Parents have not idea whatsoever of the destruction that phones have wrought on the education system, both in the large and in the small. Students who claim otherwise are gaslighting their parents. Parents are unfortunately all too willing to believe the lies because of course their child is above average and would never completely tune out of class for another hit on the electronic crack pipe.
At this point, the problem has become too entrenched to actually do anything. Parents have come to the mistaken conclusion that Johnny needs a smartphone to keep in touch during the day (why exactly is a great question). Administrators have more or less given up. And without backup from administrators, teachers are left to fend for themselves. The ones who step in to take phones away, or deal with the problem in any meaningful way face threats to their physical well-being.
The tethering of kids to parents via phones is a tragedy of biblical proportions, but the effects will not be obvious for a few years yet. Education is just the obvious flash point.
Is this an American thing? Here in Germany my son is not allowed to have a phone at school. He doesn't have one anyway, but kids that do have to give up their phones in the morning, which are in a locked box and they get them back in the afternoon when they go home.
Nobody ever asked us about it, it's simply school policy.
I didn’t have a phone until college but I still didn’t pay attention in class in high school. It seems like a fantasy to think that if not for smartphones students would be happily sitting quietly listening to teachers, then go home and studiously do their homework. That’s just never been the case at any point in history.
I didn't get my first real phone until after high school, while everyone else had one.
I graduated salutatorian. I was able to focus on my homework after school for hours without distractions. I had a computer at home, but it was pretty crappy.
There's a phrase for something that people can't stop using -- addictive substance.
We (and companies) need to ditch the equivocation and be honest about what we created.
(Edit) > Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging.
Someone shouldn't be texting or calling on their cell in an active shooter situation anyway. One phone per teacher/room, with the ability for anyone to dial emergency services, is better.
I agree that phones/apps/social media/video games are addictive (the ones that aren't just don't get popular) but I disagree with your proposed framework for identifying "addictive" things for children in schools. Schools are very artificial environments with a massive lack of stimulation and self-agency for young developing human children. Damn near anything is "addictive" in that environment - books, doodling, origami, annoying people around you, etc.
Would be interesting if phones would be "addictive" to children used to playing outdoors in autonomous groups in (semi-nomadic, not city-based) pre-colombian civilizations.
I think this goes a bit deeper on a forum like this. Like it or not, many many many folks here work for companies enabling this addiction.
One thing I've noticed over my 20 years in business - many, often very bright folks need to feel they work a moral job, doing good for the world. So far so good. But then we meet reality of gray office jobs with unclear positive/negative rating, ie working in bank is bad? But which type of bank and which job? Classic retail ones don't do crises, they store money for common folks so they don't keep it under mattress, and give loans to start businesses. Or working for google, is it the great-maps-for-free or tracking-the-hell-out-of-ya one? Same for facebook etc.
I am fairly strict on this topic and agree with you - we've created unparalleled addiction devices. Don't trust me, random stranger, check almost any kid with phone, which is almost any kid. Check their habits, ask parents, ask at school. Its pretty consistent and dark picture. There are ways to lesser the problem, but problem at its core is seemingly too hard - maybe kids actually shouldn't have their phones, rationing is already dealing with addicted (=fucked up for life) situation. Fucking up entire generation isn't balanced with saving few lives, even as a parent that's a completely stupid approach from any angle. Maybe we shouldn't listen to only most vocal folks in our communities? The loudest ones often have unresolved mental issues that distort otherwise good discussions badly.
But then we go even deeper - growing up kids these days is darn hard. State doesn't help much actually, if you are far away from close family and are not one of those few family-only types who can find life fulfillment for 2 decades straight, without any meaningful break, in just parenting. So folks little by little give up on being a perfect parent, and to have some time off they allow it. And then there is peer pressure. Remember a generation ago kids spent their lives in front of TV? And our parents didn't care that much, did they (little yes, but actually going and finding a new cool hobby for their kid? rare)
> Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
Then buy a 30€ dumb phone.
100% of the parents I spoke with justify themselves with "all his/her friends have it, I don't want to create a social pariah".
Students don't spend time on their phones because they are "addictive," but because school is boring and doesn't provide them with anything of value.
Schools need to radically overhaul how they operate so that they can compete with TikTok for student's attention. Banning phones is lazy. I want to see:
- Gamified learning, using apps like Duolingo. TikTok-style short form videos produced by top content creators instead of boring lectures from mediocre teachers.
- Opportunities to earn real money, power and status as a reward for school achievement. Good performance should grant perks like the ability to freely skip class to play videogames, study from home or earn an income during the school day.
- Autonomy: give students control over how they learn, holding them accountable only for the results.
> Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging.
We live in Plano, TX, just a few minutes south of the Allen Outlet massacre.
Yesterday my son texted me at noon "Shooting threat at school" and "It’s a rumor though but a lot of people are leaving anyway".
You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text.
The reality of schools and public life in the USA today means my family not being without a way to contact each other immediately, in real time, is a no-go.
Former US public HS Math teacher here. The summer before I started teaching I obtained a cell phone signal jammer (from the EU, where they're legally available) and quietly kept it in my desk.
I didn't have to confiscate a single phone over the three years before I walked away from the job. Lots of internal chuckles from me brought on by complaints about the signal quality in my room. Granted, this only worked because we had no student accessible WiFi.
I did worry about students being unable to reach out during an emergency, but cell phones were supposed to be left in their lockers during the day anyways and there was a landline in the classroom.
I wonder if any schools are thinking about legal jammers or even building new classrooms that are effectively large Faraday cages?
But many students — who use their phones for listening to music, arranging rides home, checking on grades or assignments — are unhappy with the crackdowns. Some check in with parents or coaches by text. Some think the decision should be theirs, not a school dictate.
Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
What kind of emergency can’t be handled by calling the school or, as a student, asking for your phone or access to a landline?
What kind of private emergency decisions need to be made by 10th graders sitting in English class that require them to respond within seconds?
Why do parents need to "check-in" on their kids during school hours? The fact that some parent are calling students in the middle of class is particularly egregious.
Former teacher. There is no reason. Parents can always get in touch with students via the office if there's a legitimate need. That never stopped parents from calling and texting their kids during class time of course.
Because it's hard to trust that the kids won't be put in a dangerous situation by way of an active shooter. And with some of the incident within the last year it's been clear the school may not notify anyone until hours later.
Separate comment, because I don't want to hijack the archive comment:
>with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
>[...]
>But educators and experts say students need to focus on their surroundings during a crisis, not their cellphones.
It's pleasing to see the rhetoric shift on this one. Hopefully, in a few years, we'll all regard it as a funny mistake that phones were ever allowed in schools.
Out here, in some schools they don't even allow phones on multi-day school field trips. The class teacher has a single, dumb, "class phone", all the parents know the number, all the kids can use it at apropriate times to call their parents, so all the "emergency" needs are covered, but the kids are not glued to a phone half the time there.
I think it's just a result of society insisting that their entire lives revolve around a phone due to convenience. Kids these days (I feel old saying that at age 33!) now are raised by parents who were around for the first wave of everyone having a phone, except those parents' phones up until college or later were dumb phones that could call, text, and take pictures (and play snake!). Thus, their well-intentioned move to give their kids a phone is self-defeating and will only hurt in the long run.
I went to a public school and don't really remember at any level of classes where my classmates were outright addicted to their phones - some would occasionally text or take pictures or whatever, but perhaps that was due to the limitations of what the device could do.
I do understand that modern problems need to be addressed with modern solutions, and smartphones, in a vacuum, aren't a bad thing - they open up a lot of avenues of education that were simply not possible when I was growing up....and I'm all for that, I think its better to prepare kids for the world of tomorrow rather than the world of yesterday. However, there needs to be a limit to how intertwined technology becomes with modern educational practices.
I dread the US becoming like China, where people's lives revolve around a smartphone from a very early age. Sadly, we might have missed that boat already.
Schools need to ban phones entirely, and probably parents should be strongly encouraged to not give them phones. Realistically it should be banned before 18 except basic calling.
>But many students — who use their phones for listening to music, arranging rides home, checking on grades or assignments — are unhappy with the crackdowns. Some check in with parents or coaches by text. Some think the decision should be theirs, not a school dictate.
This line is absurd. Why do you need to check in with parents or coaches during the day? You are at school, that is obvious. If parents need to get in touch, call the office and they can get the student. Or the reverse. It worked perfectly fine for the 100 years that phones existed before cell phones.
> “We’re not trying to infringe on anybody’s freedom, but we need to have full attention in the classroom,” said Nancy J. Hines, superintendent in the Penn Hills School District, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
It's disappointing that a school superintendent needs to make this statement. School is entirely about infringing about students' "freedoms". No child would be sitting through any class if their freedoms were not highly infringed upon. Learning (at least initially, and for most kids), is not fun. It's boring. And kids don't like boring.
What's disappointing is that parents today also don't seem to understand this basic fact, hence the need for statements like these.
When phone addiction gets brought up, someone usually says that phones just serve the same function newspapers used to. I don't remember being in high school and everyone in class was reading the newspaper instead of paying attention to the teacher. Or that they would carry a spare newspaper in case one of their newspapers was confiscated.
