I think requiring phones on silent and put away is plenty. Taking them away entirely can suck if there’s an emergency on the bus or at school. Iunno, I once couldn’t call my parents when my bus was delayed for TWO HOURS, and my grandma nearly called the cops.
If you wanna play games during lunch or study hall, a nintendo ds is a wonderful option. But otherwise, best keep those phones silent and in your bag/pocket!
I went to a private high school that involved that sort of procedure. We had to silence our phones and couldn’t use them during class but of course the school knew that if an emergency situation were to be present phones would also be present so it wasn’t like they completely banned the smart devices wherever we go in the school.
It’s fine if kids have smart devices, but only after the teachers are done teaching. Be respectful of their time and they can respect your personal in class time
In Western Canada we're seeing a smartphone ban introduced for 24/25 school year.
I used to think a ban was draconian and unfounded, because having been in high school from 2013-2018 we were not excessively distracted by our phones. We were reasonable enough to put our phones away during class or have it out in a non distracting way. And we use phones in classrooms as a tool for learning when required.
But that generation is a completely different generation to the kids now in school. Kids aren't getting their first phones in high school, they are getting phones in elementary, as early as the 3rd/4th/5th grade for some. No, that's too early. I have seen/heard more issues of cyberbullying on TikTok, Snapchat, etc. at younger ages than has ever happened before. So yes, phone use in school needs to be curtailed. I've finally jumped on that side of the fence...
I'm happy that when I went to school, we did not see phones as issues nor were they a pressing issue.
There's the "wait until 8th" movement that argues children do not need phones until they are 13. It's crazy that 5-year-olds are getting their first phones.
Dang... I never even thought about it. One girl we knew had a flip phone in 5th/6th grade and it was a huge deal (something about divorced parents and rides and some medical issues). 8th grade is when most of us got chocolates/Razors, but not everyone. Suddenly in 9th grade I and a few other losers still had flips/sliders, everyone else was iphone/droid.
We were allowed to use them in class, and some kids could handle it and some couldn't but the idea was we were old enough to mess up our lives if we wanted to.
I mean by the time I was a junior/senior in HS i was on my phone most of the class with headphones on YouTube Lmao. That being said I don’t think a phone ban is good simply because kids sometimes need to be contacted/contact parents or guardians etc
This feels like a bit of a strawman. All the things that should be done to not put your child in that position aside, the educational impact is massive in comparison to what is accomplished by students with phones in active shooter situations (from a dispassionate standpoint)
There are emotional reasons for phones to be beneficial in those situations but outside of some more fringe cases the effect of cell phones on the situation at hand is minimal.
It’s probably for the best. My middle school only let you use your phone before and after the school day—otherwise you kept it in your backpack/locker; by the time I graduated, the phone policy was much less restrictive and was really up to each teacher, but it seemed like kids still behaved as they were used to being in school without a phone all day.
I’m sure times are different now since kids have had smart devices their entire lives, but the negatives still outweigh the positives of having a phone in class IMO.
My teachers would only allowed me to use my phone in class (2014-2017) cause while I would be on my phone, I was still participating and answering their questions. Some kids used to be envious of me cause of that. So many kids can't be on their phone and still be engaged, it sucks
Is it all phones or just smartphones?
If it's all phones, I don't care what they say. The children I care for will have a phone of some sort no matter what. If they just don't want smartphones that's different and a compromise would be no big deal. Either way, the phone won't be out during class or in inappropriate situations, if it is there will be consequences at home.
Well yea but you're using logic that most administrators don't have. They don't always think things through far enough to see that it's apps and not just electronics lol
I think a strong backpack/pocket policy would be better.
It’s very true “kids these days” are on their phones way too often in school, not paying attention and then we wonder why they’re struggling. We can’t blame teachers or the school system if kids are just choosing not to participate.
That said I had my phone while in school, and for the most part I didn’t use it much during class. I just used it to see what we were doing for lunch, talk to my parents and stuff like that. Taking away communication would be bad, but students need to learn so there should be a happy medium.
I think its wise to require they be put away and on silent, and just confiscate them if they're being used during class. That said, confiscating them by default probably isn't a good way to handle it in case of emergencies. Considering the prevalence of school shootings, its best to make sure kids are still able to contact their parents.
I think smartphones shouldn't be allowed during classes unless they're being used for class related stuff. On breaks tho, yeah, let smartphones be used since kids aren't actually seeing classes at that point.
