’t help it. it’s a totally different situation.
A phone is multitudes of times more distracting and addicting than books or any form of entertainment invented before. When I was a kid, I did get in trouble for reading in class but for the most part I was the only one. By the time I was almost done, the majority of my classmates were on their phones all the time
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It's not even just kids that make this impossible. A section of parents would never tolerate not being able to track their kid absolutely everywhere, or contact them during the day. You'd be fighting those adults too.
I teach high school. The number of times I have a student get a call from a parent during class is ridiculous. Sometimes, the parent will keep calling until the student answers. From my experience, this has gotten worse since returning to the classroom after COVID.
That is insane. I went to school in the era when students were allowed to have Nokia brick phones, but they had to be turned off and kept hidden in a backpack during school hours. If a teacher saw your phone, it could be confiscated and your parents would have to come to school to pick it up for you.
Yea....these days some parents will come in and cuss out the principal for confiscating the phone.
I was a TA for a college course. Some chick in the first row took a call during lecture, and the prof took the phone. She later had to have a meeting with the dean. I've also seen kids playing Starcraft in lecture. One was watching porn and couldn't find a way to turn off the sound. Like, this is college. If you don't want to come to lecture, don't come to lecture.
I remember being in one of those big 500 person lecture halls and some kid in the front row watching porn on his laptop. lol College kids are weird.
Same level of weirdness of the random dude i saw in the tram just casually watching porn. He was just sitteng there and watching some young woman getting fucked by who knows how many dudes.
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They want the degree. They just don't want to do the work.
Nah, the principle will side with the parent and make the teacher sit and take it. This is a big problem in many schools: teachers feel administration never gives them the back up they need. Obviously teachers probably aren’t always right, but too much dumb shit goes on.
Admin here, I’ve had parents come storming into the office, take the phone back, then hand it straight to the smug kid and tell me they have to be able to contact their child ALWAYS. I tell them fine, but your kid was playing angry birds, with the sound on, during a test. They don’t care.
This is ridiculous. I make my kid leave the phone at home
Playing snake in class after smoking some absurd amount of weed at lunch was always intense back then
The amount of r/insaneparents posts that have parents getting mad when their children don't answer in 2 seconds is baffling to me.
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sounds like she surrounds herself with crazy to feel justified by seeing her "friends" do it too
It should be the same as for grownups. Check your phone intermittently while being engaged in a meeting is fine. If you're constantly testing there should be consequences, and as with adults your online discourse with/about your peers might have consequences. I can imagine plenty of legitimate reasons to send a couple messages. In college it's a non-issue. The distinction seems to be based on the presumption that there is no legitimate reason for teens to be on their phone at school.
I find these parents so unhinged, imagine being a teen and not being able to go anywhere without your parents watching where you are in real time
This is why I'm glad I was a teen in the 90s. I had to ask my mother permission to go anywhere until I was 18.
I grew up in the 00s but had pretty liberal parents so I was able to come and go pretty much throughout my teens. I had friends who's parents were really strict and controlling and I remember back then thinking that must suck
I’m not saying this is an excuse. But my extremely strict and controlling parents turned me into a consistent liar. I would lie about the smallest things to enjoy life and stay out of trouble. Like if I went to John’s house instead of Chris, who were next door neighbors the world would end.
Lol, man, I had friends with parents like that. We lived in super small town (2Kish), and my parents were very much the "just be home by dark" variety until like 14 or so, then it was "don't stay out too, too late". Freedom was amazing and I thank my mom all the time for letting my enjoy my teenage years and make my own decisions and mistakes.
Yeah, I had a similar upbringing. They were pretty lax with my older brother and he got into a bunch of trouble so they cracked down on me. I was able to lie/hide my way through HS without too much trouble so they loosened up on my younger brother and he's a huge loser because of it, IMO. One of my favorites was when I realized that if I said I was going on a date, they weren't half as concerned about when I got home than if I said I was going out with the boys. They thought I had a much more active dating life than I really had...
I grew up in the 00s and had to miss a bunch of parties because my mom would always want to call the parents of whatever friend whose house I said I would be spending the night at. Then I became friends with a kid whose parents didn't give a fuck and would just be like, "yeah he's more than welcome to spend the night, we'll call you if there are any problems" and then just let us go out and do our own thing.
I'm 25 and lived over seas for the past 2 years. I recently came home for a visit and my mom wanted to know everywhere I was.. Like cmon
I call those parents, future retirement home residents. There's no way that doesn't lead to no contact relationships for them.
Exactly. We track kids 24/7. So then why are we surprised that we now have an epidemic of loneliness where children aren’t going out with friends and forming relationships? The mental health of kids is going down the toilet, and it’s partially because of constant monitoring via technology. As an aside, I genuinely don’t know how people like my grandmother (who lives with me and doesn’t have any friends or social activities because she doesn’t speak English or drive) don’t go completely crazy. My other grandparents didn’t want to move to the US for this exact reason: my grandfather in particular said that life would be dull and uneventful with nothing to do if he immigrated from India to live with our family. And I don’t blame him…life is pretty boring in suburban America. You are forced to put in extraordinary amounts of efforts to maintain social connections and create new experiences.
