Yeah, I had a teacher try to enforce a no phone policy when my mother called me in class to tell me one of our horses died and needed to go home and dispose of the corpse (my father was 3 states away on a business trip). I had walked out into the hallway to answer the call and when I walked back in she demanded my phone. I simply replied with "No. I'm leaving now." I grabbed my bag and walked out. The following day she tried to berate me, so I handed a note with my mother's cell number on and it and welcomed her to call. Oddly enough, the matter was dropped.
point of schools nowadays isn't to prepare kids for real life but to rather turn kids that are creative and want to explore new things into zombified adults that will do what they're told and this is one of the ways that that shows.
It's a dumb rule, but it's generally the student population as a whole which causes this to happen. No one would be taking phones away if it wasn't constantly an issue. I've been to private and public schools during middle school and high school and I can confirm that phone addictions so severe that kids literally can not help themselves from scrolling Reels or TikTok during a lecture is extremely common. This continues to be a problem in college as well, but professors are generally more chill about it because you're the one spending money to be there. Is it extreme? Yes. Will it accomplish its goal? Possibly. Was it done without reason? No. I am honestly conviced that the, "What about emergencies?" and "What about contacting parents?" is just an elaborate cope. We all know that if you needed to contact parents, the majority of teachers would let you. We all know that in emergencies, no teacher is going to stop you from calling or texting someone. It's using extreme scenarios to try to justify allowing something for the not extreme scenarios. It's disingenuous. Be honest and just argue that you want to be able to play games or scroll Reels in class. It's your education and your grades, so you can take the responsibility if you fail. That's a completely valid argument. The vast majority of kids who are upset about this are annoyed that they can't listen to music or scroll social media anymore in school, and if the average high schooler had a little more self control and was a little less disruptive, this wouldn't have been considered.
Here’s some counterpoints to your arguments: 1. Lack of contact with parents - Lets say 10% (being very generous) of students waste 10 mins of their time on their phones every schoolday. Needing to go to the office to take a call from a parent is very uncommon and that 15 mins you lost is way less time than the 10% kids being distracted on their phones. 2. Needing to contact you parents afterschool to get picked up - You literally still have your phone with you and can use it afterschool so this is a non-issue. 3. You can’t use your phone during break times - I do agree that it’s reasonable to use your phone during a break as you’re not really distracted from any work. 4. Using earbuds during class - Earbuds can be an immense distraction especially when the teacher is trying to talk. I do understand the benefits when trying to complete work but even then they can still be a distraction. For example a teacher has no idea if you’re listening to a lecture, music or youtube so it makes sense to ban them. 5. It’s already been a thing that you can’t use phones in a classroom to distract others - Sure SOME teachers enforce this but making it a school-wide thing just makes sure everyone is on the same page now instead of ‘oh this teacher lets me use my phone why doesn’t this other teacher’. Makes the rule more clear instead of being in a grey area. 6. The punishment for the rule is too harsh - By the sounds of it students are not taking the rule seriously and still using their phones in class regardless of the rule. You said they get several warnings and it is escalated after those warnings. It seems perfectly reasonable when you are given ample warning and given opportunities to change your behaviour but if you don’t then they punish you. Not trying to hate just proving some counterpoints.
My counterpoint to 1 is that emergencies, no matter how unlikely, are still emergencies. It doesn't matter if the emergency only happens 0.1% of the time. In schools of upwards of 2000 or more students, like the one I grew up in, you need to have a line of contact with your parents. Sure, a student using their phone to not pay attention in class SHOULD be disciplined. However, you should *never* punish a student who has legitimate reason to be using their phone. Everything else I agree with.
@@xana3961 And as is nonsense, as one professor of me explained, one should not not use his phone to receive emergencies, as it may lead to death by the impact of the notice. As recorded by the professor.
I wholeheartedly agree. Phone usage should be a personal responsibility of a student. If they fail to learn because they abuse their right to phone, that is their failure. But that shouldn't lead to taking that right away from responsible students that might need the phone from important things such as contacting parents, studying, or even just trivial fun things.
except it doesn't work like that. when you fail, the school is also punished. if too many students fail, they will lose funding and shut down. it's literally not just your failure.