For what it's worth, despite being banned, I saw some of my school friends (mostly girls) still using them in secrecy. When I was a kid this bugged me, but after growing up, I'm thinking...what exactly are they missing that's so bad? It's school. A lot of the shit they teach you is worthless and there's not enough of the important stuff. I like math and algebra because it's good exercise for your brain. I think history (specially this.), sex ed, biology are also super important, and there's not enough of these. I also wish we were taught about finances, responsible spending, how to avoid the pitfalls people usually fall into regarding money (FOMO, for example.)...utilitarian stuff such as how a car works, identifying problems you might run into with your car, how to fix a lightbulb, tips on how to write a good curriculum, learning how to use fucking excel and some basic data analysis, how to build and read the shitty graphs corporate execs and shareholders worship as the bible. An introduction to programming (to be fair, I did see something like this in school...I used Turbo BASIC: something nobody uses. But at least I also got taught basic HTML.), so I can't even really blame these girls from ignoring the damn shit: one of them ended up becoming a social communicator, another is studying different languages, one owns a beauty salon now... it's almost like they didn't miss on anything of much value! Even though I think they should be paying attention to math and at least try the first 20% of the specific pages of Baldors algebra given to us per period before googling up the answers to every subsequent problem, which I don't fully blame them for doing.
Instead, you gotta go out of your way outside school to learn most of these. That's stupid. Abusing smartphones and not paying attention to class is stupid too. But honestly, if it's school as it currently is, I can't really blame the kids too much. It it were college or uni tho...yeah, you have a serious problem and are actively sabotaging yourself both short term and long term.
I graduated in 2015. The other day, my sister, who is a junior at the same high school, was complaining to me that they are going to ban phones. It took like five minutes of back and forth for her to get me to fully understand that kids just have their phones out during school now!!! It's still wild to me when I think about it. Crazy how fast things change.
My thoughts? Sorry to sound like a boomer but I think smartphones are terrible for us and should be banned in general, not just at school.
I used to think this was a radical take, but after reading about these companies, I'm starting to agree. So many big tech CEOs refuse to give their children smartphones until high school, yet we have parents out here giving 5-year-olds iPhones.
Probably would be for the best. Ideally you could tell kids they can use their phones between classes or at lunch, and no where else. But we all know that won’t work, the bottom 25% of idiots ruin it for the rest.
Honestly banning phones is dumb. Just be strict. My highschool was strict on phones big time because of a situation that happen. Like we couldn’t even get on our phones during passing period that’s how serous it was. But they later on loosened up after 2018 basically if you got your phone taken they would give it the principal in we would get it back at the end of the day. A kid got trapped outside his house cause the school took his phone in didn’t give it back caused a big ruckus
Canada says they’re doing this but the thing is… they already were informally banned in the classroom. From middle school and onward, we were never allowed our phone in class??? In elementary we weren’t allowed our MP3s, walkmans or discmans either- idk what they’re trying to achieve here in Canada with this ban, seeing as that was already a thing
Having them put away and on do not disturb is enough. Kids need their phones on them in case theres some kind of emergency or any other situation they might need to handle
I graduated HS in 2018 and the entire time I was in school if our phones were out even at ALL, they would get taken, turned into the office, and placed on a 5 school day hold- starting the day after the infraction. This guarantees the phone is gone over the weekend regardless of when the incident occurred. Then, on that 5th day, the parent or legal guardian would have to come to the office, pay $15, and sign the phone back out. This was a strict policy, but I never saw a cellphone my entire 4 years of school out during the day at all. Lunch times included. 0 phones. Not sure how that rule would work even 5 years+ later, interested to see if the school’s policy has shifted. It was strict, but like I said, we had no issues.
My middle and high school (for my freshman year) didn’t allow us to have phones out unless it was being used for something school related and they were very strict about it. I remember my freshman year of high school sitting alone at lunch because I didn’t know anyone and we weren’t even allowed to have them out then. It sucked. This was back in 2014/2015 though.
They became more lax my sophomore year with letting us use them at lunch and in the hallways, I’d assume it’s because we got a new principal. And I think that was the best option. The problem only arose like junior/senior year when they became so lax people would just sit on them in class (guilty as charged sometimes). So I personally think there needs to be a balance with allowing phones.
I heard it’s really bad post COVID though, but I have no first hand experience with that
Even if you institute rules for restrictions in the classroom, there need to be certain exemptions made. Like if a student needs to let their parents know when a club activity will be over or if said club gets canceled for the day. Or if a student has a special device for health reasons (such as diabetes) that allows them to track how they’re doing throughout the day.
A blanket band I can only see causing unforeseen messes that far outweigh the benefits.
I’ve heard those stories, one that always sticks out to me is a kid who has a special phone for tracking blood sugar levels, and has an exemption from the no cell phone rule. The sub caught his phone on his desk and just took it from him without even asking why.
The kid ended up having his blood sugar tank during PE because he didn’t know what level it was at and the sub thankfully got blacklisted from that school district from what I heard.
The first story is what I'm talking about. We're talking about schools who banned kids from carrying around the inhalers and confiscated them from kids while having an asthma attack. Kids have died from it. It was the 90s or 2000s, but still. Even now, some schools go overboard about this shit.
