In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning.
The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes.
I may be a creaking ancient, but is the policy not “get in trouble if your phone is seen in class, or even taken away”?
It used to be, but nowadays it seems that students don’t really give a shit. They’ll downright just refuse to do what a teacher/other figure of authority will ask/tell them to do.
Can’t they just be asked to leave class if they refuse to cooperate or have some other kind of sanction imposed such as a complaint to the parents or a deduction in the grade?
The problem is parents arguing that they want their kids to have them at all times. Then they call and text their kids all day during school. I even had a football coach call one of my students during class.
The culture of instant communication at all times is really killing our kids’ education. Parents just need to back the fuck off.
I hate to even say this but now in America you can go straight for the top shelf drama and say your kid needs a phone in case of a school shooting.
What good does that do when the parents go pick it up that day and give it to the kid? It’s the parents not following through with the punishment and cutting the authority of the school off at the knees.
If you do that as a teacher, not only will you be getting pushback from that student and others, but also said student’s parents.
When I was a kid, you respected teachers and if you didn’t, you got punished at school AND at home. These days parents are rude assholes too, and god forbid you try and correct their precious snowflake’s shitty behaviour.
And bans only really work if the school management has your back and make it a schoolwide ban. Otherwise it’s simply not worth the fight.
“When you were a kid…” No they fucking did not. Some kids have always been little shits and some “parents” only qualifications were functional gonads. It’s always been that way and always will.
Your memory is fading so you don’t remember.
https://news.ucsb.edu/2019/019669/kids-these-days
Just like many other distractions before them, phones take kids attention away from school activities. Kids have always looked to avoid classwork. Pre-cell phones, teachers were collecting comic books, different popular toys, friendship bracelets etc… it’s just the lastest issue on constant battle: Teachers try to get kids to learn, kids do everything they can to avoid it.
Most schools around here have implemented a no phone policy during class. If the phone is out, it’s sent to the office for them to collect at the end of the day.
Because of this policy, in my kids middle school some very talented kids are creatively bypassing school controls on their Chromebooks to play games. It’s an ongoing battle between a loosely organized group of 50 kids and the schools IT department. By my count the IT has squashed 9 different versions each more sophisticated than the last. The kids are hands down winning right now with a truly elegant and devious solution.
If you don’t remember the fact that kids were more respectful 25 years ago or so, you’re probably less than 25 years old. The shit teachers deal with today simply did not happen back then.
Didn’t happen at your school, maybe. I grew up in public school in the hood. There were maybe 15 kids in the student body, myself included, that were there to learn anything. Everyone else was causing fights or stealing shit or just trying to be funny all the time.
It used to be, but then the parents get involved and have a hissy fit. They say f it, I don’t get paid enough for this extra stress.
This is a result of the US teaching for arbitrary ass tests, pushing bullshit curriculums, and using 40 hour school weeks + homework as a prepping ground for their shitty 9-5 future job, while underpaying + under supporting teachers. This isn’t a “moody kids with phone” problem. Are phones an issue in classrooms everywhere? Yes. Could kids use less screentime? Yes. Is the US schooling system a well studied topic of how not to construct teaching curriculums for children? Also yes.
Yours is the first comment I see that thinks further than “phones bad, mkay”. Thanks for that. I am a teacher myself, and I don’t see the phones themselves being the problem, but the fact that the curriculum is totally outdated and irrelevant to this generation and the students know this. I have personally fought to get some ‘technology weeks’ (where I teach 3D modelling, animation and programming) and the phones stay in the students pockets for the entirety of those classes (without me telling them to!), because the subject is relevant, interesting and actually requires for them to think creatively instead of just memorising facts.
(: thanks. I’m studying to be a teacher in Europe but grew up with the standard SAT American educational experience. It was miserable and my whole life I was always “the problem student”, and I was “smart but never applied myself”. Learning about it now, I realize I was a kid that needed support that was outside of the standard, and my problems were caused by the system itself being an unbending machine. It’s really depressing to think how many other “problem” kids were in my classes over the years that were just trying to seek help but didn’t know how to express it and were completely failed by the system.
Sampling bias? Because you’ve seen only students that came to lesson, and those who would use phones didn’t come in the first place?