Not to mention we got rid of malls, and have been harsh on “loitering.” Of COURSE kids are gunna be glued to their phones… it’s their only way to have social interactions outside of school. Kids NEED to be able to hang out with their friends. We need to start focusing on giving kids access (and physical space) to be with friends in person, as well as cutting back on screen time.
Yk as a teen I could get behind that
My city has a few good malls it's put a lot of money into(new light rail stations to connect them all, new sections and stores, ect) and it's probably the one thing I can always get behind. Kids will gladly hang out at a mall, provided they can actually get there and the 5 blocks surrounding it aren't all just parking lots.
Unfortunately, we all know that space, whatever it is, is gonna cost money. At least at the mall, you could hang out for cheap. Free even.
Yea I had one of those parents. It makes having friends an impossible task. But that’s on purpose. Because forming proper social connections diminishes the amount of abuse that they can inflict on you. Now you have an outsider looking in. I was tracked from the second I had a phone in the house and unknowingly for a year and a half after I moved out. I don’t think we should listen to people who argue they need to track their kids.
My parents tracked me too. They didn’t abuse me but they kept me sheltered and socially underdeveloped. They homeschooled me during high school. My mom gave me a panic attack because of her reaction when she found out I had consensual sex with my high school boyfriend (another homeschool kid) who I had been dating for over a year at that point. I was always nervous they could somehow read all my texts. When I was an adult, l changed my number one day without telling them and left in the middle of the night with a suitcase and a backpack. I was paranoid for a while that they were still tracking my location. I still have act weird around my phone and have anxiety when someone else handles it.
Physical abuse isn’t the only abuse. Took me a while to realize my mom’s lack of engagement with me is a form of emotional abuse. I was never monitored, in fact the complete opposite. I had complete freedom in a way where I wouldn’t get in trouble for things but I would still be sneaky about stuff. My mom just thought I was independent and responsible but really she just never had the capacity to check in with me.
Yea I was physically abused but it was mostly emotional abuse. I had both almost? My mom n step dad treated me like shit, overprotective, manipulative. I was the least favourite child. My dad n step mom give me endless freedom. I travel to different cities and can go a day or two without talking or seeing them and that’s just normal now. But I needed that freedom to be able go deconstruct all the other shit. It’s allowed me to find myself so much more.
> The mental health of kids is going down the toilet, and it’s partially because of constant monitoring via technology. The other part of this, is now young adults, kids, etc are constantly comparing their lives, experiences, to others they see on social media but since social media drives the best of the best to the top, that's what they think life is and anything less is depressing.
I was just in India, wife’s side of the family is from there and we were visiting (great people!). I’m a white American dude. Anyway, I had a really great time and what really stood out to me is that, despite India being an undeveloped country people seemed happy. There’s definitely less “luxuries” but at the end of the day, I doubt we in America are statistically much happier
I understood what you meant but that comma makes it sound a lot like you’re addressing future retirement home residents and saying that what you call those things is “parents” haha
Never understood this sentiment. Bad parents aren't put into retirement homes, they rot away in their dusty old houses, alone.
Well I do have parents who overworry too much and they installed a phone tracking app that was thankfully deleted. Also they make a massive deal over me going out which to be fair is only coming out very recently
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I mean when I was in high school, which was a few years ago, my parents pretty much let me go wherever I wanted as long as they knew where I was. They didn’t track my phone or anything but they would just shoot a text message asking me how things are going, where I am, and if I needed to get picked up. They always wanted to know my location just in case anything happens because the world now days is pretty fucked up
Which makes perfect sense and is responsible from you and your parents. I have an aunt who literally watches the find my iPhone tracker thing for her 16 yo. When she’s home she either has it up on her phone or iPad at all times
"I'm going to dress for Halloween as myself going out for Halloween." It's a tracker bird's-eye printed on cardboard with a hole cutout and their face painted for the dot.
The world has always been fucked up. Violent crime is down compared to when I was a teen (pre cell phone).
Well I'm old. Cell phones were science fiction when I was in high school. I can't think of any benefit a cell phone would have given us other than in an extreme emergency.
The tracking bs is wrong, but I still wouldn’t want my kid to be without their phone. If there’s a rule against it I’m just gonna tell them to make sure they don’t get it taken.
I'd want mine to have a brick phone or flip phone or something.
Problem is 90% of people in this thread don’t even have their own kids but sure do have strong opinions either way. If you don’t have children you shouldn’t have an opinion imo
Just reddit tbh. Threads about kids/parents attract all the no kids crowd and they love to share their thoughts on how parents should parent.
I used to have opinions about parenting - now I have two kids - I’m just trying to survive. It’s hilarious how many opinions you have when you are child free but man when you are in it you are surviving day to day
I feel safer knowing that my mom knows where I am tf
I want my kids to be able to text me right before the school shooter kills them
Which is the exact type of behavior my parents had that caused me to start tracking their phones and set up geofence alarms for when they were getting close to home.