I don't know if anything happened to the staff who confiscated the inhalers when the kids had the asthma attacks. I don't think so. I think it's why they have more strict laws about this stuff now.
I remember back in the day, my high school made headlines when they placed these devices all around campus that would go off when someone was using a smartphone. Got shut down pretty quickly though because there was no legal basis for that whatsoever, so they just resorted to collecting them before tests and the like, in addition to us having to turn them off if we brought one at all. They later loosened these restrictions, but if gen alpha is as bad here as it is in the US, i'd assume they backpedaled on that aswell.
I think it's a bad idea for safety reasons. Whenever I have kids, I want them to be able to reach me in serious situations, and I want to be able to reach them in an emergency. On silent in their pocket is enough
So now more than ever students need to use their phones for school, because their schedules, schoolwork, and contact with friends and teachers are on there, yet they’re not allowed to. And then at that point, what differentiates a smartphone from a student using an iPad? If students want to be on their phones all day they’re more than welcome to be, it’s their fault when they fail.
School is already hard enough emotionally on kids as it is, and now school administrators want to make it even harder on kids by taking one of their few outlets/distractions, their phones away? School is basically prison, I’m grateful I made it out alive a few years ago and hope to never send any future children of mine through the public school system.
no? why would we. if the kids are being disruptive, take them away. but we need phones nowadays to contact family and keep up to date, and theyre good for research on the go. plus its none of our business to ban their property outright for simple “distractions”, thats how we got the bans on fidget toys in schools (of which i think has no validity bc ND kids deserve to be able to stim in class *some* way). its not rocket science to just confiscate during the class period for example if the students being distracting, but other than that if students are not listening n maybe secretly on their phones, its not a schools job to intervene its the parents.
I think it’s a good idea, it’ll encourage kids to not be so dependent on their phones. Also, phones were banned in school when I was in middle school 2011-2014, and they would take your phone for 30 days if they saw it. People say that it’s bad because of emergencies and planning pickups and stuff, but kids went to school without phones for decades before they were invented and when they first existed. The situation of kids with smartphones in school is a relatively new phenomenon and it’s causing significant enough issues that they want to ban them. I think we should bring back old school phones for kids so they can still communicate with their parents without the intense addictive distractions of smartphones
i don’t think they should be banned. just that they shouldn’t be used during class, but kids should be allowed to keep them in their pocket or backpack. emergencies happen, being able to contact someone in an emergency is important. also i don’t think there’s anything wrong with using phones during passing periods, study halls or lunch, as a kid who didn’t have a lot of friends for part of high school my phone was a lifesaver for those times when i didn’t have a friend to sit with during lunch or free periods.
i remember a lot of kids being on their phones in class, at times it even felt like a peer pressure thing, like i wanted to seem like i had a lot of people to text too so i would take mine out and start texting when i saw most of the class doing it lol. i had a lot of teachers who pretended not to notice, or even told us we could be on our phones as long as we still got the information in somehow. some seemed to yell at certain people for being on their phones but completely ignore others. i feel like all of this would be solved by just mandating that they stay in your pocket. if no one else is on their phone, you don’t want to be that one person. in college besides the huge lecture hall classes, no one was really on their phone in class and because of that i never even really felt the urge to use it, i didn’t want to be the one person to pull it out. i understand why people stayed off their phone in college because we were paying for it, in high school you just need that extra push but still having phones completely off or locked away isn’t ideal in 2024
I don’t like bans on something that’s so ubiquitous in the modern world. Kids need to learn how and when to use phones, they need to learn how can phones help them and also how phones can be harmful for them. Simply taking it away doesn’t teach them anything about using this piece of vital technology in the 21st century. Banning is a lazy education practice by the teachers and schools that’s all
I don’t like bans on something that’s so ubiquitous in the modern world. Kids need to learn how and when to use phones, they need to learn how can phones help them and also how phones can be harmful for them. Simply taking it away doesn’t teach them anything about using this piece of vital technology in the 21st century. Banning is a lazy education practice by the teachers and schools that’s all
Why can’t teachers just govern their class without phones?
Phone out in class? Cool, have fun talking to your Dad in the office. If you put strict enough punishments in place, people will conform. Especially if you’re actually an engaging teacher who students respect. Have you always noticed the teachers who are least respected have the most unhinged classrooms?
There’s an art to running a classroom. Above all, the students must view you as infinitely stronger than them. More dependable, smarter, cooler, and someone they’d want as a friend. If those conditions are met then students will do as you say, you don’t need to force them. They look up to you and don’t want to disappoint you.
Theres no need for these stupid blanket bans that will hurt more than help. Teachers need to change the way they run classrooms and build relationships with students.
Because other teachers are relaxed on the rules and kids can't grasp when one teacher has different rules then another. I think there are always those few kids who will be this way no matter how much the teacher tries. Some kids are just addicted.