Yeah, everything op mentioned is elective, as well. Meaning all of those kids, more or less, chose to be in that class. Maybe that’s what op means by outdated curriculum.
While I agree students shouldn’t be distracted with their phones during class I don’t think enacting a law is the best remedy for the malady. This aught to be resolved by school district or even just a classroom policy.
The issue with local policy like that is that school boards or individual teachers are hugely susceptible to parental rage. Countless teachers will talk about how every parent has some reason why little Timmy just absolutely must have his TikTok machine on him at all times, just in case his mom needs to text him and can’t be bothered to call the school office.
Having some state-level precedent makes this much easier for local officials, who can just say that they’re following state guidelines.
has some reason why little Timmy just absolutely must have his TikTok machine on him at all times, just in case his mom needs to text him and can’t be bothered to call the school office
And that’s a problem why exactly? Why is every comment here pretending that there is either being glued to the screen of your phone or having it locked away, no inbetween?
Schools can somehow enforce completely rediculous clothign regulations but “the phone stays in your bag unless it’s an emergency” is somehow impossible because it’s some kind of law of nature that you must stare at the screen 24/7.
Do you want to have to watch your 25+ students every minute to enforce your rule, or would you like to teach your lesson?
Actually yes. I want the students watched because that’s part of teaching. Ignoring them to the point it’s extra work to even look at them once a minute while while reproducing some book verbally or in writing is not.
That’s a fair point. But what’s worse for a student, not paying attention in class or getting a cop sent into the classroom to arrest/assault them?
If it’s a law, and the school has a cop on premises it’s just a question of when will a teacher ask a cop to deal with it.
I am not sure if a law enforced by the government and courtrooms without much room for exception is the best idea. What if a student genuinely needs a phone in class?
Why couldn’t the precedent be a school policy similar to how some schools might have a uniform policy? Why would it be easier to enforce a uniform policy than a no phone policy?
Also, what is the difference between a highschool and a college interms of phone use during class?
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.
Just saying… after dealing with schools for my entire career, theres a reason why parents dont want to have to rely on the office to deliver anything.
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.
The school system already has all the tools it needs to deal with distractions in the classroom.
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.
When the school shootings 100% stop and the bullying dealt with sure I’m willing to revisit this but not a chance in hell am I sending my kid to school without a way to reach me.
I like the idea of the cell phone cubby. It’s there if an emergency arises, but out of reach otherwise. It’s a good solid middle ground.
And who is watching those cubbies? Better be locked that’s a lot of money just sitting around. Will you have time to unlock in an emergency though?
I mean, it’s right there in the room where everyone can see it. No reason they can’t have it between classes. Just hang it on the wall during class and face minor consequences for not putting it up and getting caught with it. It’s not a big deal
I don’t have kids, and when I was in school no one had phones, so I’m way out of the loop, but there were various electronic devices that could be a distraction. Portable music players, handheld games, even a graphing calculator in a non-math or science class, any one of these would have been confiscated if used during class.
I can not think of a single reason a student should have access to a phone during class that can’t be solved another way.
I don’t think the issue is that teachers don’t want to take away the distractions, it’s more that they aren’t given the needed authority any more.
Students have notably less respect for their teachers and will often simply refuse to obey, and physically forcing them is obviously out of the question. Not to mention the absolute shitstorm that breaks over any teacher when one of the students complains at home and so invokes the fury of a helicopter parent.
We used to sneak Tiger electronic handheld games into class. Just put it in your lap and pretend you were reading the textbook.
I mean yeah, we got caught sometimes. But not often enough to stop doing it.
The scourge in my grade school was Rubik’s Cubes.
What I actually like about phones in classrooms is a transparency. Every fuck up like teacher being rude or kids picking fights with each other would be recorded from a couple of angles. 20-30 teens collected together in a small room and feel bored is a recipe for something to happen, especially when teacher is that bad at getting their attention. That’s a highlighted reason why the same law was introduced in my country - to defend teachers from responsibility while they are to indocrinate youth with things even kids don’t find believable and use force if necessary.