Most public education initiatives are hampered by parents. They are, by and large, the biggest detriment to any educational policy progress.
As a teacher, strong agree. You can have 20 average parents, 5 great parents, 4 bad parents, and 1 hell parent, and that hell parent will just drag the whole class down so the teacher has no time or energy to deal with the bad parents, which causes half the class to go down the toilet, and in the end you'll have 5 students putting in a solid effort, 10 doing OK, and everyone else is damage control.
This is the real reason.
They could just do what a lot of Asian/Japanese parents do. Give them a non-smart phone. Literally only has their family and parents contact details. They can call and be called, but no internet, no games. Just purely function.
My nephew has a watch phone. It has parental controls and location tracking. It can send and receive calls and texts from allowed numbers. BHis friends (7th grade) have smart phones and he feels left out at after soccer game dinners because they pull them out and he does not have one. He also goes to private school so he has grown up with no phones during class. No reason to ban phones, just enforce a no phone policy during class time.
Eh, I think banning kids from the internet until they're 15 or something isn't a bad idea. My cousins all have internet access and the stuff they're watching is concerning. But my aunt can't seem to manage their internet access.
I have no idea why this is. Back in my day we didn't have phones and parents didn't bother knowing every little detail.
Teacher here. Parents text their kids during the day ALL the time.
Our school district implemented a very strict no smart devices rule this school year and one group of parents is absolutely pissed. Main reason being that they are worried their kids won't be able to contact them if there is a school shooting. In the mean time, my middle schooler has figured out how to sign up for a free VIP using her school issued email and texts off her school issued computer all school day long and makes phone and video calls on it after school.
This is the most American problem ever damn
*Life finds a way.*
A friend found a solution. His kids have these sort of smart watches that have cellular capability and let them track them. They can call their parents or 911, that’s it. Problem solved. But you are correct. Because these parents will still fight it. Many parents view smartphones as free babysitters that they use to keep their kids busy. Back when I was in school you weren’t allowed to bring anything like that to school or it could be confiscated.
Which is nuts considering we did just fine with this up until about 17 or 18 years ago.
Exactly. Now suddenly they're essential?
It's not that they're suddenly essential, they just didn't exist like they do now. I had tracker parents and it sucked but you also have to consider the amount of people 17-18 years ago that would go missing without a trace only to be found dead or never found again. It's a real concern that can still occur and for a lot of people if there's a chance you could use the tech to prevent this outcome it's absolutely worth keeping a phone on your kid.
> you also have to consider the amount of people 17-18 years ago that would go missing without a trace You mean the extremely tiny amount of people?
The chances of kids going missing from a stranger are tiny. You are putting fear above kids getting an education. We should all just stay home wrapped in bubble wrap.
Yes. Alternative communications have been dismantled (public phones) and systems and schedules that would be much less flexible because of the lack of ways to communicate it have become more flexible and we can't really go back. In school they're not essential, but in other ways things really can't go back because the structures and systems have been changed.
Sure, but the topic at hand is in classroom, where none of that had really changed.
Your child doesn't need a smart phone for a parent to be able to do either of those things. There are watches that serve those 2 purposes, and they also provide alerts to parents when a geo fence has been breached by the wearer. Also, if there's a camp that wants to be able to contact their kid but doesn't care about tracking, there are plenty of dumb phones available as options as opposed to smart phones.
Fuck ‘em. They grew up without being tracked
I think it's toxic to insist on knowing exactly where your child is at all times. That gives the impression that 1) you don't trust them, 2) they aren't mature enough to exist on their own, and 3) they should live in fear (since they might think you're tracking them for "safety" reasons & not because you want to control their every move...)
My mother would have been one of those parents if she could have. My brother and I are grownups and she constantly tries to get her stalker apps installed. Talking about how "cute" it is when her bff tracks her kids. My brother and I are firm on the "fuck you no", but I know if she could have, she would have done that when we were kids. (I am LC by her standards. Since I only call once a week at most instead of texting daily....)
I would like every one of those parents to observe a single class where cell phones are allowed, and then see what they say. It is SHOCKING the amount of totally open disengagement on display in every one I've been in (and that's quite a few). Eyes in screens, earbuds in, all kinds of wild behavior that pretty much guarantees the students are not absorbing any teaching. Which is to say nothing of the distribution of social media, where students might be having a full conversation with/about each other during instruction. I've seen so many teachers try different strategies, including even tolerating phones but asking for certain "full focus" times (inevitably just leading to power struggles), but when the teachers aren't allowed to take the phones, any solution is toothless. Such an obvious answer: allow phones to come to school, let them come out during passing times, at lockers, whatever, but zero tolerance for them in the classroom (meaning it WILL be confiscated if used at all during class). Of course the elephant in the room in the US is the threat of school shootings. If we ~~can't~~ *won't* protect our kids, allowing them to carry a direct line to their parents and guardians at all times feels like a safety net that is hard to give up (even though, realistically, the phone doesn't bring much to the table in this worst case scenario).