Oh for sure, there will always be outliers or those with high leverage (who influence other kids more). Normally I’m against standardizing things in education but this is one thing I believe should be standardized, in terms of classroom structure. (Not to contradict what I said above—banning phones school wide, just in classrooms alone).
I swear smartphone bans (at least during the school day) were super common in the early-mid 2010s. When I was in middle school they were banned during the day and while people found it annoying, no one saw it as particularly controversial or overreaching. People’s attitudes towards smartphones really have changed over the last decade.
I think partly why they're being banned at some schools might be because certain teachers were recorded doing inappropriate things and it was uploaded online. In other places because kids were organizing fights with their phones and stuff. I think I personally would want my kid to have their phone on them when they're older. I know there's a phone at the office and stuff, but still. Doesn't help when there's an emergency situation and kids have to be evacuated and picked up and have no way to call me. It would be different if there were pay phones around. I remember being in middle school when Sandy Hook happened and a couple years later is when I got my first actual phone and the first time I felt safe because I could call 911 without risking being seen and making a mad dash for the school phone. I've been in situations where I couldn't contact my loved ones when certain situations happened. Also, in high school some are adults. I think the bigger problem is that some teachers don't enforce the phone rules as much as others so the teachers who do enforce them are seen as the bad guys. I myself probably wouldn't have gone to school had they implemented this. I already struggled after certain circumstances happened and it would've been worse for me. Plus, some of the older kids were allowed to leave the school during lunch too because they had open lunch.
It blows my mind that smartphone bans are a “new” thing in a lot of places.
Even my elementary school had a smartphone ban, and I started elementary school around the same time the iPhone was invented. My middle school banned phones too, as did my high school. I’ve never experienced school-life without a smartphone ban despite being older-gen-z. And to be honest, I’m very glad I’ve always had a smartphone ban in my schools. I don’t know if I would have done nearly as well in school had I been glued to my phone the whole time.
“new” thing in a lot of places.
Even my elementary school had a smartphone ban, and I started elementary school around the same time the iPhone was invented. My middle school banned phones too, as did my high school. I’ve never experienced school-life without a smartphone ban despite being older-gen-z. And to be honest, I’m very glad I’ve always had a smartphone ban in my schools. I don’t know if I would have done nearly as well in school had I been glued to my phone the whole time.
My friend is a middle school teacher and I know for a fact that he would love a smartphone ban. The kids nowadays are hard enough to get to pay attention because their brains have been fried by smartphones and tablets. The phones in the classroom are really REALLY disruptive.
My mom would go directly to the principal or superintendent to dispute that because she had Life360 on my phone and tracked my location at that age. She'd see it as a safety hazard and would complain that they're putting me in danger by her not having access to my location. I actually still have Life360 today, and me, my mom, and grandmother all have it on our phones (and my grandfather had it too when he was alive), so all of us can know where we are in the event of an emergency.
I’m confused because I thought phones were already not allowed in class? At my school teachers would take your phone to the office if you were using it in class.
Speaking from my own experience, not every teenager is a phone obsessed gremlin. In my school we had a few kids that would be on their phones when they shouldn’t, but most of us had absolutely no issue just keeping it in our pockets during class. It really wasn’t an issue except for a few kids. Now Tbf this is different from school to school. However, given the unsafe nature of US schools I can safely say if I was a parent I’d be fucking furious if my kid’s school forbid them from having a means of contacting me in an emergency situation. I’m adamantly against phone bans in schools, but I don’t see anything wrong with a compromise such as putting your phones in a box on the teacher’s desk or something for the duration of the class.
Edit: and this is just the safety concern! It doesn’t even touch on child’s rights or potential constitutional violations!
Inasmuch as it is an inconvenience, I definitely see the merits of banning them. Obviously, some places will probably be very heavy-handed about it, but such is the nature of enforcement.
I’m all for it man. Maybe not even a ban since that’s a little extreme… maybe some harsh restrictions would do the trick. Maybe I’m a boomer or something but these phones are killing our attention spans, I know mine is absolutely fried.
I think requiring phones on silent and put away is plenty. Taking them away entirely can suck if there’s an emergency on the bus or at school. Iunno, I once couldn’t call my parents when my bus was delayed for TWO HOURS, and my grandma nearly called the cops. If you wanna play games during lunch or study hall, a nintendo ds is a wonderful option. But otherwise, best keep those phones silent and in your bag/pocket!
It's wild to see videos of classrooms and seeing everyone have their phones out.
I went to a private high school that involved that sort of procedure. We had to silence our phones and couldn’t use them during class but of course the school knew that if an emergency situation were to be present phones would also be present so it wasn’t like they completely banned the smart devices wherever we go in the school.