If you are into surveillance wouldn’t it be easier to just install cameras everywhere and record everything? Then phone can stay away and locked.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for this, it sounds like a 1984 nightmare. It’s just that you don’t need kids with phones to enact surveillance
It matters who have that survelliance capability. With phones all parties are equal to report problems, with cameras - it’s school, and it’s not that hard to imagine them losing data when they themselves are at risk of a lawsuit. Besides, mass surveiliance via cameras would rightfully meet a pushback (and it’s an overkill) while phones are already here and already fixated tons of problems.
Totally agree camera it’s an overkill and they rightly meet a push back, I’d be one of those. It’s just that we are trying to fix something that in dont see as a problem, with something that doesn’t make any sense. Phones haven’t been in a classroom for long. If the main reason you think they should remain is because they have a camera and they might catch something, it looks like a pretty weak one to me given all the downsides - kids at school are not schooling l.
It was one of the reasons why banning phones is stupid. Besides obvious, like a way to contact a child when it’s not at home, or using it to find information, access cloud documents, editing them.
Phones aren’t a problem. Bad parenting and bad teaching are.
If you are into surveillance wouldn’t it be easier to just install cameras everywhere and record everything? Then phone can stay away and locked.
Never works in kids’ favor. Catch teacher lying or yelling? Never.
If you wondering that country is Russia.
would have been stolen*
As someone with severe ADHD, if I don’t have something to listen to(through headphones obviously) or to mess with in my hands, I can pay attention to about 3 words before I am completely distracted with how the ceiling tiling looks. I get that a lot of students simply don’t pay attention as a result of their phone, but for some of us, it’s the only reason we can pay attention.
Not to mention, ebooks are a thing, and when you’re pirating them you don’t have to worry about overdue fees or your book getting stolen/damaged.
Final point, a lot of my teachers were dogshit, so learning from Wikipedia and other sources was vastly more entertaining and informative than listening to them try to explain addition to that dumbass in the back for the 8th time when he can’t even read
What I love is how kids scream that they need their phones in case of emergencies, but are actually using them to text and watch Netflix. OK here comes the “when I was a kid this is how things were” speech - but when I was a kid, we got by just fine knowing if we needed a phone there was an office nearby. Of course that was in the stone ages before cell phones and hula hoops and frisbees and all these other modern doodads.
When I was a kid, Columbine made national headlines for years. Now we have a school shooting almost every day.
When I was a kid, textbook rental at my public school in my senior year of high school cost more than any given semester of college tuition for either of my parents.
It’s easy to look back and think you’ve seen this all before, but you never step foot in the same river twice and this one’s a lot deeper and wider than the one you used to wade in.
You had me at textbook rental in in a public high school. Wtf is that a thing now?
If it was the kids screaming they would be totally ignored. It’s the parents that get pissed off when their kids aren’t instantly texting them back.
That would have seriously fucked me up as a kid.
When I was a kid school shootings were just becoming a thing and we didn’t have cell phones. I think parents will prefer to have them as long as the shooting situation continues. It’s the only way you would have direct contact with your kid in that situation. If we had it back in my day my parents would have sent me with a phone. When I got to highschool phones became more available and they got me one.
Yeah I’m not against kids having phones for emergencies, I’m just against them having them on to text or sext or other stuff during school time. It’s a different age. When I was in school, I don’t think there had been a recorded school shooting yet (I mean this was the 60s and 70s) so, it wasn’t even a thing we had to worry about.
On the other hand, this is how we know about teachers doing things they absolutely shouldn’t do.
I read books in class. I drew pictures in class. I just looked out the window and daydreamed. Kids aren’t going to pay attention just because you take away their phones.
EDIT: I’m honestly amazed people are against that. Are you not aware that this is why we have videos like this that expose racist teachers?
https://abc7.com/fontana-sequoia-middle-school-teacher-racial-slur/13092208/
I’m bored and could use the downvotes, so here are a bunch more examples of students filming teachers doing things that are unacceptable or just plain illegal in class because they have their phones:
https://www.wdbo.com/news/news/local/student-films-teacher-whipping-students-belt/nmJzW/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/student-teacher-qanon-video-shouting-b1951071.html
https://www.yourtango.com/news/video-math-teacher-mimicking-native-american-culture
https://www.yourtango.com/news/california-teacher-robert-bean-threatening-slam-student-against-wall
Wow, that math one! They did the same thing in my kid’s math class! It was during Covid, so the teacher recorded it himself without a second thought! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!