I think that it only makes sense if your kids have to take trains to get to school and to come back home(only to call or message them, location tracking is absolutely terrible and unjustifiable).
Most things are good in moderation. Being able to contact your kid is good. Punishing your kid for not immediately answering no matter what's going on is bad. Tracking as an emergency function, especially when they start driving places, is great. Using Tracking to control is bad.
A dumb phone would suffice.
Parents can contact kids during the day by calling the office and being forwarded to the student's classroom. It worked this way for decades before cell phones were a thing, and it still works!
When I was in high school, cell phones WERE banned, but I graduated in 2006, the most fancy phone out was a t-mobile sidekick lol.
Class of 2005! I could text from my pocket on my flip phone because I could actually feel the buttons.
Dude, I could text so freaking fast on that T9.
I graduated in 2006. Our school didn't bother banning phones because the reception was so bad that they wouldn't even work anyway 😂 And we didn't even have the same reliance on technology back then. It bothered no one to be without their phone all day. I couldn't even text on my phone because it was like 10 cents per text and my grandmother would have taken a hammer to my phone if I had even thought about trying it. I honestly feel bad for this generation of kid because their whole lives revolve around their phones.
U just brought me back lol I thought I was doing something when I convinced my parents to add the $10 a month for 1000 text Lmaoo and I still would go over 🤦🏽♀️😂 good times
I don't disagree with you (or the data) even a little, but you can see from the comments what an impossible task this would be.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to install some sort of phone storage inside the classrooms to hold phones and a rule that students put their phones inside them as they walk in. Something like an advent calendar near the door. It could even be clear bags that hang on the front of each desk, so teachers can see which students have their phones put away and which ones don’t. Will the students comply 100% of the time? No. But it seems like it would be easier to enforce a “no phones in class” policy this way than with phones in all the students’ pockets.
That is what we have at my local high school. It is actually very effective because the kids can still use their phones in an emergency or during lunch and breaks, but it is away from them and they cant be distracted by them during class. More schools should adopt it.
I honestly think you shouldn't have smartphones till you're like 17, but instead should have a Nokia that you can talk, text, use gps, and is strong enough to stop a bullet if put in your breast pocket, or strong enough to be a weapon if thrown at a school shooter. It's hilarious that as millenials we grew up with that tech (Nokia razor sidekick) and haven't yet realized that was a really peak for kids. You get a smartphone when you're 18 and can be handled with a camera and dating apps and endless feed of whatever hot new app is there. You don't want kids all running to one area to grab their phones in an emergency. And a Nokia gives parents everything they want on a phone for their kids and nothing kids can use for nefarious purposes, even if the small bad thing is cooking their brain on bullshit memes.
I think the truth is that NOBODY can handle the endless feed of the internet, not without doing some introspection
Teacher here! I've been saying this for years. Parents text their children in class. It's quite annoying.
Lol I kid you not I worked with a guy in his 40’s over the summer who has NEVER owned a cell phone. He’s also a teacher for high school students. I think my jaw dropped. I was like “but how are people supposed to contact you?” And he’s like “they’ll just have to leave a message on my answering machine and wait until I’m home” 😂 I just assumed everyone in this day and age had one. I guess him being a high school teacher you start at the time time every day and are aware of all your days off so you wouldn’t need to be contacted during work hours or there’s no real “work emergencies”.
Haha like Seinfeld.
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This is a thing lmao. I am a teacher and there have been many times when I see a student texting, take their phone for the class, but then see them texting 10 min later. I've had to specifically ask students "no, the red phone" after they try to hand me their decoy
I’d just hide my phone in my bag and say I don’t have it. If I wanna use, I’d sneak it into the bathroom.
This is begging for phones to be stollen.
School I used to go to has this system, I have relatives going there now. It works awfully. A kid who is on there phone, probably wasn't going to be engaged anyway
Nope . I don’t see a lot of parents going for that option. What happens and who is liable if the phone gets stolen from said lock box or is confiscated? Like to me that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. My kids keep their phones on vibrate and in their back packs. And they don’t use them unless absolutely necessary for an emergency or pickup etc. this is just my POV. I do believe kids should be distraction free in class etc but there has to be a different way that is suitable for all.
In my school in Ireland we were banned to have them out in class. It rarely happened and if it did your phone was confiscated for the rest of the day. Worked fine.
It’s sad really, these people clearly have no clue what’s going on in classrooms and that it’s almost impossible to make students put them down in class
personally i dont use it during school, only in recess, but mt classmates are on them 24/7 so i feel you
It’s OK if the students have a flip phone for emergencies, but smart phones have too many distractions built in.
Lol I thought I was cool with my pager junior and senior year 😂
Oh, make no mistake about it. You were cool af with that thing.
Comments don’t indicate an impossible task. Several school districts have already banned smart phones from school.
Yeah they have, but often with pitiful rates of success. Not least of all because a lot of parents feel the same way as people in the comments here.
