Canadian schools are experimenting with cellphone bans, but some parents say the devices are lifelines
Canadian schools are experimenting with cellphone bans, but some parents say the devices are lifelines
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American high school teacher here (Midwest region). We implemented a policy this year banning cellphones in instructional spaces during instructional time. Enforceable by confiscation if teachers saw or heard a phone. We have a strong set of administrators who supported teachers in any case where there was student pushback. It has been a huge success in terms of limiting distractions during instructional time. All of our students are provided Chromebooks so there really isn’t much of an instructional reason to have phones anyway. It has also contributed to a drop in student-on-student behavior problems.
I do feel for the girl in this article for whom it was used as a coping mechanism for bullying. No policy comes with zero downsides. However, it sounds like she was allowed exceptions in certain cases, which is exactly what should happen.
I do feel for the girl in this article for whom it was used as a coping mechanism for bullying. No policy comes with zero downsides
Right, it's kind of a trolley problem. Is it better to do lesser harm through action (banning cell phones, meaning a few students like this can't reach their family during school hours), or greater harm through inaction (loose cell phone policy, harming the learning process for everyone, inviting violence against teachers who are competing against addictive algorithms for their students' attention)?
Cell phones barely existed when I was in school and were certainly out of reach for students. Bullying still happened (personal experience, yay) and staff would shut that shit down when they saw it or it was reported.
I also went to school with no cell phones, and was bullied mercilessly. Staff didn't care then, and I doubt they care now. I'm glad you went to a school where the adults cared.
When was this? I was in high school during the early 00's. There were no cell phones, not because of policy, but because they just weren't commonplace.
It's not lesser harm since no one else is gonna pay for the mental health bills nor could revert the damage done from the bullying. And when someone snaps from bullying you are gonna see blood for sure. (and little kids/teens snaps from very little things, talking from experiences.) have you ever seen clip where a chubby kid slams a bully teasing him upside down? the bully got slammed could be paralyzed for life, or worse dead, the chubby kid that got bullied could bear that trauma for life, it happens when bully think no one is watching and it's "life as usual", picking on this bigger kid to have some power fantasy or bragging to his mates. If the chubby kid had the tool, pull out a phone and push a button and say, "I'm live streaming this and will report to teacher and my parents, watch your action and leave me alone." Wouldn't the violence resolved without potential life changing events?
I meant harm in that it affects "one or a few students" rather than affecting "practically all students."
school is place to learn 2 things:
- proper social interaction and becoming a responsible adult.
- essential knowledge and skills before you branch out and find your thing to earn your own meals.
And IMO, the first point is way more important than the second. Let's see the implication by breaking down the proposed ban.
From the anti-bullying side:
- deterrent tool is taken away
- bully now have a "safe" grey area to do their thing and become he says/she says.
- teachers or admins could not keep eyes on everyone, and some of them don't care if there are no bodily harms happened.
- you know how much teens will listen to what adults said, even with laid out consequences.
From the learning, focus during instructional time:
- I grew up without any gadgets(45yo) so no gameboy until I was at high school. Everyone still found ways to distract themselves from boring classes.
- for schools without student chromebook/laptop/tablet, you lose a big chunk of diversity in "asking questions" or "find alternatives". aka, I feel teacher said something off, how do I find something to support my talking point or argument? Fact checking, math checking, etc.
- The guys that are not interested in your material and have nothing to distract themselves with will just stare at something they interested in or day dreaming stuff. It will not help average score or engagement.
For engagement, from my old self and what my friends here from different background/countries/age bracket discuss their past, the one common thing is fun knowledgeable teacher and how enjoyable their class was last life time long. It shapes their understanding, how they engage other people or topics involving different areas. kids and teens are like herds of fun chasing animal, if even half of your class is having fun and discuss the materials and exchanging questions etc, the rest will follow cause they don't want to be "left out".
In short, if a teen can learn how to calculate DPS and build sets for their favorite game but fails the math about probability and expected value, the teacher is doing something wrong.
Again, your old self, and mine for that matter, didn't have the constant, always-on global communications device in your pocket with precision-engineered addiction algorithms frying your dopamine receptors. Yes, I'm going to boomer out here and say that ShitTok and their ilk are a scourge on youth and on society as a whole. The predictive promotional algorithm, flashy multimedia content, and, let's be honest, what amounts of soft porn in many cases, absolutely lays waste to attention spans and studious pursuits — doubly so in young, fertile minds. No teacher, no matter how good they are, can compete with that.