I hear what you’re saying about recording. But Im not sure phones in class are the answer.
I don’t know what other answer there is to stop teachers getting away with this shit. The racism and sexual harassment I saw on display when I was going to school in Indiana in the 80s and 90s was not a secret. But since it was always the teacher’s word against the kid’s, the teacher always got away with it. The only time I can think of that it didn’t happen was when a very devoted girl and her family in my high school spent a lot of time and money in court suing a teacher who sexually harassed her in middle school. He had his job the whole time (he was finally fired when he lost the case).
Security cameras in classes? They have them on busses.
I’m in my 30s and back in college and the amount of little shit heels on Tik Tok during the professor’s lecture is too damn high! (Had to)
Makes me want to walk around class and slap the phones out of their hands, maybe slap them too. Hella disrespectful to the the teach and distracting for students who actually want to be there.
I feel like college professors are often overwhelmed by the the amount of it, and really just aren’t disciplinarians like K-12 teachers are.
In theory college processors are as much researchers as teachers, many moreso. That said if students want to waste the money they’re paying by distracting themselves from the learning, the grades will likely reflect that. If I was teaching at college level, I would take solace in that
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They aren’t going to pass the class like that. Damn sure not at medical school. The students are only wasting their own time and money. Someone who makes straight C’s through med school still gets to be called Doctor at the end of it but these kids aren’t going to make even close to that grade if they’re not paying attention.
There are a lot of things to consider here. The world has changed.
Kids have legitimate reasons for having a cell phone today. It makes it infinitely easier to coordinate pickups, care of siblings, emergencies, job scheduling, etc. it shouldn’t be used during class, but ae a parent i have enough legit reasons i want my daughter to have her phone on her and as long as its not being used during class, then the school can fuck right off. Ill decide whats best for my child. If she uses it during class, give her detention or whatever. Or tell me and ill handle itat home.
Beyond that, i dont want a teacher confiscating a device that costs several hundred dollars. That would lead to teachers or admins mysteriously “losing” the phone, only for it to show up on eBay.
There have also heen numerous high profile incidents of the bad behavior of teachers, students, and security personnel. I kinda like the idea of kids being able to not only defend themselves but also provide evidence to authorities that would probably have not believed them otherwise.
Today, phones are a ubiquitous paret of everyone’s lives. Schools are better off trying to figure out how to integrate the technology into their lessons instead of a futile war against them.
That’s true the world has changed and we’re much more an interconnected and online society than before. And a case can be made that phones have good uses as you point out.
But, coordinating pickups and job scheduling and such still shouldn’t be done during class time. The problem here is that kids are allowing themselves to be distracted by their phones, and are using them in harmful ways - I’ve seen it myself, my neices and nephews talking about sex pictures they have been sent by their classmates during school hours.
I think phones and laptops definitely belong in modern schoolrooms but they do need to be regulated in some way. Kids are not as well-heeled as adults are and don’t see the dangers.
Apple and google should add location based parental control, in addition to the time based. A checkbox ‘in a school’ would be easy. Let parents disable things they don’t need like Netflix while leaving them with their emergency communication device.
Not perfect, but it would help.
There is already time based controls with Google family.
The question is why students will watch Netflix instead of listening and learning. It wasn’t better in the past as they didn’t have a smartphone. The situation is different.
We live in a world in perpetual movement. The school is in a new situation. Tomorrow, the situation will change again and again.
What to do? We can go back to how we think it was in the past. But, it will never be. People and society changed. How we see the world around us changed.
Or, we can do what any government did in the past 30 years, putting money in schools and education. The school has to follow the change in the perception of the world by adapting their methods. Instead of 2x+2x=4x, you can learn 2 smartphones + 2 smartphones = 4 smartphones.
The other point is that we are in an ultra individual time. And, school can’t be like that. School is a common. You have to play in team. This need to build a relationship and confidence between teachers and students and between students. But, nobody gives the time and money to do so. Bullying is high for example and isn’t addressed properly.
It’s not that it was better before. It changed and we didn’t put the money so the school followed the perpetual change.
I’m leaning the other way on this. Give them tasks to do with their phones. Put the phones to work.