I my high school years, our phone policy was more or less "no cell phones allowed in class without a teacher's permission". I can remember several instances in even my freshman English class where most of the students had earbuds in and were listening to music to either do our class work or read a book once we finished that. In band class, most students would be warming up before the class started and using their phones as tuners to set a metronome to keep the tempo while practicing something in a song. On occasion, we even got use our phones for different things in class. After that, once I was into college, the professors generally had no care if you used a phone, especially if you were using it to electronically keep notes. Though, most students did that with laptops, as well read digital textbooks instead of the physical copies. But I think that high school system I had worked fairly fine. I only saw someone get their phone taken away maybe once or twice in the four years time there.
I hope you succeed. I personally think phones should be seen as fine to use in school as long as its not in the middle of class while a teacher is teaching (emergencies are an exception of course). I agree that the issue is more the strictness of the rules (Lack of exceptions) and not necessarily the general idea of them.
I'm a fairly young teacher (just out of college). And I grew up with a smart phone, so i feel my opinion here holds a bit of weight. Phones bring nothing of value to school. I'll try to go point by point simply because I have the time. Firstly, students shouldn't be able to contact anyone they wish, on or off the school premises. At best, it's a nuisance, and at worst, it's a safety issue. If someone needs to contact a student during school, they should call the office, not interrupt that student directly. Neither your time nor your family's time is so valuable that it outweighs these concerns. If it's a legitimate privacy issue, the school legally cannot prevent a parent from getting their student if absolutely needed, so that point is moot. I don't know what teacher(s) claimed that their pay will be slashed if they don't speak anonymously, but if they actually said that, they're lying to you. Teacher pay is publicly viewable (by law), meaning that you are guaranteed a certain pay for certain qualifications. You literally cannot get a pay cut if you remain within the same school system. You bring up that having a phone "prepares you for the real world" because you'll have a phone as an adult, but that's pretty much where that argument ends. Are the hours you spend on your phone outside of school not plenty practice enough? Do students really need MORE time to practice dissociating from their surroundings? Your argument against "It will help students focus more" focuses on the wrong classroom. Obviously, a teacher who lets students get on their phones at their will isn't going to be effective if the school bans phones. He/she will just switch to coloring pages or movie days. The ban is intended to streamline classes where the teacher is actually doing his/her job. Until you devote time to planning a year of lessons and teaching them, all while trying to keep the attention of 30 children at any given time, you cannot accurately speak on the destructiveness of phones (I'm not trying to be rude here, but it's true). Especially speaking as a math teacher, some students will try to dissociate or cheat using any piece of technology they can get their hands on before just spending the 10-15 minutes needed to learn the material. Music doesn't help most students focus. I'm sure there are a few people out there who benefit from a tune in the background, but most students will spend at least 2 minutes picking a song, skipping songs, changing the volume, etc, which is a long time in a 25-45 minute class. The music excuse is usually just another way to make it seem like you're benefitting by dissociating. You bring up the point that teachers could lose their jobs if they let a phone slip by or get hit with a false accusation ("Mr. So and So lets us use phones all the time"). The idea that a school would fire a teacher for accidentally letting a phone slip by is silly. If a teacher told you that they're worried about that, he/she is being delusional unless the administration is on an actual war path to get rid of their staff. And the point on false accusations could be said about literally any banned item or activity ever ("Mr. So and So lets us watch movies every day." "Mrs. So and So lets students swear!"), so that point is moot. And actually on false accusations, I have a story of my own there. I had a group of students who would constantly get out their phones despite a "no phones in class" rule. And, of course, i would take up their phones (which would waste minutes of class time because they would openly complain). And one day, they each went to their parents and claimed that I was trying to steal their phones and look through them... all because they couldn't get over their phone addiction and ego. This is not a unique case. Students are addicted to their phones and will go to great lengths to get back at teachers who take it away. And that's not to mention the multiple fights I've seen over phones that were stolen, hacked into, or broken. While I don't think taking away phones decreases cyber bullying, it certainly doesn't make the problem worse either. And I have had to comfort many friends and students who felt inferior because they had a "poor phone" or no phone and got made fun of for it. And yeah, that's a silly thing to feel bad about, but kids are gonna be kids, and kids are insecure and mean.