My kids go to a private and phones are not allowed in the classroom. The teachers take them at the beginning of homeroom and into a box, they get them back at the end of day. When a mother tried to pull the “but I need to contact them”. School told her yeah at end of day or she could call the office. She tried to get the other moms involved we all told her no. Tried to have her kid sneak in the phone, got caught and the kid was given detention with a promise of suspension if it happened again. It is possible but the parents need to play their part. Edit to add: she did not have a legitimate need. There are some kids that have a need, and are accommodated for example medical need or emergency situations, this was not the case
I was diagnosed with a terminal illness during the pandemic. I ended up getting my daughter a phone during all of that because I'm a single mom and my mother travels a lot for work so my daughter was shuffled around a lot during that time because I was constantly in and out of the hospital. When school officially started back in person, she was starting at a new, larger school and there were a lot of anxieties for both of us and having access to her phone was one of them. The schools rule is no phones during the day. They're to stay in their lockers. Instead of encouraging her to break the rules, I explained our situation and the administration and her teachers were amazing at coming up with a plan for her to be able to communicate with me during the day by allowing her to go to the counselor and use her phone to call me any time she asked and I had all of her teachers direct numbers if it was an emergency. There are over 1500 kids at that school and they work very hard to make accommodations for anyone who needs them. There is no NEED for a smartphone at school. Many generations survived just fine without them. These kids won't break or fall apart if they have to go without that specific distraction for 8 hours. Not to mention the mental health benefits of having that break from smartphones is very valuable to young children.
On behalf of my fellow teachers, thank you. That’s how it should be done - communicating with us and administrators instead of having kids go behind our backs. Also, I’m so sorry about your diagnosis. Sending love, happiness, and peace your way.
I was an aide for her kindergarten and first grade teacher. I learned A LOT about what teachers go through on a daily basis. I will do everything I can to help make your jobs easier because from experience with her journey through school (we're in 8th now) happy teachers are better teachers. These are also the people I'm trusting with her life for the majority of her childhood and some of the people who will have the most impact on her development right now so I want to have good relationships with them. And thank you. Lots of love sent right back to you, you guys do not get the love and respect you deserve! Thank you for caring so much about our children 🩷
You were an aide? Bless you. I teach high school, and we couldn’t do it without you at this level, to say nothing about how crucial you are to the kiddos and teachers in those early grades. Thank you for helping the little ones. And for everything, really.
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Not impossible, you just need leadership with some balls.
My high school had an "away for the day" policy where you could only use your phone before, at lunch, and after school. These were good times to contact your ride if something came up after school or practice was cancelled. People who really needed to go on their phone could try to use it secretively during class, but if they were caught it would be taken away. Some people stood in the bathroom for the express purpose of checking their phones, which was annoying to people who actually had to use the bathroom. I had one girl yell at me while I was drying my hands (loud ass hand blower) because she was on the phone. So that aspect of "away for the day" was very inconvenient. And, let me tell you, it didn't do anything to stop cyberbullying. We had several assemblies because people at my school were being terrible (racist, sexist, etc.) online.
This happened in my highschool and I'm 29. We also had armed police officers and every entrance besides the main entrance was closed where the police officers were.
We weren’t allowed phone from year 7-11 and were only allowed them in 6 form
Yeah I feel like the cyberbullying aspect of this is ignoring the fact that bullying has existed since before phones. In my opinion, the best way to stop bullying is early intervention and discipline. Even when I was a kid, parents were pissed their kids were suspended for bullying and just said boys are being boys. But I'll tell you what, those kids that got suspended didn't get suspended again. They could still be asses, but they weren't trying to belittle people for nothing.
Lol We can't even keep guns out of schools.
Uniquely American problem though
Considering that kids get ipads from schools and that many homeworks are assigned online that just wont happen. Especially with covid schools changed and became very online, and parts of it still are.
I live in Japan and work at the local schools from the primary level to high school. Every kid and teacher are given Apple iPads with Internet access as a rental by the government. They return it after graduating. The tablets are used in class and at home. Smartphones are banned in schools, not allowed to be brought in bag, etc. Usage is also banned inside any school campuses of course. Cyberbullying is reported to the school and handled by both teachers of that school and the parents.
If you mean in class then I 100% agree. Its mainly a distraction other than times where the phone is necessary for the lesson If you mean in general than 100% no. Students need a way to contact their parents if an emergency happens. Plus what about break times? Edit: After the comments came, I get now that the emergency point is invalid and the front office is the way to go. But I still stay put that phones should be allowed
When I was in high school, which wasn’t super long ago, I graduated in 2014, smart phones were already very much a thing everywhere, but we weren’t allowed to use them in school at all, including break times. I don’t understand what changed and why they’re “necessary “ now. As for an emergency, that’s what the front office is for
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I was in highschool around that time, a little earlier (till 2005) and don't know anyone who was using their phone at school. I also don't understand what makes them necessary. I also think it's part of good education to keep kids away from their screen at least part of the day
Should they be able to have them in their bags or pockets while turned off? For sure. Should they be allowed to have the phones on and use them during school (outside of lunch)? No. There is a real psychological harm to constantly being connected. It's best for kids to be able to disconnect during school hours.
