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Phones are distracting students in class. More states are pressing schools to ban them
(www.nbcnews.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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To be very clear, I was not suggesting that a cop arrest a student for opening Instagram.
My point is that schools will be significantly more able to resist parental pressure when the school boards quite literally do not have the authority to make the decision. Perhaps there is some room for exceptions with legitimate need, but I'd argue that the bar needs to be pretty high for that, because again, it was in fact possible for students to attend school without phones for essentially all of human history. If a parent really needs to get a message to a student, they can call the office.
You are assuming that the only reason for a student to have a smartphone in class is to make a call.
Besides special needs students that may require their own set of regulations if laws are to be drafted. We are only considering what smartphones are currently capable of. What if in the future they are capable of things that are considered essential learning tools? If a law was passed to blanket ban specific devices or sweep up even more technology then it will be hard to revoke when required.
The school system already has all the tools it needs to deal with distractions in the classroom. The issue at hand seems to be more a systemic one than a technological one.
I'm not against some system of qualified exceptions, though they'd need to be very tight or you'll suddenly find every parent discovering their kid's own special need.
From conversations I've had with teachers, this is not at all remotely consistent with what they report.
I am not a teacher and not part of the school system right now. Are schools no longer allowed to send kids to the principal's office? Or send a letter to their parents? Or issue detention? Or is it that none of those methods help? Is a teacher's only course of action to remind students to not look at their phones during class?
When I read the article and the teacher realized that as long as the students looking at their phones were quiet it was fine it really just seemed to me like that teacher failed. If a parent said that, I would also think they failed.
There have always been distractions in the classroom and unless we are talking about a diagnosis of addiction, smartphone uses shouldn't be treated differently.
"There have always been distractions in the classroom and unless we are talking about a diagnosis of addiction, smartphone uses shouldn't be treated differently."
If that's what it comes down to then, fine. Maybe some serious research should be done in the subject.
But, until then why allow something in classrooms that isn't just a simple distraction. It's a tool with lots of uses that should never be allowed in school (and I'm not just talking about cheating).
It's also an easy method of bullying that can be very difficult to stay ahead of.