> many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency
The school could always call the parent, or the parent could always call the school, right? Does the minute it might take the kid to answer the phone at the teacher's desk or walk to the office make that much of a difference?
The only way I see this being something that's truly time critical is if they're using "emergency" as a euphemism for school shooting.
It's about time to start calling it an addiction. I've seen people that can't walk down a street and look where they are going, because their head is glued to the smartphone. Some people can't even focus on a conversation, because they are constantly checking on their smartphone every other second.
Smartphones are great, but as the old saying goes, "moderation is best in all things". Kids/students do have to learn control, discipline, and focus. Otherwise it is very likely to have a negative outcome.
I'm in favour of keeping phones away from students during school hours - Yondr pouches or storing them in a locker makes sense. It's very unlikely that there will be an emergency that warrants the immediate attention of a school student as it is. Plus, in my high school parents could call in to the school landline to speak to their kids if need be.
Teachers have a difficult job as it is, not to mention that they are already mistreated - they have almost no authority over students since they never have backing from parents or school administrators.
I recently came across a post on Reddit[1] where a student pepper sprayed her teacher because he confiscated her phone during an exam. One of the commenters claimed that the same teacher was previously punched in the face by a different student for taking their phone away after catching them cheating on a test. It is disconcerting to say the least.
A relative of mine, Substitute-teacher (usually inner city), brings a "mesh pocket shoe hanger" to each classroom. During roll call, each kid must show the phone is off, and she hand writes (in cursive) the child's name on a piece of masking tape across the screen and back, while noting which kids phone was put in which pocket. The kids are allowed to have their phone back at the dismissal bell, and not a second earlier. She allows the kids to send a text to their parents letting them know their phone will be off for the day, and if an email list is provided, also informs parents that any emergencies should be directed at her phone or the school office.
Obviously this creates quite a reputation with kids and school administrators... but what is a surprising is the occasional protest from parents wanting to talk to their kids all day. Her stance is "take it or leave it, I'm not changing", and she doesn't always get invited back by certain schools.
Its overdue. As a principal I used to ban phones in our school. Back before every kid had one.
If they were caught playing on them or if it rang during class, the phone went to the teacher's desk til the end of class. If it happened a second time, it came to my office til the end of the day. And a 3rd violation meant it stayed in my office til the end of the week.
That last one rarely happened as any child who lost access for a whole day nearly went into panic mode without their pacifier for an entire day.
A local tech school I work with the teacher does attendance by the phones.
They are to be put in a cabinet in a small bin. If they are not there...the kids do not get listed as being in class.
Yes...There are a couple kids with no phone...but sadly only a couple.
I personally think this is the way to handle this. In this class's case it is a machining/manufacturing program it is especially important to have the kids paying attention due to safety issues. They are quite literally running machines that can kill people.
When I was young we were told to not bring anything that was a potential distraction from learning...for me or others. If we did, it was taken away.
This also applied to hair and dress code...not that I am against free expression or anything like that...but the point was that anything that took away from the educational process (again...of you or others) was not allowed. I remember kids being sent home for wearing inappropriate Tshirts or haircuts (dyed mohawk). This was not the 50s...this was the 80s-90s.
Not sure what changed...but in my case it is time as a parent to make an effort. There is no reason for my kids to have phones at school...They don't answer when I need them to anyways.
Strange. Phones were banned when I was in school. As in, obviously you'd have a phone, you just wouldn't have it out and be messing with it during classes. Almost all the students were reasonably following this.
We also used to have a rule where if your phone made noise during class you'd have to bring the whole class a cake the next day. That was pretty fun.
[+] [-] Octokiddie|2 years ago|reply
At this point, the problem has become too entrenched to actually do anything. Parents have come to the mistaken conclusion that Johnny needs a smartphone to keep in touch during the day (why exactly is a great question). Administrators have more or less given up. And without backup from administrators, teachers are left to fend for themselves. The ones who step in to take phones away, or deal with the problem in any meaningful way face threats to their physical well-being.
The tethering of kids to parents via phones is a tragedy of biblical proportions, but the effects will not be obvious for a few years yet. Education is just the obvious flash point.
[+] [-] ido|2 years ago|reply
Nobody ever asked us about it, it's simply school policy.
[+] [-] yamtaddle|2 years ago|reply
My wife's had parents call their kids in class. Just to, like, chat.
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GalenErso|2 years ago|reply
I graduated salutatorian. I was able to focus on my homework after school for hours without distractions. I had a computer at home, but it was pretty crappy.
[+] [-] mdgrech23|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethbr0|2 years ago|reply
We (and companies) need to ditch the equivocation and be honest about what we created.