In my country phones are banned at schools 100%. It's not allowed for your phone to be seen basically. The sad part is that all the teachers and the parents here think that this is good... I hope your work pays off, but know that it could be way worse lol
There will never be a middle ground on this. There will always be pros and cons, needing to make phone calls, whatever, vs kids afk in class scrolling reddit or tiktok. School districts lose funding when students perform poorly, thats just a fact. Policys like this are an effort to improve attentiveness, efficiency and performance. Look at the big picture. This isnt a "well you chose to be here so you chose if you pay attention" kind of thing, they want you to succeed, thats theyre job. Not to come off personally but a lot of this sounds a lot more like a problem with phone availability policy and policy enforcement rather than a problem with not be allowed to have phones. This is definitely something youll look back on in a decade with a (atleast slightly) different perspective.
The phones are not used for academic purposes almost all of the time. And the single real argument on why are they needed was communication, which the office already allows, but it must be done through it. Having no games and social media at school is a big win. There are plenty of sources showing that banning phones increased student performance and concentration.
Schools are weird places. Teachers are a strange bunch that as a whole seem to really lean into rigidly held systems of authority, following the letter of the rules regardless of any sense or logic. If you really want to push back against this though, the thing to do is to try to get parents to make a fuss.
Well aside of implementation hell of this policy, which is objectively awful. The policy makes sense in the sense of no kid should have an smartphone anyway, for the situations where a phone may be required (1) if you have an emergency you should not be called directly if in school hours, but the school should be called, any misbehavior by the school comes directly from the concept of mandatory public school, (2) if you really need music you could bring an portable music player. And there is little to nothing for which you may need immediate contact with the parents during school time, and when there is an emergency, I said it already.
Can we just give a shoutout to those that enforcing this whole policy falls on?? Especially when it causes backlash and hatred from students as well as the teachers who get in trouble for not enforcing the policy. TRUST me, everyone gets it….but bottom line is you called it, this won’t change anything after a week-but as someone who had a pager in high school-you guys will survive. What I recommend….Take this momentum and actually go help your community. Become the future by feeling strongly but fighting for something else as well that will actually help issues your community and schools are facing-like vapes, weed, fighting, anxiety, teen depression and suicide. Proud of you guys for your activism but there’s more of a calling out there for those who decide to fight this- that call doesn’t come from a cellphone but ur chest-so go answer it! The future needs you to
I will say personally ive found immensely more benefits to phones and from my personal record having the ability to use my phone in class be it for communication, music, etc had not only given me a greater respect to teachers who taught me that balance of work and relaxation but also academic improvement because being able to free my mind from the stress of my home life knowing i can contact/be contacted help me focus. When it comes to a topic like music in the classroom it has a place and time but there's no reason that someone with a single earbud in would distract anyone, especially when the majority of the class was silently working individually in the first place. There needs to be a balance, and both the outright ban and full acceptance will not be a net positive.
Schools, frankly, have no right to entirely ban students from carrying smartphones on campus. I see nothing wrong with banning phones during class or tests. No harm, no foul there. However, entirely banning students from carrying phones is a liability lawsuit waiting to happen. It is foreseeable that a student may need to contact their parents for an emergency. Blocking that line of communication entirely, then the resulting student getting hurt, makes the school entirely liable for the student's (or anyone's) injury a a result of that action. Phones are needed nowadays so students can keep contact with their parents.
In regard to the phone policy issue, it seems as though your main argument (student need for external contact) applies to phones in school but not neccarily phones in the classroom. I'm curious what your thoughts are on phone use within the classroom, because obviously the other side of the argument is that "phone are distracting". I also don't like the "its a teacher's fault if they can't control their teaching space", I'd love to have an actual conversation with you. This rhetoric of blaming the teacher is counterproductive considering how understaffed and overworked teachers are (while you're placing even higher expectations on their already large workload). You made the claim that students won't magically become super diligent once they lose phone privileges. However, I think we would both agree that students will be more attentive once you remove distractions. The point of this policy is not to create perfectly obedient robots, but just ot improve student retention.
I'm not trying to put the entire blame on Teacher's persay and I apologize if it comes across that way, but point out the larger scale issue at hand that should be tackled instead of the phone policy. Which is Teacher's being extremely underpaid and overworked. If Teacher's actually got paid a decent living wage and were incentivized to actually teach students decently, then we probably wouldn't even have a problem like this in the first place.