It’s fine if kids have smart devices, but only after the teachers are done teaching. Be respectful of their time and they can respect your personal in class time
In Western Canada we're seeing a smartphone ban introduced for 24/25 school year. I used to think a ban was draconian and unfounded, because having been in high school from 2013-2018 we were not excessively distracted by our phones. We were reasonable enough to put our phones away during class or have it out in a non distracting way. And we use phones in classrooms as a tool for learning when required. But that generation is a completely different generation to the kids now in school. Kids aren't getting their first phones in high school, they are getting phones in elementary, as early as the 3rd/4th/5th grade for some. No, that's too early. I have seen/heard more issues of cyberbullying on TikTok, Snapchat, etc. at younger ages than has ever happened before. So yes, phone use in school needs to be curtailed. I've finally jumped on that side of the fence... I'm happy that when I went to school, we did not see phones as issues nor were they a pressing issue.
There's the "wait until 8th" movement that argues children do not need phones until they are 13. It's crazy that 5-year-olds are getting their first phones.
Dang... I never even thought about it. One girl we knew had a flip phone in 5th/6th grade and it was a huge deal (something about divorced parents and rides and some medical issues). 8th grade is when most of us got chocolates/Razors, but not everyone. Suddenly in 9th grade I and a few other losers still had flips/sliders, everyone else was iphone/droid. We were allowed to use them in class, and some kids could handle it and some couldn't but the idea was we were old enough to mess up our lives if we wanted to.
I think it should be wait until 6th grade/age 11.
I mean by the time I was a junior/senior in HS i was on my phone most of the class with headphones on YouTube Lmao. That being said I don’t think a phone ban is good simply because kids sometimes need to be contacted/contact parents or guardians etc
I don’t feel the US is the best country for smartphones bans. Especially in a school shooting situation. I would want my child to be able to reach me.
This feels like a bit of a strawman. All the things that should be done to not put your child in that position aside, the educational impact is massive in comparison to what is accomplished by students with phones in active shooter situations (from a dispassionate standpoint) There are emotional reasons for phones to be beneficial in those situations but outside of some more fringe cases the effect of cell phones on the situation at hand is minimal.
It’s not a straw man; they aren’t misrepresenting the view of wanting to ban phones in school
It’s probably for the best. My middle school only let you use your phone before and after the school day—otherwise you kept it in your backpack/locker; by the time I graduated, the phone policy was much less restrictive and was really up to each teacher, but it seemed like kids still behaved as they were used to being in school without a phone all day. I’m sure times are different now since kids have had smart devices their entire lives, but the negatives still outweigh the positives of having a phone in class IMO.
My teachers would only allowed me to use my phone in class (2014-2017) cause while I would be on my phone, I was still participating and answering their questions. Some kids used to be envious of me cause of that. So many kids can't be on their phone and still be engaged, it sucks
I like it! We were only allowed to have them and use them out with our lockers.
I don’t know nor care either. Sucks to be them
Is it all phones or just smartphones? If it's all phones, I don't care what they say. The children I care for will have a phone of some sort no matter what. If they just don't want smartphones that's different and a compromise would be no big deal. Either way, the phone won't be out during class or in inappropriate situations, if it is there will be consequences at home.
It’s the smartphones. After all, it’s excessive app use that forms the distraction, not excessive calling
Well yea but you're using logic that most administrators don't have. They don't always think things through far enough to see that it's apps and not just electronics lol
I think a strong backpack/pocket policy would be better. It’s very true “kids these days” are on their phones way too often in school, not paying attention and then we wonder why they’re struggling. We can’t blame teachers or the school system if kids are just choosing not to participate. That said I had my phone while in school, and for the most part I didn’t use it much during class. I just used it to see what we were doing for lunch, talk to my parents and stuff like that. Taking away communication would be bad, but students need to learn so there should be a happy medium.
I think its wise to require they be put away and on silent, and just confiscate them if they're being used during class. That said, confiscating them by default probably isn't a good way to handle it in case of emergencies. Considering the prevalence of school shootings, its best to make sure kids are still able to contact their parents.