I can't link to it right now for obvious reasons, but there was a post a little while ago on /r/teachers from an experienced educator lamenting on how the behaviour of students has degraded dramatically in just the last few years. They not only lack respect for their teachers, they're actively disrespectful and sometimes flat-out violent towards educators and staff (particularly when their dopamine pumps are confiscated), and willfully destructive. Students lash out, destroy expensive equipment for fun, and are just downright ineducable.
I may be mixing my sources right now, I believe this was from a corresponding YouTube video that was linked in the post or comments, but the concluding notion I was left with is that there's an epidemic of emotional dysregulation among youth, induced by combination of poor parenting, lack of effective authority, and — the big one — smartphone addiction. The sentiment that lingers in my head: kids today are no longer interested in learning, they're only interested in how they can be entertained in the next five minutes.
I think there could be an agreeable balance where students are expected to leave their devices out of sight and on mute during instructional and recess periods. This could be a teaching tool for them to learn about the common courtesy of not being disruptive in settings where attentiveness and other activities are expected and appropriate. Or, really, they could just leave their phones in their lockers. We survived just fine without them at all.
That is what the adults needs to do, push for regulation(ie. on very basic level, no NSFW content gets to feed into minor's feed), setup app screen time with parent control or even do something similar that works with schools boards. If district, school or PTA needs that implemented, hire some professionals and do the jobs properly so no algorithms feed apps during school hours.
Let me just say this, banning or taking the device away does not solve the issue, they still have that dopamine hit if they have a 2nd device hidden away.(thus regulation on the provider side is important.) I had classmates in high school literally buy a new weekly manga since it was confiscated by the teacher just to finish his weekly follow ups.
If people give 3yo phone/tablets to watch youtube to keep them quite and not engaging them, it's not hard to see how they grow up to be, right?
PS. also, non-verbal people really needs their phone to communicate properly or people that are neurodivergent and would require time to compose legible sentences. I doubt any common chomps understand what they said if they use the talking board.
PS. also, non-verbal people really needs their phone to communicate properly or people that are neurodivergent and would require time to compose legible sentences. I doubt any common chomps understand what they said if they use the talking board.
This is what exceptions are for. That doesn't invalidate the need for rules.
Yet you did not address my main points. How are you going to enforce the rules?
- 2nd/extra device hidden away? you gonna strip search every student?
- student find ways to jail break or using exploits on school provided devices, simply using browser based vpn extension to get around school limits? (this require professional setups on the school end to actual gate the access.)
I am simply arguing that taking away the device does not address the fundamental issue of engagements, but it does take away good tools when it's needed. It's like parents shifting blames of "additive XXXXX' (replace anything that get blames for in the past, rock bands, violent video games, porn streaming, now tiktok.) The parents and teachers are responsible for pushing regulation and putting in time learning new stuff and "educate" their young how to behave and self regulate.
Enough with the strawmen. If teachers see students using a phone, they confiscate it for the period. They can confiscate a second phone, too.
If are/were kids playing video games, listening to music, and watching porn in class, guess what, those things are rightly confiscated as well.
It's not straw man cause that's exactly what kids do, they are not stupid and let you see their 2nd device. every time you confiscated something highly sought after, they get smarter and better at hiding, finding excuses to get a peek at stuff they want. I don't know which era you come from but from my high school year/region you can get expelled possess indecent material(like playboy magazine) and people still manage to sneak in and hide at some secret spot. If you are in the "club" you get to know where to check it out. And people go "poop" for extended time back then. What? You gonna stop them to go pee or poop?
Even if you TSA setup the entire school, if the class is boring there will still be no engagement, now what? Gonna blame the student is just bad and drop them out?
The entire preface of no phone == no distraction is laughable. And yet what's your solution about stop bullying? Remember that's what trigger the whole discussion? I guess you don't care since it's less harm done.
Oh, yeah, almost forgot, the guy I mentioned above that find spots to hide magazine later graduated from top university in my home country and still kick ass in his domain leading about 50 people sized team. Who knew the quick thinking and strategic minded can be applied in real world, right?