@@dogecat2256 So then would you say that in the current climate (where teachers are paid subpar salaries and are overworked) that the phone policy is justified?
Cope, every generation grew up without phones and kids currently are being failed by their parents and being fed into a tech machine. Time to learn how to focus on the now and be in the present, it will serve you well.
Next it will be having your pet at school, or your kid, or, or, or . . . . I think they should just let you quit school altogether and leave education to the serious people. You're all connected anyways - no need to waste tax dollars on extra educational, transportation, and other associated demands on society's wallets. We need people capable of competing with the third world migrants. :D
OK boomer. I left secondary education a decade ago. We were allowed to use our phones in school; basically whatever we liked during breaks, and listening to music, looking up references for art, as a calculator, etc in class. It wasn't controversial, or difficult to manage then.
@0x15aacI'm afraid to say things have changed. I sub in high schools and the students are watching Netflix in class. They don't even try to hide it. They don't want to learn. Might as well let them stay home and work in the factories, farms, and home businesses
Felt this whole attitude in my school time as well. Students are a treated like a 2nd class. Basic human respect must not be applied to them. Rights are for people, not students.
Hah, no. Your school is right to do this. Every school should do this. Phones are a blight on mankind. You can live without these awful devices for a few hours a day and actually take your time to socialize with people that are around you. These are all such zoomer arguments. You know people went to school without phones for milenia before your generation was born with a screen taped to its face, right? None of those concerns are real issues. Just excuses from addicts. If anything it shows how much this should be enforced if you think leaving your phone off for a few hours is so disastrous.
As a 32 yo adult. If you can guarantee that students will learn the subjects by implementing such a ban, then go ahead. If you can't, then your teaching sucks.
As a student at the school i could completely as your wrong about this, IEP kids that absolutely need their phones can't even uses them which is affecting their learning. People are having trouble times getting ahold of parents as some of the student at the school state that they have very broken families and need to know what is going on. The fact that people really didn't go on their phones unless getting the ok to do so, honestly your argument can be overthrown to the side.
The issue isn't "Oh no! I can't use TikTok in class to waste mine and everyone's time." The issue I'm trying to point out is the strictness of the rule and the difficulty of contacting parents during class time. We shouldn't have to waste 15-20 minutes going down to the office when we can just send a text to them. We shouldn't have to go back to "Boomer" times with the current modernization of technology.
When I was in middle school 10 years ago, phones were allowed during the breaks and people did still talk to each other. We even had more topics, because we could show off achievements in games or play them together or even watch movies together. Then a year later the phones were banned and we actually couldn't talk to each other anymore. The first year kids were wild and loud, so we had to almost yell to hear each other if we wanted to have a conversation.
@@dogecat2256Phones are a tool. Of course they increase efficiency by making communicating with parents or whatnot a lot faster but you can’t deny phones 1000% will be used as a distraction for many children at school, let alone the impacts of social media on them. I think the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. Also depends on what ages phones are used as they have been shown to negatively impact development in many cases. Once kids start to mature, say ages 16-18 then I think you could argue they may be reasonable but even then they are still overall worse than good.
Yeah, I had a teacher try to enforce a no phone policy when my mother called me in class to tell me one of our horses died and needed to go home and dispose of the corpse (my father was 3 states away on a business trip). I had walked out into the hallway to answer the call and when I walked back in she demanded my phone. I simply replied with "No. I'm leaving now." I grabbed my bag and walked out. The following day she tried to berate me, so I handed a note with my mother's cell number on and it and welcomed her to call. Oddly enough, the matter was dropped.
Schools being like this makes me so frustrated. I wholeheartedly agree with you on this.
point of schools nowadays isn't to prepare kids for real life but to rather turn kids that are creative and want to explore new things into zombified adults that will do what they're told and this is one of the ways that that shows.