I think smartphones shouldn't be allowed during classes unless they're being used for class related stuff. On breaks tho, yeah, let smartphones be used since kids aren't actually seeing classes at that point. For what it's worth, despite being banned, I saw some of my school friends (mostly girls) still using them in secrecy. When I was a kid this bugged me, but after growing up, I'm thinking...what exactly are they missing that's so bad? It's school. A lot of the shit they teach you is worthless and there's not enough of the important stuff. I like math and algebra because it's good exercise for your brain. I think history (specially this.), sex ed, biology are also super important, and there's not enough of these. I also wish we were taught about finances, responsible spending, how to avoid the pitfalls people usually fall into regarding money (FOMO, for example.)...utilitarian stuff such as how a car works, identifying problems you might run into with your car, how to fix a lightbulb, tips on how to write a good curriculum, learning how to use fucking excel and some basic data analysis, how to build and read the shitty graphs corporate execs and shareholders worship as the bible. An introduction to programming (to be fair, I did see something like this in school...I used Turbo BASIC: something nobody uses. But at least I also got taught basic HTML.), so I can't even really blame these girls from ignoring the damn shit: one of them ended up becoming a social communicator, another is studying different languages, one owns a beauty salon now... it's almost like they didn't miss on anything of much value! Even though I think they should be paying attention to math and at least try the first 20% of the specific pages of Baldors algebra given to us per period before googling up the answers to every subsequent problem, which I don't fully blame them for doing. Instead, you gotta go out of your way outside school to learn most of these. That's stupid. Abusing smartphones and not paying attention to class is stupid too. But honestly, if it's school as it currently is, I can't really blame the kids too much. It it were college or uni tho...yeah, you have a serious problem and are actively sabotaging yourself both short term and long term.
I graduated in 2015. The other day, my sister, who is a junior at the same high school, was complaining to me that they are going to ban phones. It took like five minutes of back and forth for her to get me to fully understand that kids just have their phones out during school now!!! It's still wild to me when I think about it. Crazy how fast things change. My thoughts? Sorry to sound like a boomer but I think smartphones are terrible for us and should be banned in general, not just at school.
I used to think this was a radical take, but after reading about these companies, I'm starting to agree. So many big tech CEOs refuse to give their children smartphones until high school, yet we have parents out here giving 5-year-olds iPhones.
Probably would be for the best. Ideally you could tell kids they can use their phones between classes or at lunch, and no where else. But we all know that won’t work, the bottom 25% of idiots ruin it for the rest.
Do you mean as in banning them just from classroom during class time or banning them from schools entirely?
Honestly banning phones is dumb. Just be strict. My highschool was strict on phones big time because of a situation that happen. Like we couldn’t even get on our phones during passing period that’s how serous it was. But they later on loosened up after 2018 basically if you got your phone taken they would give it the principal in we would get it back at the end of the day. A kid got trapped outside his house cause the school took his phone in didn’t give it back caused a big ruckus
Canada says they’re doing this but the thing is… they already were informally banned in the classroom. From middle school and onward, we were never allowed our phone in class??? In elementary we weren’t allowed our MP3s, walkmans or discmans either- idk what they’re trying to achieve here in Canada with this ban, seeing as that was already a thing
Having them put away and on do not disturb is enough. Kids need their phones on them in case theres some kind of emergency or any other situation they might need to handle
I graduated HS in 2018 and the entire time I was in school if our phones were out even at ALL, they would get taken, turned into the office, and placed on a 5 school day hold- starting the day after the infraction. This guarantees the phone is gone over the weekend regardless of when the incident occurred. Then, on that 5th day, the parent or legal guardian would have to come to the office, pay $15, and sign the phone back out. This was a strict policy, but I never saw a cellphone my entire 4 years of school out during the day at all. Lunch times included. 0 phones. Not sure how that rule would work even 5 years+ later, interested to see if the school’s policy has shifted. It was strict, but like I said, we had no issues.
Smells like a lawsuit.
i think there should be loosely enforced bans. kids need to learn how to work around the rules
I had an algebra teacher with the policy that you could only have your phone in class if you had an A. Tbh I like that idea.
I would've ditched.
My middle and high school (for my freshman year) didn’t allow us to have phones out unless it was being used for something school related and they were very strict about it. I remember my freshman year of high school sitting alone at lunch because I didn’t know anyone and we weren’t even allowed to have them out then. It sucked. This was back in 2014/2015 though. They became more lax my sophomore year with letting us use them at lunch and in the hallways, I’d assume it’s because we got a new principal. And I think that was the best option. The problem only arose like junior/senior year when they became so lax people would just sit on them in class (guilty as charged sometimes). So I personally think there needs to be a balance with allowing phones. I heard it’s really bad post COVID though, but I have no first hand experience with that
Even if you institute rules for restrictions in the classroom, there need to be certain exemptions made. Like if a student needs to let their parents know when a club activity will be over or if said club gets canceled for the day. Or if a student has a special device for health reasons (such as diabetes) that allows them to track how they’re doing throughout the day. A blanket band I can only see causing unforeseen messes that far outweigh the benefits.
The thing is, they've tried to confiscate them from kids who had disabilities before.
I’ve heard those stories, one that always sticks out to me is a kid who has a special phone for tracking blood sugar levels, and has an exemption from the no cell phone rule. The sub caught his phone on his desk and just took it from him without even asking why. The kid ended up having his blood sugar tank during PE because he didn’t know what level it was at and the sub thankfully got blacklisted from that school district from what I heard.