(Edit) > Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
Is a red herring and justification for helicopter parents to normalize their micromanaging.
Someone shouldn't be texting or calling on their cell in an active shooter situation anyway. One phone per teacher/room, with the ability for anyone to dial emergency services, is better.
[+] [-] reaperman|2 years ago|reply
Would be interesting if phones would be "addictive" to children used to playing outdoors in autonomous groups in (semi-nomadic, not city-based) pre-colombian civilizations.
[+] [-] saiya-jin|2 years ago|reply
One thing I've noticed over my 20 years in business - many, often very bright folks need to feel they work a moral job, doing good for the world. So far so good. But then we meet reality of gray office jobs with unclear positive/negative rating, ie working in bank is bad? But which type of bank and which job? Classic retail ones don't do crises, they store money for common folks so they don't keep it under mattress, and give loans to start businesses. Or working for google, is it the great-maps-for-free or tracking-the-hell-out-of-ya one? Same for facebook etc.
I am fairly strict on this topic and agree with you - we've created unparalleled addiction devices. Don't trust me, random stranger, check almost any kid with phone, which is almost any kid. Check their habits, ask parents, ask at school. Its pretty consistent and dark picture. There are ways to lesser the problem, but problem at its core is seemingly too hard - maybe kids actually shouldn't have their phones, rationing is already dealing with addicted (=fucked up for life) situation. Fucking up entire generation isn't balanced with saving few lives, even as a parent that's a completely stupid approach from any angle. Maybe we shouldn't listen to only most vocal folks in our communities? The loudest ones often have unresolved mental issues that distort otherwise good discussions badly.
But then we go even deeper - growing up kids these days is darn hard. State doesn't help much actually, if you are far away from close family and are not one of those few family-only types who can find life fulfillment for 2 decades straight, without any meaningful break, in just parenting. So folks little by little give up on being a perfect parent, and to have some time off they allow it. And then there is peer pressure. Remember a generation ago kids spent their lives in front of TV? And our parents didn't care that much, did they (little yes, but actually going and finding a new cool hobby for their kid? rare)
[+] [-] justrealist|2 years ago|reply
Kids will refuse to give up their phones, make a big fight about it, so some parents would rather invent an excuse to give up and let the kid win.
[+] [-] thefz|2 years ago|reply
Then buy a 30€ dumb phone. 100% of the parents I spoke with justify themselves with "all his/her friends have it, I don't want to create a social pariah".
[+] [-] 2OEH8eoCRo0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|2 years ago|reply
I feel like active shooters shouldn't be a situation in a school in the first place.
[+] [-] welshwelsh|2 years ago|reply
Schools need to radically overhaul how they operate so that they can compete with TikTok for student's attention. Banning phones is lazy. I want to see:
- Gamified learning, using apps like Duolingo. TikTok-style short form videos produced by top content creators instead of boring lectures from mediocre teachers.
- Opportunities to earn real money, power and status as a reward for school achievement. Good performance should grant perks like the ability to freely skip class to play videogames, study from home or earn an income during the school day.
- Autonomy: give students control over how they learn, holding them accountable only for the results.
[+] [-] jtreminio|2 years ago|reply
We live in Plano, TX, just a few minutes south of the Allen Outlet massacre.
Yesterday my son texted me at noon "Shooting threat at school" and "It’s a rumor though but a lot of people are leaving anyway".
You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text.
The reality of schools and public life in the USA today means my family not being without a way to contact each other immediately, in real time, is a no-go.
[+] [-] jb200|2 years ago|reply
I didn't have to confiscate a single phone over the three years before I walked away from the job. Lots of internal chuckles from me brought on by complaints about the signal quality in my room. Granted, this only worked because we had no student accessible WiFi.
I did worry about students being unable to reach out during an emergency, but cell phones were supposed to be left in their lockers during the day anyways and there was a landline in the classroom.
I wonder if any schools are thinking about legal jammers or even building new classrooms that are effectively large Faraday cages?
[+] [-] williamcotton|2 years ago|reply
Parents have been split on the issue, with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
What kind of emergency can’t be handled by calling the school or, as a student, asking for your phone or access to a landline?
What kind of private emergency decisions need to be made by 10th graders sitting in English class that require them to respond within seconds?
[+] [-] Mimmy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] germinalphrase|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chankstein38|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scythe|2 years ago|reply
>with many critics insisting their children need phones in case of an emergency.
>[...]
>But educators and experts say students need to focus on their surroundings during a crisis, not their cellphones.
It's pleasing to see the rhetoric shift on this one. Hopefully, in a few years, we'll all regard it as a funny mistake that phones were ever allowed in schools.