It's a dumb rule, but it's generally the student population as a whole which causes this to happen. No one would be taking phones away if it wasn't constantly an issue. I've been to private and public schools during middle school and high school and I can confirm that phone addictions so severe that kids literally can not help themselves from scrolling Reels or TikTok during a lecture is extremely common. This continues to be a problem in college as well, but professors are generally more chill about it because you're the one spending money to be there. Is it extreme? Yes. Will it accomplish its goal? Possibly. Was it done without reason? No. I am honestly conviced that the, "What about emergencies?" and "What about contacting parents?" is just an elaborate cope. We all know that if you needed to contact parents, the majority of teachers would let you. We all know that in emergencies, no teacher is going to stop you from calling or texting someone. It's using extreme scenarios to try to justify allowing something for the not extreme scenarios. It's disingenuous. Be honest and just argue that you want to be able to play games or scroll Reels in class. It's your education and your grades, so you can take the responsibility if you fail. That's a completely valid argument. The vast majority of kids who are upset about this are annoyed that they can't listen to music or scroll social media anymore in school, and if the average high schooler had a little more self control and was a little less disruptive, this wouldn't have been considered.
Here’s some counterpoints to your arguments:
1. Lack of contact with parents
- Lets say 10% (being very generous) of students waste 10 mins of their time on their phones every schoolday. Needing to go to the office to take a call from a parent is very uncommon and that 15 mins you lost is way less time than the 10% kids being distracted on their phones.
2. Needing to contact you parents afterschool to get picked up
- You literally still have your phone with you and can use it afterschool so this is a non-issue.
3. You can’t use your phone during break times
- I do agree that it’s reasonable to use your phone during a break as you’re not really distracted from any work.
4. Using earbuds during class
- Earbuds can be an immense distraction especially when the teacher is trying to talk. I do understand the benefits when trying to complete work but even then they can still be a distraction. For example a teacher has no idea if you’re listening to a lecture, music or youtube so it makes sense to ban them.
5. It’s already been a thing that you can’t use phones in a classroom to distract others
- Sure SOME teachers enforce this but making it a school-wide thing just makes sure everyone is on the same page now instead of ‘oh this teacher lets me use my phone why doesn’t this other teacher’. Makes the rule more clear instead of being in a grey area.
6. The punishment for the rule is too harsh
- By the sounds of it students are not taking the rule seriously and still using their phones in class regardless of the rule. You said they get several warnings and it is escalated after those warnings. It seems perfectly reasonable when you are given ample warning and given opportunities to change your behaviour but if you don’t then they punish you.
Not trying to hate just proving some counterpoints.
My counterpoint to 1 is that emergencies, no matter how unlikely, are still emergencies. It doesn't matter if the emergency only happens 0.1% of the time. In schools of upwards of 2000 or more students, like the one I grew up in, you need to have a line of contact with your parents. Sure, a student using their phone to not pay attention in class SHOULD be disciplined. However, you should *never* punish a student who has legitimate reason to be using their phone.
Everything else I agree with.
@@xana3961 And as is nonsense, as one professor of me explained, one should not not use his phone to receive emergencies, as it may lead to death by the impact of the notice. As recorded by the professor.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Phone usage should be a personal responsibility of a student. If they fail to learn because they abuse their right to phone, that is their failure.
But that shouldn't lead to taking that right away from responsible students that might need the phone from important things such as contacting parents, studying, or even just trivial fun things.
except it doesn't work like that. when you fail, the school is also punished. if too many students fail, they will lose funding and shut down. it's literally not just your failure.
You shouldn't be using your phone in class, so why do you need it? Everything else is just Cope.
I my high school years, our phone policy was more or less "no cell phones allowed in class without a teacher's permission". I can remember several instances in even my freshman English class where most of the students had earbuds in and were listening to music to either do our class work or read a book once we finished that. In band class, most students would be warming up before the class started and using their phones as tuners to set a metronome to keep the tempo while practicing something in a song. On occasion, we even got use our phones for different things in class.
After that, once I was into college, the professors generally had no care if you used a phone, especially if you were using it to electronically keep notes. Though, most students did that with laptops, as well read digital textbooks instead of the physical copies.
But I think that high school system I had worked fairly fine. I only saw someone get their phone taken away maybe once or twice in the four years time there.
I hope you succeed. I personally think phones should be seen as fine to use in school as long as its not in the middle of class while a teacher is teaching (emergencies are an exception of course). I agree that the issue is more the strictness of the rules (Lack of exceptions) and not necessarily the general idea of them.
