It’s surprising that more schools haven’t done this. I suspect that we’ll look back in 10 years with it being common and ask ourselves what took so long.
In the US we've completely given up on stopping school shootings, and parents have instead decided that the better thing to fight for is their children having cell phones so they can hear the child's last words when the school shooting happens.
It’s not actually about school shootings in the US, as much as that might be cited as justification. Some parents just want to be able to text their kids all day.
I think the phones are one thing. It was a bit distressing to hear that US schools have “school shooting drills” like Japan schools have “earthquake drills”.
I’m not sure what ‘the US’ means here. In California it’s now required (as of next year) for schools to limit or restrict student phone use, and several other states have done similar things as mentioned in the article [1].
At least in Australia the phone ban doesn’t mean you can’t have a phone in your pocket, you just can’t take it out.
Taking your phone out when I was in school meant having it placed on the teachers desk until the end of class, and possibly some other kind of penalty if they particularly didn’t like you. But you always got your phone back before leaving the class.
I am more worried about dogs in school. Many teacher are fine to blame 11 years old for "provoking" dog attack! It is ok to send a kid to hospital, for eating a sandwitch!
Teachers at my school do not believe allergies are real! If there is asthma attack, it is an uncorrelated event! School will stab my kid with epipen, call ambulance and send me hospital bill! Avoiding it is too much work!
Once school brought unrestrained police dogs to school for a demonstration! Those had a record of attacking and torturing suspects!
> parents have instead decided that the better thing to fight for is their children having cell phones so they can hear the child's last words when the school shooting happens.
What's a ridiculous appeal to emotion. Between 2020 and 2022 there were 131 school shooting deaths, including suicides. Let's put those all in 2022, and assume that there were actually 0 suicides.
That means you have a 0.0026% chance to be killed (at most) in a school shooting. This is too much, but this is not the reason to allow cell phones in schools. Come on.
School shootings are extremely rare. If you want to protect kids you will be much more effective if you work on pedestrian safety, or anything related to driving at all really.
In Australia all the private schools have done it for ages, it’s just only recent that public schools did it.
Sure we still did sneak in a bit of phone usage in the bathrooms and behind secluded buildings but it’s a huge difference from being able to freely scroll social media all day.
crooked-v|6 months ago
conradev|6 months ago
Aeolun|6 months ago
vinay427|6 months ago
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/24/california-s...
Gigachad|6 months ago
Taking your phone out when I was in school meant having it placed on the teachers desk until the end of class, and possibly some other kind of penalty if they particularly didn’t like you. But you always got your phone back before leaving the class.
umanwizard|6 months ago
throw83949459|6 months ago
Teachers at my school do not believe allergies are real! If there is asthma attack, it is an uncorrelated event! School will stab my kid with epipen, call ambulance and send me hospital bill! Avoiding it is too much work!
Once school brought unrestrained police dogs to school for a demonstration! Those had a record of attacking and torturing suspects!
Being able to call help is a basic human right!
huhkerrf|6 months ago
What's a ridiculous appeal to emotion. Between 2020 and 2022 there were 131 school shooting deaths, including suicides. Let's put those all in 2022, and assume that there were actually 0 suicides.
That means you have a 0.0026% chance to be killed (at most) in a school shooting. This is too much, but this is not the reason to allow cell phones in schools. Come on.
what|6 months ago
milesrout|6 months ago
JumpCrisscross|6 months ago
We have a depressing state in America where you can predict the parents’ income based on whether their kids’ school bans smartphones.
rwmj|6 months ago
Gigachad|6 months ago
Sure we still did sneak in a bit of phone usage in the bathrooms and behind secluded buildings but it’s a huge difference from being able to freely scroll social media all day.
dartharva|6 months ago