- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
This so government overreach. Let the teachers and school admin decide. There no need to get the state government involved.
Good idea. Its of the main reason why education today is faltering. Allowing too many screen in the class room is simply a bad idea. These kids have the no ability to stay focused in any way. They way they learn guarantees many will never learn to read without a screen and the internet. I see it often in my current job.
Ontario has now passed two different bills banning cell phones in school. It’s a great distraction from actual problems. I fully expect we’ll pass a third in a few years if our provincial government is re-elected
Teachers don’t need a sheet of paper at a legislature somewhere to take away cellphones. They can do that already, and if the kids disobey a legislature won’t help. I assume no one is expecting kids to go to prison for having a cellphone
The key thing is that teachers can ban phones in their individual classrooms if the school permits it.
There are many schools in which the senior admin don’t institute phone bans (you’d be surprised how common this is).
Legislating it helps maintain consistency and parity between schools nation wide, which is important as it’s a quality of education issue, so the policy should be consistent across all schools.
I’m not from North America, but the situation is similar across most western democracies.
I very much think smartphones do not belong in the classroom.
That said, I also very much think that assault rifles don’t belong in schools. And until we can prevent that, we can’t really take away the only way for parents to figure out if their kid is dead or just traumatized.
The problem with this position is that your child being a victim of a school shooting is extremely rare. Phones are ubiquitous. You’re trading the risk of something that will likely not happen to any one student (and won’t really help anything anyway), for a near guaranteed risk of serious damage to many kids education.
You understand that a lot of communication in that scenario can, at worst, lead to crucial misinformation about what’s going on and, at best, is unnecessary, don’t you?
Obviously, these shootings happen, but the solution is not to arm each student with a cell phone, just as it sure as hell isn’t to arm each teacher with a firearm.
The detrimental effects of cell phone usage in the classroom are well documented and plain as day if you just walk into a high school or middle school lesson. Even with highly engaging teachers and lessons, there are kids who slip through the cracks because nobody can compete with the newest fad app designed to melt a child’s brain and possibly drain their parent’s bank accounts.
This move addresses a significant issue within our school system. Addressing gun violence in the US is a very complex issue that needs to be tackled through a lot of different fronts. Kids having smart phones in school will not address that issue.
Obviously, these shootings happen, but the solution is not to arm each student with a cell phone, just as it sure as hell isn’t to arm each teacher with a firearm.
You’re right. The solution is fucking gun control. Not isolating those kids out of fear that they might give the cops misinformation and there won’t e a safe space to play flappy bird while children are being executed.
So how about you shut the fuck up about how it is more important to isolate the kids than to protect them? Hmm?
I think flip/dumb phones are still allowed with most smartphone bans, are you suggesting this one is different?
I think this is less about isolating kids than it is separating them from distracting and addictive apps.
Also it creates a class distinction in schools - some kids don’t have them causing them to be socially isolated
Personally I think the schools should be handing out locked down wifi phones to students without smart phones. But I don’t think any part of this is about isolating students.
Lol isolating kids? They’re at school… If someone needs to get information out, there are already channels of communication.
Hope you have a better day.
Edit:
The need for gun control in the US is absolutely dire from any and all perspectives of public health, from school shootings to suicide.
The effect smart phones have had on our students is significant and must be addressed as many kids are not learning in the classroom.
Both of these things are true. Both must be addressed.
I mean, you could get social media companies to turn posting off during school hours, that’d sure take the wind out of the sales of most of the most blatant things students do when they pull their phones out in class
Little derps get their news from that shit anyways, let’s treat it the same as the 24 hour news cycle crisis and just make the companies stop for the parts of the day where people need most to be focusing on other shit. No airwaves, no airwaves occupying everyone’s eyeballs and sending them into doomscroll mode.
Honestly that could be a pretty good gimmick for a new social media company in general, you can write, snap, record, photograph whatever, BUT all posts publish in the morning or evening “editions” and comments are open for 2 hours after (you can go back and comment on old posts), I feel like it could be an artificial scarcity thing, if people only have limited time when they can use the platform in a day, they’ll make the most of that time whenever they’re able.
Flip phones still exist.
Are increasingly unavailable on basically any real phone plan and effectively require a dedicated purchase. Rather than giving the kid yoru old motorola you kept in the drawer.
Also, as 9-11 and other “holy shit” moments taught us, having a wide range of ways to communicate with people when EVERYONE is trying to call or even text people (SMS is a best effort protocol for a reason) is important.
Again, if we actually care about the children? Stop fucking shooting them to death. Maybe then we can figure out why they don’t need to be constantly connected to everyone they know.
A Light Phone or Light phone 2 is capable of doing literally everything you need from a smart phone without the bloat and distraction. It’s legitimate with most service providers as well.