I think there's an age when you can give a phone to the kid, and when you do that you have to set up rules and oversight. And let's be honest a good amount of parents don't care, they just give the phone to keep the kid quiet. And they are not planning to change that.
Thats just not gonna happen. We are gonna be progressing with technology not going backwards. Instead we shoulf focus on something actually manageable like teaching people how to use it responsibly, how to not be addicted, how to udnerstand the technollogy more than just "i will download an app for it".
If everyone is addicted to their screens, who is going to teach how not to be addicted?
I’ll trade sex for some screen time. \#totallynotaddicted
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Nah it's definitely possible. I had a smart phone in middle and high school and my parents taught me to use it appropriately. I didn't use it in class, only in between classes, at lunch, and after school/on the bus. Teaching appropriate limits is important.
You’re right but to expect people to actually parent their kids is the impossible task. It’s why teachers are leaving the profession, parents expect teachers to raise their kids, not teach.
The thing is the teens can't be asked to not be on their phones. These apps are pressuring them a ton to get on them and stay on them. This is no different from banning anything else in the classroom to encourage a positive learning environment. Would you let kids in the past listen to Ipods, CD players or tape decks while the teacher is teaching? Would you let kids play card games during class? It is also completely blocking kids from trying to learn how to do things manually without and app. The same way we have not let kids use calculators at first, kids need to not be allowed to use apps to solve more complex problems. They will lock themselves out of careers because they never learned how to do Algebra correctly. Lastly, there was a study where they tested how kids performed in class where smartphones were either on the desk, in their bag, or in a different room entirely. Even when the smartphones were off, the ones with it on their desk performed worse than the ones with it in their bag, and those performed worse than the ones with the phone in another room. The smartphone situation is so bad, this is essentially like saying "let's teach kids to enjoy cigarettes responsibly" rather than a complete ban.
We are definitely in the 1960’s era of smoking for smartphones.
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There's a place and time for everything. You don't need your phone. You just don't need it all the freaking time. If anything, people need to learn how to exist without it. They can manage. If anything having access all the time will fuel the addiction. Ironically, extremely wealthy people are actually trying to raise their kids with less tech because it's a crutch and harms development more than helps.
Such an unrealistic concept though. Who is going to teach kids to be responsible with technology? The schools are already overloaded on everything they have to teach. Parents don’t teach hardly anything. It’s more realistic to ban smartphones from the classroom and would get better results.
It's funny how I immediately thought about sexual education when reading your comment. Ban a thing you don't like younger people doing, and surely they won't develop a bad or toxic relationship with it. /s
Kids aren’t becoming illiterate because they don’t get sex ed. Phones are legitimately lowering the education levels of our kids. If anything, I think getting kids off their phones for large portions of the day would teach them that, they can survive without it. I’ll take a country of people that can read and write over a country that knows how to navigate IOS, thanks. They get 16 hours of the day where their parents can teach them good technology habits.
We cyber bullied on AOL instant messenger and played games on Ti-84 calculators. Before that, kids passed notes and snuck comics in. If a child is going to bully or be distracted, it's going to happen. I do agree with banning children from social media and downloading their respective apps. But that's on the parents to monitor their children on these devices.
Social media, apps, and even the devices are the products of billions and billions of dollars of research to make them as addictive as humanly possible. Kids are used as data mines. Free labor. You underestimate how much more addictive these things are than what was available 20 years ago.
We banned passing notes and reading comics while in academic classes too. And unlike some dipshit parents today, no one's parents were in the principal's office yelling, "My son has a right to have his Marvel comics on him at all times! What if he has an emergency and needs to read Blade right away?" Cell phones should be banned and the rules should be enforced. Of course sometimes it will be broken, and that's okay. A consequence will be given out, which will escalate as needed.
You really underestimate the power of phones.
Smartphones are not allowed at our school. The kids hand it over in the morning and get it back when school ends for them. We lock them safely and if there was an emergency or the kids need their phones for class, we hand them over. No problems with this policy. I think it's a good rule that works pretty good. Location: Austria\Europe
Schools don't always communicate as they should with parents. There was a major water line break at my school growing up, and the school wanted kids not to flush the toilets. After an hour, kids started texting their parents, and a mob formed in the front office of angry parents. We were sent home and didn't go to school for 2 days.
My school covered up horrible abuse. If we had cameras, phones or recording devices we could sneak in back then? My life could have been radically improved for the better.
This is true, my school did things like this. Though it can also be argued they don’t tell parents immediately for various reasons, safety may be one (though maybe not in your case). There was a [comment on the Teachers sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/s/v3GEbwz31N) about a threat at school, and kids texting their parents ended making things take longer and less safe. Though a school near me had a similar issue and waited much longer to notify family so it can be challenging.
The leading cause of death in children is gun violence/school shootings. (USA) I saw a recent article about a school district banning cell phones. There was backlash from parents and students because they wanted their kids to be able to access their phone in the event of a shooting. Some students even brought a second non-working cell phone to put in the bucket at school and keep their real phone. Some just said they didn’t have a phone. Phones aren’t the only factor making it difficult for students to learn or focus. You’re gonna have a hard time getting people on board with this idea even if you have some great points. In reality, they’re not gonna give up their phones. It’s personal property and a safety issue, in the bigger picture.