I'm a fairly young teacher (just out of college). And I grew up with a smart phone, so i feel my opinion here holds a bit of weight.
Phones bring nothing of value to school. I'll try to go point by point simply because I have the time.
Firstly, students shouldn't be able to contact anyone they wish, on or off the school premises. At best, it's a nuisance, and at worst, it's a safety issue. If someone needs to contact a student during school, they should call the office, not interrupt that student directly. Neither your time nor your family's time is so valuable that it outweighs these concerns. If it's a legitimate privacy issue, the school legally cannot prevent a parent from getting their student if absolutely needed, so that point is moot.
I don't know what teacher(s) claimed that their pay will be slashed if they don't speak anonymously, but if they actually said that, they're lying to you. Teacher pay is publicly viewable (by law), meaning that you are guaranteed a certain pay for certain qualifications. You literally cannot get a pay cut if you remain within the same school system.
You bring up that having a phone "prepares you for the real world" because you'll have a phone as an adult, but that's pretty much where that argument ends. Are the hours you spend on your phone outside of school not plenty practice enough? Do students really need MORE time to practice dissociating from their surroundings?
Your argument against "It will help students focus more" focuses on the wrong classroom. Obviously, a teacher who lets students get on their phones at their will isn't going to be effective if the school bans phones. He/she will just switch to coloring pages or movie days. The ban is intended to streamline classes where the teacher is actually doing his/her job. Until you devote time to planning a year of lessons and teaching them, all while trying to keep the attention of 30 children at any given time, you cannot accurately speak on the destructiveness of phones (I'm not trying to be rude here, but it's true). Especially speaking as a math teacher, some students will try to dissociate or cheat using any piece of technology they can get their hands on before just spending the 10-15 minutes needed to learn the material.
Music doesn't help most students focus. I'm sure there are a few people out there who benefit from a tune in the background, but most students will spend at least 2 minutes picking a song, skipping songs, changing the volume, etc, which is a long time in a 25-45 minute class. The music excuse is usually just another way to make it seem like you're benefitting by dissociating.
You bring up the point that teachers could lose their jobs if they let a phone slip by or get hit with a false accusation ("Mr. So and So lets us use phones all the time"). The idea that a school would fire a teacher for accidentally letting a phone slip by is silly. If a teacher told you that they're worried about that, he/she is being delusional unless the administration is on an actual war path to get rid of their staff. And the point on false accusations could be said about literally any banned item or activity ever ("Mr. So and So lets us watch movies every day." "Mrs. So and So lets students swear!"), so that point is moot.
And actually on false accusations, I have a story of my own there. I had a group of students who would constantly get out their phones despite a "no phones in class" rule. And, of course, i would take up their phones (which would waste minutes of class time because they would openly complain). And one day, they each went to their parents and claimed that I was trying to steal their phones and look through them... all because they couldn't get over their phone addiction and ego. This is not a unique case. Students are addicted to their phones and will go to great lengths to get back at teachers who take it away. And that's not to mention the multiple fights I've seen over phones that were stolen, hacked into, or broken.
While I don't think taking away phones decreases cyber bullying, it certainly doesn't make the problem worse either. And I have had to comfort many friends and students who felt inferior because they had a "poor phone" or no phone and got made fun of for it. And yeah, that's a silly thing to feel bad about, but kids are gonna be kids, and kids are insecure and mean.
The whole rant about having to use the Principal's phone made me laugh.
In my country phones are banned at schools 100%. It's not allowed for your phone to be seen basically. The sad part is that all the teachers and the parents here think that this is good... I hope your work pays off, but know that it could be way worse lol
@@jakeshepperd483 no, europe
There will never be a middle ground on this. There will always be pros and cons, needing to make phone calls, whatever, vs kids afk in class scrolling reddit or tiktok. School districts lose funding when students perform poorly, thats just a fact. Policys like this are an effort to improve attentiveness, efficiency and performance. Look at the big picture. This isnt a "well you chose to be here so you chose if you pay attention" kind of thing, they want you to succeed, thats theyre job.
Not to come off personally but a lot of this sounds a lot more like a problem with phone availability policy and policy enforcement rather than a problem with not be allowed to have phones.
This is definitely something youll look back on in a decade with a (atleast slightly) different perspective.
