"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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Not really according to the New York Times. It's mixed at best. And it doesn't make sense either. Bullies are more than capable of breaking the rules. The only thing that actually works here is that victims may not see the messages until after school. That's certainly not going to stop all of the other ways phones are used to coordinate bullying though. So now they get bullied all day still and taunted all night still.
The problem with cyber bullying is that there's no breaks in the bullying anymore. You used to be able to go home and relax before going back into it at school. So until schools actually go after bullies instead of supporting them against their victims this is useless.
I believe his point was that if students want to find a way to be distracted, they will - with or without cellphones. I know I certainly was able to distract myself with doodling lol
It's not about finding a way to be distracted, it's about having a device that's filled with shit that's meant to be addictive distracting you whether you are seeking it out or not.
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.
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.
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...
Authoritarian prison? Calm down. All place have rules, schools are to learn, not to be on your phone all the time. We were without mobile phones for Millenia and now that they're here you're acting as if you can't live without one.
Yes, you can live without your mobile phone and if you think you can't then this new law is exactly for you
A lot of public school districts now provide laptops or Chromebooks to the students to use during class while doing... let's say...minimal oversight at best.
So most of the same inappropriate garbage behaviors and distractions will just be offloaded from the personal phone to the school device.
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.
Yeah, and there are some analytical apps for smartphone cameras and sensors, like measuring physio with accel or gyro. But I guess that’s okay to include as a part of a course and not really needed for rest of the school day
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".
Yea, I had my phone taken a few times in school. It’s fine.
But I was programming on my calculator more. My history teacher was the only one to say anything about it since it was very distracting for me. But he never took it.
When using the right tools, phones are already incredibly powerful in an educational environment. There's a reason why Kahoot achieved meme status: it's because students love it.
Hate it if we want (and I have major problems with how young phones and similar devices become glued to kids), but they're here to stay. They're a part of modern life, and trying to completely ban them is the most idiotic waste of time and resources possible.
You gotta find a way to limit use in a consistent and evenly applied way so that parents and school staff are all on the same page. Then you just keep enforcing the rules amd explaining them over and over. Eventually, it becomes a manageable annoyance instead of the chaos it currently is
so that parents and school staff are all on the same page.
That's the problem, they aren't on the same page. Teachers and admins have to live in the reality of kids having these devices in school, while parents just live in the anxiety of the very rare "what if something happens?"
If you're more worried about your kid at school getting shot than them getting distracted during their education, You might be the one living in a shit hole country.
I believe in educating kids to know how to ignore distractions. The phone will be there in every work/life situation and will be a tool used to get them further in their careers and life in general. It's stupid to let them use them openly during class... It's also stupid to make legislation about them. Notice we don't have country wide dress codes for schools. Just legislation that says when such codes have gone to far. Banning students from having items they carry daily is just a stupid over abuse of power being instated for what reason? Failed parenting and failed educators?
You text during class you get told to stop, happens again you get detention/thrown out of class/sent to the dean and eventually thrown out of the school. Always was that way. No need for laws around it.
You text during class you get told to stop, happens again you get detention/thrown out of class/sent to the dean and eventually thrown out of the school. Always was that way. No need for laws around it.
It's more complicated. Teachers can't take away the phone because it's an expensive piece of property and it opens all kinds of doors for the school being liable if it goes missing or gets broken. Not to mention if something does happen, the parents might sue the school.
And we aren't talking about mere distractions, but things designed to keep kids addicted to them. You're pitting school teachers and admins trying to get kids to pay attention to something often found as boring, against billion dollar businesses pushing punping money into keeping and grabbing kid's attention. Plus having kids miss school because of a cell phone just doesn't make sense, especially if the parents are pushing the kid to bring it.
The law just makes it clear and reduces liability for the school, and it's better for kids.
I wish the world were the way our describe it, and that would work. But it doesn't.
Teachers can’tshouldn't take away the phone because it’s an expensive piece of property and ... the school beingis liable... Not to mention if something does happen, the parents mightshould sue the school. The law just makes it clearthis legal and reduces liability for the school, and it’s better foras usual kids are told it's better for them to be controlled and lack agency.
FTFY.
things designed to keep kids addicted to them
You really think that's what electronic engineers do?
You pretty obviously don't know what you're talking about, almost every class my children have been in for middle school and high school had the children commit to not using their smartphone and sent home a slip to be signed by parents acknowledging that the phones will be taken away and have to be picked up by a parent if they become a distraction for the student. They include similar language in the school student handbook as well.
This law is just ridiculous authoritative nonsense, being used to score a victory for political marketing purposes.