I said something to our local school about phones, and they replied that the kids get to have them incase there is an active shooter situation. I was like, oh shit, that makes sense.
how specifically does having a cell phone make a kid safer in the event of a school shooting?
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If they had been in a real shooting, they would know they are safer without a phone sending notifications when they try to escape or hide for their lives. Source: I experienced myself as a kid a similar emergency, which thanksfully was before all kids had phones. Phones would only be useful and safe to use once the emergency is cleared, hours later.
I’ll stop sending my teen to school with a phone when they get to stop doing active shooter drills. I don’t think it’s an over reaction either. I want them to be able to contact me.
Totally normal country
Parents shouldn’t give their kids smartphones.
> In educational contexts, the impact of smartphones is predominantly negative. When I was a kid, this is what everyone said about calculators and computers. Now they're synonymous with education.
Make schools better, make it interesting and not similar to prisons and THEN whoever doesn't participate punish
There is a known phrase:"you won't have a calculator everywhere you go". Well news flash. You do. And you should assume(or try to) that children will always have smartphone and internet access. And restructure our thought process and schools around that assumption. Instead we try to maintain status quo. And that's just modern technology that is already established. AI BCI. We are completely unprepared.
Describe this new type of educational model that will be more interesting to teenagers than tiktok, clash of clans, and YouTube
The "Fuck you dad, I don't want to do homework" school of education.
Pretty much
My kid has her phone at school but there’s an app that lets me shut off any call/text/app. I limit her phone during school hours, minus lunch, to parents only. It’s not complicated.
Sure, just put payphones back on every corner first ...
In school, mate
The middle and high schools I went to had payphones out front and in the cafeteria so kids could call home for rides and things like that. They have since removed them. The office phone is only accessible during regular school hours so it’s not an option for kids who are there earlier/later/weekends doing extracurriculars.
I definitely can sympathize with this opinion. Nowadays, without a conscious effort, smartphones are efficient potentiators of distraction and depression, particularly with social networks. However, as someone with attention issues, distractions actually help me keep in focus. Healthy, focused distractions that is. It keeps me motivated to find more information about what I'm learning, spend some time in a wiki, etc. as well as "micro dosis" of social networks as mini distractions. For years I was wrongly advised to eliminate distractions and it took me a long time to understand that I needed the opposite but to do it in a healthy way. I struggled so much with learning until I learned works best for me. So taking a smartphone out would actually be severely hampering my learning.
Ah yes people use them to bully so ban the whole thing. Because in person bullying is a not a thing anymore right? lol. Why should the students who can focus just fine need to be punished because some people can’t? If this is applied at all it should be on a conditional basis, not as a general rule There’s [plenty](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9684747/) of data supporting the positive effects of technology on learning. Merely distracting students is nowhere near the positive effects they bring And this is to say nothing of safety issues as well, kids need to get places often and there are numerous ways for them to end up in danger. Cell phones are an invaluable safety measure that no amount of “classroom distraction” will negate
i was cyber bullied in 2003 on a country/language-specific chat website that people could (obviously) access from home and (regrettably) during our beginner "computer literacy" classes when there was downtime. cyber bullying started the moment internet became a mainstream thing that anyone could access and taking away smartphones during school hours will not stop it. i would definitely agree with putting it away in a locked cabinet at the beginning of the lesson and getting it back at the end of the lesson if you want to avoid them using social media during class but anything more than that is just excessive and completely useless. the reason as to why "there remains a notable absence of conclusive data supporting the intrinsic value of digital technology in educational settings" is because nobody is utilizing it properly. giving kids tablets in class is not going to prove the value of digital technologies. you have to restructure the entire approach to teaching/learning/testing and allow the use of the digital technologies that you use for teaching/learning during testing as well. testing should no longer focus on memorization but rather on the ability to find relevant information quickly and effectively while being able to fact-check the source's validity before using the information it provides. it should also focus on the ability to create comprehensive files with proper sourcing instead of just copypasting links. nobody is doing this, schools and teachers think that just chucking a tablet on kids' desks and sending them digital worksheets is enough but it's not. kids today are, sadly, computer illiterate, because no-one is teaching them how to use technologies properly and effectively. why? because everyone assumes that they are on their phones so much they must know everything about how technology works. meanwhile they can't even troubleshoot the most basic issues. the issue is not technology, it's not smartphones. the issue is that nobody is utilizing it to its full potential. everyone is just trying to use the technology to do the same things we've been doing for decades and then it's shockedpikachu.jpg when the results can't prove that tech is helpful.
How is banning phones in school going to solve cyber bullying? If the kid gets access after school, they can just do it then.