There’s viable options out there that aren’t “flip phones”.
Light phones also cost 300-800 (!?!?!) USD and aren’t carried by phone providers who give people “a free upgrade” every few years.
Yes, there are the parents who buy their toddler a flagship iphone. The vast majority are just taking the phone they were totally going to recycle that has been living in the junk drawer for years and give it to their kid for emergencies and fortnite.
They can be used on each of the following carrier’s: AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon (except for prepaid plans and Number Share), Ting, Mint, US Mobile.
So, I’m not sure what you mean by providers who give “free upgrades”…
It’s cheaper than most smart phones and does everything you need it to do without games and social media.
The vast majority of phone providers (in the US at least, which is where this is pertinent) have heavily subsidized phones if you agree to an N-month contract. And while the price of that can come out worse, it is also a lot easier for underprivileged people to spend an extra few bucks a month for two years than to set aside that money to make the couple hundred dollar purchase (for better or for worse).
And if you are willing to actually talk to a CSR you can often get the price to pay off that phone completely negated. Which IS good if that phone plan is good for you.
To my knowledge, Light does not partner with any of the major carriers so that is not an option. So you are buying those phones, regardless.
The Internet loves to build this strawman of a first grader who has the latest top end iphone. And… some of those do exist. But mostly it is parents getting a phone either “for free” or actually for free because they agree to not leave Verizon or whatever for 2 years and giving the old one to their kid.
Yeah a phone that can only calls 9-1-1 is basically a Uvdale special. It’s better for the kids to be able to teach the parents
This wasn’t possible 10 years ago so why does it matter today?
Besides, the cops are just going to arrest you if you try to go in, they have to stand outside and let the shooter play themselves out shooting your kids before they’ll let anyone in.
Vaccines didn’t exist 200 years ago, so why should we allow them today?
“I have seen these addictive algorithms pull in young people, literally capture them and make them prisoners in a space where they are cut off from human connection, social interaction and normal classroom activity”
Literally? What kind of devices is she using that have these cyborg powers, and why am I just hearing about this now? Shit, mine just has cringe teens dancing.
Is she going to ban hats next? Put in a law telling students exactly how they can decorate their lockers?
Surely there are more pressing things to be legislated?
As someone who went through the NY public school system many years ago, I can confirm hats were/are hard banned. Like unless it was for religious reasons you really couldn’t even think about putting something on your head.
Cell phones were also banned in my youth but I guess times have changed?
Oh yes, but by the school. Not the law. We have elected positions specifically for figuring out how schools should teach children. Also top down negative mandates about clothes are already borderline abuses of power. We want laws preventing admins from going overboard, not mega bans in state law.
The research showing the impact of cellphones during class outweighs an individual’s opinion. This has nothing to do with fashion and can’t be compared to hats or locker decorations.
It’s no different than sleeping through class or just doodling and ignoring the teacher. If the kid can’t not have their phone out then they get banished to the back of the class. If they play noise they get sent to the office, just like disruptive kids in every generation.
It’s no different than sleeping through class or just doodling and ignoring the teacher.
And there you have it folks, doodling is the same as these social media apps designed to be addictive that also lead to all kinds of bullying and social anxieties and harassment.
I’m sorry, you think banning smartphones at school is going to stop cyber bullying? Because bullies infamously follow the rules and kids are at school 24/7?
You said it was the same as doodling. I responded to that. All that other stuff you added was just fabricated in your own head.
The research showing the impact of cellphones during class outweighs an individual’s opinion.
More broadly, any kind of in-class interruption can hurt academic performance. This same logic has been applied to dress codes, speech constraints (most famously Bong Hits for Jesus), and behavioral edicts.
But this wack-a-mole strategy of prohibitions isn’t championed because it is particularly effective. There’s always some new distraction in the classroom you can chase after next. The strategy is championed because its cheap. Banning cell phones has very little budgeted cost as a public policy. By contrast, reducing class sizes and providing more hands-on learning opportunities and hiring/retaining highly educated teachers has an enormous price tag.
Nevermind which strategy has a proven history of increased student performance. We just need to keep locking enormous pools of children in tiny windowless classrooms and throwing increasingly byzantine standardized tests at them, then chasing any student who produces a “distraction” from this mind-numbing educational policy.
This sucks, because smartphones could be such fantastic tools in a classroom. Not that I’m under the illusion that they’re being used in any sort of productive way (or even would be), I was once a kid scrolling through shitposts and memes in class. But having all of the textbooks in one place, the ability to record lectures and whiteboards for later review, and automated schedule management would’ve definitely made my high school education a lot smoother.
The other side of the coin on this. Cell phones as day planners are invaluable. So kids who have spent their lives organizing their schedules on digital calendars are being told “Oops! Sorry. You can’t use that anymore. We caught someone else using it incorrectly.”