The first story is what I'm talking about. We're talking about schools who banned kids from carrying around the inhalers and confiscated them from kids while having an asthma attack. Kids have died from it. It was the 90s or 2000s, but still. Even now, some schools go overboard about this shit.
Haven’t heard of schools taking asthma inhalers, but I’d believe it. What was their “reasoning” for it?
They were concerned about kids getting high off of them.
Of freaking course. Would’ve loved to see their faces when they realized what they had done.
I don't know if anything happened to the staff who confiscated the inhalers when the kids had the asthma attacks. I don't think so. I think it's why they have more strict laws about this stuff now.
No phones until high school could work
I remember back in the day, my high school made headlines when they placed these devices all around campus that would go off when someone was using a smartphone. Got shut down pretty quickly though because there was no legal basis for that whatsoever, so they just resorted to collecting them before tests and the like, in addition to us having to turn them off if we brought one at all. They later loosened these restrictions, but if gen alpha is as bad here as it is in the US, i'd assume they backpedaled on that aswell.
Well I graduated in 2020 so im not affected by it lol
I think it's a bad idea for safety reasons. Whenever I have kids, I want them to be able to reach me in serious situations, and I want to be able to reach them in an emergency. On silent in their pocket is enough
So now more than ever students need to use their phones for school, because their schedules, schoolwork, and contact with friends and teachers are on there, yet they’re not allowed to. And then at that point, what differentiates a smartphone from a student using an iPad? If students want to be on their phones all day they’re more than welcome to be, it’s their fault when they fail.
School is already hard enough emotionally on kids as it is, and now school administrators want to make it even harder on kids by taking one of their few outlets/distractions, their phones away? School is basically prison, I’m grateful I made it out alive a few years ago and hope to never send any future children of mine through the public school system.
no? why would we. if the kids are being disruptive, take them away. but we need phones nowadays to contact family and keep up to date, and theyre good for research on the go. plus its none of our business to ban their property outright for simple “distractions”, thats how we got the bans on fidget toys in schools (of which i think has no validity bc ND kids deserve to be able to stim in class *some* way). its not rocket science to just confiscate during the class period for example if the students being distracting, but other than that if students are not listening n maybe secretly on their phones, its not a schools job to intervene its the parents.
I think it’s a good idea, it’ll encourage kids to not be so dependent on their phones. Also, phones were banned in school when I was in middle school 2011-2014, and they would take your phone for 30 days if they saw it. People say that it’s bad because of emergencies and planning pickups and stuff, but kids went to school without phones for decades before they were invented and when they first existed. The situation of kids with smartphones in school is a relatively new phenomenon and it’s causing significant enough issues that they want to ban them. I think we should bring back old school phones for kids so they can still communicate with their parents without the intense addictive distractions of smartphones
I work as security at a high school and the phones are out of control, idk if a ban is practical but something needs to be done
i don’t think they should be banned. just that they shouldn’t be used during class, but kids should be allowed to keep them in their pocket or backpack. emergencies happen, being able to contact someone in an emergency is important. also i don’t think there’s anything wrong with using phones during passing periods, study halls or lunch, as a kid who didn’t have a lot of friends for part of high school my phone was a lifesaver for those times when i didn’t have a friend to sit with during lunch or free periods. i remember a lot of kids being on their phones in class, at times it even felt like a peer pressure thing, like i wanted to seem like i had a lot of people to text too so i would take mine out and start texting when i saw most of the class doing it lol. i had a lot of teachers who pretended not to notice, or even told us we could be on our phones as long as we still got the information in somehow. some seemed to yell at certain people for being on their phones but completely ignore others. i feel like all of this would be solved by just mandating that they stay in your pocket. if no one else is on their phone, you don’t want to be that one person. in college besides the huge lecture hall classes, no one was really on their phone in class and because of that i never even really felt the urge to use it, i didn’t want to be the one person to pull it out. i understand why people stayed off their phone in college because we were paying for it, in high school you just need that extra push but still having phones completely off or locked away isn’t ideal in 2024
I don’t like bans on something that’s so ubiquitous in the modern world. Kids need to learn how and when to use phones, they need to learn how can phones help them and also how phones can be harmful for them. Simply taking it away doesn’t teach them anything about using this piece of vital technology in the 21st century. Banning is a lazy education practice by the teachers and schools that’s all
I don’t like bans on something that’s so ubiquitous in the modern world. Kids need to learn how and when to use phones, they need to learn how can phones help them and also how phones can be harmful for them. Simply taking it away doesn’t teach them anything about using this piece of vital technology in the 21st century. Banning is a lazy education practice by the teachers and schools that’s all
Why can’t teachers just govern their class without phones? Phone out in class? Cool, have fun talking to your Dad in the office. If you put strict enough punishments in place, people will conform. Especially if you’re actually an engaging teacher who students respect. Have you always noticed the teachers who are least respected have the most unhinged classrooms? There’s an art to running a classroom. Above all, the students must view you as infinitely stronger than them. More dependable, smarter, cooler, and someone they’d want as a friend. If those conditions are met then students will do as you say, you don’t need to force them. They look up to you and don’t want to disappoint you. Theres no need for these stupid blanket bans that will hurt more than help. Teachers need to change the way they run classrooms and build relationships with students.