[+] [-] ajsnigrutin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NickC25|2 years ago|reply
I went to a public school and don't really remember at any level of classes where my classmates were outright addicted to their phones - some would occasionally text or take pictures or whatever, but perhaps that was due to the limitations of what the device could do.
I do understand that modern problems need to be addressed with modern solutions, and smartphones, in a vacuum, aren't a bad thing - they open up a lot of avenues of education that were simply not possible when I was growing up....and I'm all for that, I think its better to prepare kids for the world of tomorrow rather than the world of yesterday. However, there needs to be a limit to how intertwined technology becomes with modern educational practices.
I dread the US becoming like China, where people's lives revolve around a smartphone from a very early age. Sadly, we might have missed that boat already.
[+] [-] ecshafer|2 years ago|reply
>But many students — who use their phones for listening to music, arranging rides home, checking on grades or assignments — are unhappy with the crackdowns. Some check in with parents or coaches by text. Some think the decision should be theirs, not a school dictate.
This line is absurd. Why do you need to check in with parents or coaches during the day? You are at school, that is obvious. If parents need to get in touch, call the office and they can get the student. Or the reverse. It worked perfectly fine for the 100 years that phones existed before cell phones.
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdajksah2123|2 years ago|reply
It's disappointing that a school superintendent needs to make this statement. School is entirely about infringing about students' "freedoms". No child would be sitting through any class if their freedoms were not highly infringed upon. Learning (at least initially, and for most kids), is not fun. It's boring. And kids don't like boring.
What's disappointing is that parents today also don't seem to understand this basic fact, hence the need for statements like these.
[+] [-] karaterobot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilikecakeandpie|2 years ago|reply
The school could always call the parent, or the parent could always call the school, right? Does the minute it might take the kid to answer the phone at the teacher's desk or walk to the office make that much of a difference?
The only way I see this being something that's truly time critical is if they're using "emergency" as a euphemism for school shooting.
[+] [-] Tozen|2 years ago|reply
Smartphones are great, but as the old saying goes, "moderation is best in all things". Kids/students do have to learn control, discipline, and focus. Otherwise it is very likely to have a negative outcome.
[+] [-] throwaway22032|2 years ago|reply
I would have expected it to be like taking a Game Boy or a laptop into a lesson, instant confiscation until the end of the day.
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
Health advisory on social media use in adolescence - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35874670 - May 2023 (45 comments)
[+] [-] flat-pluto|2 years ago|reply
Teachers have a difficult job as it is, not to mention that they are already mistreated - they have almost no authority over students since they never have backing from parents or school administrators.
I recently came across a post on Reddit[1] where a student pepper sprayed her teacher because he confiscated her phone during an exam. One of the commenters claimed that the same teacher was previously punched in the face by a different student for taking their phone away after catching them cheating on a test. It is disconcerting to say the least.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1397n4l/teacher_t...
[+] [-] exabrial|2 years ago|reply
Obviously this creates quite a reputation with kids and school administrators... but what is a surprising is the occasional protest from parents wanting to talk to their kids all day. Her stance is "take it or leave it, I'm not changing", and she doesn't always get invited back by certain schools.
[+] [-] RocketOne|2 years ago|reply
If they were caught playing on them or if it rang during class, the phone went to the teacher's desk til the end of class. If it happened a second time, it came to my office til the end of the day. And a 3rd violation meant it stayed in my office til the end of the week.
That last one rarely happened as any child who lost access for a whole day nearly went into panic mode without their pacifier for an entire day.
[+] [-] Ccecil|2 years ago|reply
They are to be put in a cabinet in a small bin. If they are not there...the kids do not get listed as being in class. Yes...There are a couple kids with no phone...but sadly only a couple.
I personally think this is the way to handle this. In this class's case it is a machining/manufacturing program it is especially important to have the kids paying attention due to safety issues. They are quite literally running machines that can kill people.
When I was young we were told to not bring anything that was a potential distraction from learning...for me or others. If we did, it was taken away.
This also applied to hair and dress code...not that I am against free expression or anything like that...but the point was that anything that took away from the educational process (again...of you or others) was not allowed. I remember kids being sent home for wearing inappropriate Tshirts or haircuts (dyed mohawk). This was not the 50s...this was the 80s-90s.
Not sure what changed...but in my case it is time as a parent to make an effort. There is no reason for my kids to have phones at school...They don't answer when I need them to anyways.
[+] [-] pseudolus|2 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/health-advi...
[+] [-] andersa|2 years ago|reply
We also used to have a rule where if your phone made noise during class you'd have to bring the whole class a cake the next day. That was pretty fun.