Anything that has a student’s attention is a potential route of engagement. Employing that route is infinitely better than banning it.
“Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.”
-Marshall McLuhan
Smartphones are not purely entertainment machines. They are super connected, extremely portable computers.
You could connect a Bluetooth keyboard to a phone and use it to take notes.
You could ask the class to search the internet for examples or interesting facts.
There are a lot of ways a teacher can utilize students smartphones in a classroom. Ways that might help students understand technology better in a modern world.
This is why I hate crApple. They turn phones into entertainment machines. And also why I root(pun intended) for non-android Linux phones.
Your comment has nothing to do with the quote I’ve provided. Other than you possibly misunderstanding it.
Heh, you’re right. I misunderstood the meaning of why you posted that quote. Maybe you could add your intentions next time as quotes are often misunderstood and misrepresented. I have a similar issue.
What you don’t understand you can make mean anything.
-Chuck Palahniuk, Diary
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Maybe reread it?
Idk dude. Google it.
Edit: gotta love the angry downvote. 😂
Your quote has nothing to do with the comment provided above it.
School districts where i live have plenty of laptops and chromebooks for these activities.
Also any kind of emergency can happen while a kid is at school, the obvious one for the americans is an active shooter but it could be anything even an earth quake or other disaster where it all of a sudden becomes very important for each student to have their own line of communication available.
People always say this, but somehow society and schools did manage to function before 2008.
We know that access to phones causes significantly worse student performance. Is it really worth harming all students’ ability to learn just so that, in the event of a rare emergency, a family can get an “all good” message a little bit faster? Schools were perfectly able to locate and track their students during emergencies and notify families before smartphones existed, speaking as someone who was in an extreme weather emergency during school myself during that time.
Yeah, I feel like the only way it would be useful is in the very unlikely event you somehow get cut off from everyone else. Parents likely can’t do anything useful until the emergency is over anyway and I don’t know who else you would call that the school wouldn’t already have called.
Why 2008? Why arbitrary year?
Phone safe on the wall. If there’s a good reason you can always access your phone, but you don’t have it in your hands while in class.
You don’t have to lock it up right away. In Germany, at least the school I went to, we’re allowed to have them on us, they have to stay in the pocket or bag and should at least be in do not disturb or silent mode. Otherwise, only then teachers take it away and you have to retrieve it from the admin office when you leave. (It’s more relaxed too in the last two years when you’re around 18, I’m pretty sure in a lot of classes I just had it on the desk when teachers didn’t mind. It still had to not cause distractions though.)
Generally this worked well (though, I left our equivalent of high school in 2019, no idea how it is now), except in some classes with oblivious teachers. But I feel like in those cases, you can make all the laws you want and it won’t fix shit.
In Germany, at least the school I went to, we’re allowed to have them on us, they have to stay in the pocket or bag and should at least be in do not disturb or silent mode.
It’s a perfectly reasonable policy that many, if not most, US Schools either had or still have. The problem is that Students are increasingly refusing to comply with Social Order rules like this and Teachers increasingly don’t have the authority or ability to enforce them when they’re broken. The policy only works when the majority of people willingly comply, just like nearly all of the other rules / policies / laws that society creates.
So what does a Teacher do when 15 of their 20 students have their phones out and are using them in class?
Teachers increasingly don’t have the authority or ability to enforce them when they’re broken.
Well, I feel like this is the main problem then. If teachers aren’t allowed to enforce any rules, what are we even talking about here. Especially kids will do anything they can get away with. (I certainly did my fair share of shenanigans too.)
The policy only works when the majority of people willingly comply, just like nearly all of the other rules / policies / laws that society creates.
So what does a Teacher do when 15 of their 20 students have their phones out and are using them in class?
Really? I think this is very different since it’s in a controlled environment with a relatively small group of people. Or at least, it should be. The teacher should very reasonably be able to take all of those away. And if not, here they certainly had the ability to escalate.
The teacher should very reasonably be able to take all of those away.
I agree that they should be, but increasingly they can’t. It’s being prevented by a bunch of entitled students and the dumb-ass parents that support them. Even in this Post here on Lemmy you can find people arguing that students should have on demand access to their smartphones.
Have you tried earning people’s attention instead of demanding it?
What next? Pay teachers decent wages?! Never!