Incidentally, I’m old enough to remember how every graphing calculator in the school had video games installed on them and half my class carried a gameboy someone on their persons. This is going to be pure wack-a-mole as a policy. Selectively enforced, with lots of high profile punishments for minor infractions and inevitably highly intrusive misconduct by individual teachers and principles. Richer, whiter students will almost certainly be exempted from the policy through loopholes. Poorer, blacker students will be shoved even more forcefully through the School To Prison Pipeline. Cops will inevitably get involved in the worst possible way.
And all of this will be sold as a means of “reducing distractions”.
they could have incorporated similar tech to teach children better. or we could figure out why class is so boring when the subjects can be so interesting. kids clearly want and would clearly benefit from the integration of this tech.
but nooo lets ban phones instead because we want things to stay like they were 40 years ago and is not much work.
Gross! Couldn’t even let schools decide, somehow it’s important to ban them state-wide? Piss off.
The state is responsible for the education of children. This absolutely falls within their scope.
A state wide mono-culture based on an unsolved cultural issue isn’t “education” it’s inherently heavy handed.
It also actively harms schools that may be trying to teach students how to use cell phones productively in their lives to help them solve problems rather than pretending as though they don’t exist.
schools teach how to use cell phones
If you were serious, your country is in deep shit.
Ahh yes, hostile partial quoting to make my country seem unintelligent; welcome to my block list.
How it’s handled in countries such as Norway or The Netherlands is that those kinds of classes are exempt from the ban. It’s not a hard issue to solve.
Part of that is teaching people how to control their impulses and stay on task.
Your workspace isn’t going to have you hang your phone up on the wall somewhere when you come into work and have someone tell you “now is the time to use your phone.”
College isn’t going to do it either.
We also could take some cues that maybe this isn’t all as serious as we make it out to be. My high school back in the 2010s gave us a ton of busy work, insisted on making it effectively mandatory if you wanted a decent grade, didn’t let people go to the bathroom without asking permission and using a sign out sheet, insisted every second of every lesson was crucial, and was very strict about not pulling out your cell phone basically ever (kids still snuck texts here and there).
I see more merits for small children, but in general I’m strongly in favor of radical changes to how we approach education … because learning should be fun but is not for so many people … and we forget so much of what we’ve been “taught” anyways.
Great,I fully support this
Schools should be places to learn, not to be distracted by continuous alerts from phone addicted children
I fully support this as long as they put the pay phones back in the schools so kids can call their parents when they need to
Why would even that be necessary? It’s school, not jail or drug den…
Kids survived fine without phones for millenia, I’m sure they can survive now. If there is a real emergency, then I’m sure some supervisor can make a call…
What is wrong with you
Nothing.
Im a normal person who grew up during the time that there were no mobile phones, and we got by just fine. Anyone arguing that its torture or dangerous to remove mobile.phones from school really need to calm down. It literally NEVER was an issue until literally the last 10 years of this worlds existence, you cannot come up with any argument that requires kids to have one.
I can come up with a shit tonne of arguments why they shouldn’t have one, though
A school shouldn’t make kids pay to call their legal guardian. Make phone calls free.
Either way, there should some way to do it without having to go to the main office and ask to use their phone or something. When I was a kid we had payphones, back when it cost a dime.
I’m sorry but just wondering here… Why would you need to phone home up to the point where you can’t be without a phone? I didn’t have phones in my school, never needed them either. A lot of people are acting as if not having phones will kill them where in reality, everyone will be just fine.
Like when my kid is finished with his club after school and it’s raining and he’d like me to pick him up. Or he’s at school and realizes he forgot to take his medication. One time his bike was broken and he couldn’t ride it.
I’m glad for you that you never once had a need to call home. I congratulate you. Some people do need to, and I just hope they have a way.
You do understand that the entire world had those “problems” since forever until just only about 10 years ago or so? It wasn’t a life or death back then, it isn’t now.
Sure, there are some limited life or death situations where a mobile phone is critical, none of what you describe is.
Also I was talking about mobile phones in school. They are a deterrent to learning and must go, period. You don’t NEED a mobile phone at school. You take it with you? Put it in your locker.
Kids having a medical emergency at school don’t need a mobile phone, they need teachers and school employees making sure an ambulance is on the way.
Its Raining at a club? Well, I drive my bike home and get wet. I’m sorry but that isn’t going to kill you.
Seriously, whats up with this generation to think that all these new shiny gadgets that they have are critical to life? They’re not. Never were.
And no, I’m not some anti tech genezer. I grew up with computers, I was almost always ahead of everyone in tech, and now work as a CTO. I simply understand that people get way too worked up about their tech gadgets and moreover, I see the hurt mobile phones do to children, which is far greater than the imagined issues people come upmwith if they were without their phone