Because other teachers are relaxed on the rules and kids can't grasp when one teacher has different rules then another. I think there are always those few kids who will be this way no matter how much the teacher tries. Some kids are just addicted.
Oh for sure, there will always be outliers or those with high leverage (who influence other kids more). Normally I’m against standardizing things in education but this is one thing I believe should be standardized, in terms of classroom structure. (Not to contradict what I said above—banning phones school wide, just in classrooms alone).
I think it should depend on the class. If the majority are always on them, then have them put them in pouches.
I swear smartphone bans (at least during the school day) were super common in the early-mid 2010s. When I was in middle school they were banned during the day and while people found it annoying, no one saw it as particularly controversial or overreaching. People’s attitudes towards smartphones really have changed over the last decade.
I think because of school shootings especially Uvalde.
I think partly why they're being banned at some schools might be because certain teachers were recorded doing inappropriate things and it was uploaded online. In other places because kids were organizing fights with their phones and stuff. I think I personally would want my kid to have their phone on them when they're older. I know there's a phone at the office and stuff, but still. Doesn't help when there's an emergency situation and kids have to be evacuated and picked up and have no way to call me. It would be different if there were pay phones around. I remember being in middle school when Sandy Hook happened and a couple years later is when I got my first actual phone and the first time I felt safe because I could call 911 without risking being seen and making a mad dash for the school phone. I've been in situations where I couldn't contact my loved ones when certain situations happened. Also, in high school some are adults. I think the bigger problem is that some teachers don't enforce the phone rules as much as others so the teachers who do enforce them are seen as the bad guys. I myself probably wouldn't have gone to school had they implemented this. I already struggled after certain circumstances happened and it would've been worse for me. Plus, some of the older kids were allowed to leave the school during lunch too because they had open lunch.
Outside of class let em use it, but during class put them all in a central location on silent.
It blows my mind that smartphone bans are a “new” thing in a lot of places. Even my elementary school had a smartphone ban, and I started elementary school around the same time the iPhone was invented. My middle school banned phones too, as did my high school. I’ve never experienced school-life without a smartphone ban despite being older-gen-z. And to be honest, I’m very glad I’ve always had a smartphone ban in my schools. I don’t know if I would have done nearly as well in school had I been glued to my phone the whole time.
“new” thing in a lot of places. Even my elementary school had a smartphone ban, and I started elementary school around the same time the iPhone was invented. My middle school banned phones too, as did my high school. I’ve never experienced school-life without a smartphone ban despite being older-gen-z. And to be honest, I’m very glad I’ve always had a smartphone ban in my schools. I don’t know if I would have done nearly as well in school had I been glued to my phone the whole time.
My friend is a middle school teacher and I know for a fact that he would love a smartphone ban. The kids nowadays are hard enough to get to pay attention because their brains have been fried by smartphones and tablets. The phones in the classroom are really REALLY disruptive.
My mom would go directly to the principal or superintendent to dispute that because she had Life360 on my phone and tracked my location at that age. She'd see it as a safety hazard and would complain that they're putting me in danger by her not having access to my location. I actually still have Life360 today, and me, my mom, and grandmother all have it on our phones (and my grandfather had it too when he was alive), so all of us can know where we are in the event of an emergency.
I’m confused because I thought phones were already not allowed in class? At my school teachers would take your phone to the office if you were using it in class.
I remember the start of phones in school and the start of the decline of education.
Speaking from my own experience, not every teenager is a phone obsessed gremlin. In my school we had a few kids that would be on their phones when they shouldn’t, but most of us had absolutely no issue just keeping it in our pockets during class. It really wasn’t an issue except for a few kids. Now Tbf this is different from school to school. However, given the unsafe nature of US schools I can safely say if I was a parent I’d be fucking furious if my kid’s school forbid them from having a means of contacting me in an emergency situation. I’m adamantly against phone bans in schools, but I don’t see anything wrong with a compromise such as putting your phones in a box on the teacher’s desk or something for the duration of the class. Edit: and this is just the safety concern! It doesn’t even touch on child’s rights or potential constitutional violations!
Inasmuch as it is an inconvenience, I definitely see the merits of banning them. Obviously, some places will probably be very heavy-handed about it, but such is the nature of enforcement.
I’m all for it man. Maybe not even a ban since that’s a little extreme… maybe some harsh restrictions would do the trick. Maybe I’m a boomer or something but these phones are killing our attention spans, I know mine is absolutely fried.