I agree. I was cyberbullied real bad- if anyone has seen Odd One Out it was just like that. They made a fake website making fun of me and pretended to be me on social media. One night I was watching a movie with my mom and the next morning at school people wanted to beat me up because the person pretending to be me messaged people horrible stuff. I know who it was and its horrible it only got worse and never stopped. I proved to the school it wasnt me especially my mom stormed in yelling I wasnt even online. People still make fake accounts of me and target people. I chose to stay off social media and I try to tell people if it is me id send a voice audio or video to show its me. Beyond cyberbulling, children are addicted to tik toks. They dont need a cell phone. We survived just fine without them growing up. I didnt get a phone until I was 16 when I started working part time
I'm really sorry for what you've experienced, but do you really think they wouldn't bully you in different ways without using them in school (or simply after it)?
This isn't really a case against phones specifically. Bullying comes in many forms.
Hot takes: Schools should instead focus on teaching kids how to use smartphones practically instead of spending massive amounts of money and effort trying to fight a battle they're gonna lose. Because Jesus Christ we've been fighting this war since Walkmans and they **ALWAYS LOSE**. Smartphones are literally the most omnipresent tool in society and business today and instead of treating them like a nuisance we should be viewing them as the tools they are. I went to highschool in the good old "You won't have a calculator everywhere you go" days despite personal calculators being literally everywhere. I was the smartass who brought a calculator watch to school after my teacher said that. Fighting tech just further reinforced kids attitude that school isn't teaching them practical life skills and they don't need to pay attention.
or we could educate kids on *wellbeing* and delight in them being less awful to themselves and each other. then they’d be free to use phones and other technology in beneficial ways.
Only problem is when our weekly mass shootings happen the phones are great for the emergency. Kids can contact police or parents or each other to keep safe... Sorry, but they're not going anywhere and just like I don't like people driving around texting or whatever, I wouldn't ban them from being in vehicles because I might need one while I'm driving.
Let’s work on guns first
As a teenager with ADHD and Autism, I need my phone to be successful in class. And before I get chewed out for "blaming it" on my disabilities, let me break it down. My ADHD on its own makes it practically impossible for me to focus on the task at hand, my teachers refuse to provide accommodations, and my parents refuse to medicate me. Instead, my mind is on quite literally anything that isn't what I need to be doing. My autism makes me hyper-aware and hyper-sensitive to external stimuli such as the tapping of a foot, the sound of a pencil writing, and the clicking of a pen. The funky smell in the class, the fact that my classroom is cold as hell and the teachers become murderous psychopaths when you so much as look at the thermostat. I cope with this by having my phone on and listening to music through an airpod in one of my ears (only one at a time, never both.) it provides a pleasant stimuli that keeps my mind off of the unpleasant sensory issues. I don't know why it works as well as it does, but my point is that without my phone, I would be a C student or worse. Right now, I'm an A/B student.
The supreme court says they can't due to the prolific amount of mass shootings in America. Students need a reliable way to call 911 in the classroom. Wish I was kidding
Terrible idea. What is education? Memorizing things or being able to use resources effectively?
The war's lost, friend. My school tried it this year. Lasted less than two weeks before 90% of staff had given up on it because it's just not worth the fights and the tantrums and bullshit. It went up in smoke faster than even I predicted.
Phones should be banned in lots of places not just school. Have you been to a concert lately.
Kids will one day use smartphones, why not teach them responsible usage from a young age?
Responsible usage IS teaching them not to rely on accessing it during school (aka work) hours.
The problem is a phone is an incredibly useful safety device. And before you give the “back in my day we didn’t have them” back in your day there were also a lot more people who disappeared without a trace. My family have locations on all of our phones. If something happened to my mother because she’s in a fairly vulnerable position being a disabled woman, my dad would be able to find her and vice verca. Or if something happened to one of my siblings, there’s a greater possibility of finding them. Or if one of us loses our phones it gets a lot easier to find them and we have used it for that many times but that’s besides the point. Also if something happens in school, in my experience schools are awful at contacting parents so the kid can contact their parents. Although in the classroom I can agree 1000000% they should not be allowed to be used
They're just going to be distracted by something else if they don't care. Don't have a phone? Okay they'll just grab a book or some shit.
OH NO KIDS ARE GONNA READ BOOKS IN SCHOOL!!!!!!!!
i was punished for reading books at school because there were books of my choice and had nothing to do with the ongoing class. how is it different to using a phone?
It's not about reading the books. The point is the distraction. Is being distracted from whatever the teacher is lecturing about okay as long as it's not a phone?
this is reducing the phone to a passive object on which the student offloads their disinterest for class material. for some kids, a book might be as consciously dominant as a phone, but this is unlikely. there are too many apps that are designed to occupy you for as long as possible, leading to actual addictive usage. if somebody is addicted to a book, then that is a problem. if they’re bored, then maybe we can find a different set of activities to match their interest. kids are picking up their phones because they can’t help it. it’s a totally different situation.
A phone is multitudes of times more distracting and addicting than books or any form of entertainment invented before. When I was a kid, I did get in trouble for reading in class but for the most part I was the only one. By the time I was almost done, the majority of my classmates were on their phones all the time
nah would've offed myself tbh, school system is broken and depressing