Great video with points I hadn't even thought of, keep up the good work.
The phones are not used for academic purposes almost all of the time. And the single real argument on why are they needed was communication, which the office already allows, but it must be done through it.
Having no games and social media at school is a big win. There are plenty of sources showing that banning phones increased student performance and concentration.
Schools are weird places. Teachers are a strange bunch that as a whole seem to really lean into rigidly held systems of authority, following the letter of the rules regardless of any sense or logic. If you really want to push back against this though, the thing to do is to try to get parents to make a fuss.
Well aside of implementation hell of this policy, which is objectively awful. The policy makes sense in the sense of no kid should have an smartphone anyway, for the situations where a phone may be required (1) if you have an emergency you should not be called directly if in school hours, but the school should be called, any misbehavior by the school comes directly from the concept of mandatory public school, (2) if you really need music you could bring an portable music player. And there is little to nothing for which you may need immediate contact with the parents during school time, and when there is an emergency, I said it already.
Can we just give a shoutout to those that enforcing this whole policy falls on?? Especially when it causes backlash and hatred from students as well as the teachers who get in trouble for not enforcing the policy. TRUST me, everyone gets it….but bottom line is you called it, this won’t change anything after a week-but as someone who had a pager in high school-you guys will survive.
What I recommend….Take this momentum and actually go help your community. Become the future by feeling strongly but fighting for something else as well that will actually help issues your community and schools are facing-like vapes, weed, fighting, anxiety, teen depression and suicide. Proud of you guys for your activism but there’s more of a calling out there for those who decide to fight this- that call doesn’t come from a cellphone but ur chest-so go answer it! The future needs you to
I will say personally ive found immensely more benefits to phones and from my personal record having the ability to use my phone in class be it for communication, music, etc had not only given me a greater respect to teachers who taught me that balance of work and relaxation but also academic improvement because being able to free my mind from the stress of my home life knowing i can contact/be contacted help me focus. When it comes to a topic like music in the classroom it has a place and time but there's no reason that someone with a single earbud in would distract anyone, especially when the majority of the class was silently working individually in the first place. There needs to be a balance, and both the outright ban and full acceptance will not be a net positive.
Schools, frankly, have no right to entirely ban students from carrying smartphones on campus. I see nothing wrong with banning phones during class or tests. No harm, no foul there. However, entirely banning students from carrying phones is a liability lawsuit waiting to happen. It is foreseeable that a student may need to contact their parents for an emergency. Blocking that line of communication entirely, then the resulting student getting hurt, makes the school entirely liable for the student's (or anyone's) injury a a result of that action.
Phones are needed nowadays so students can keep contact with their parents.
In regard to the phone policy issue, it seems as though your main argument (student need for external contact) applies to phones in school but not neccarily phones in the classroom. I'm curious what your thoughts are on phone use within the classroom, because obviously the other side of the argument is that "phone are distracting".
I also don't like the "its a teacher's fault if they can't control their teaching space", I'd love to have an actual conversation with you. This rhetoric of blaming the teacher is counterproductive considering how understaffed and overworked teachers are (while you're placing even higher expectations on their already large workload).
You made the claim that students won't magically become super diligent once they lose phone privileges. However, I think we would both agree that students will be more attentive once you remove distractions. The point of this policy is not to create perfectly obedient robots, but just ot improve student retention.
I'm not trying to put the entire blame on Teacher's persay and I apologize if it comes across that way, but point out the larger scale issue at hand that should be tackled instead of the phone policy. Which is Teacher's being extremely underpaid and overworked. If Teacher's actually got paid a decent living wage and were incentivized to actually teach students decently, then we probably wouldn't even have a problem like this in the first place.
@@dogecat2256 So then would you say that in the current climate (where teachers are paid subpar salaries and are overworked) that the phone policy is justified?
Yeesh. Complaining when your addiction is taken away from you for a few hours. You should have have never owned a phone in the first place
Cope, every generation grew up without phones and kids currently are being failed by their parents and being fed into a tech machine. Time to learn how to focus on the now and be in the present, it will serve you well.
Next it will be having your pet at school, or your kid, or, or, or . . . . I think they should just let you quit school altogether and leave education to the serious people. You're all connected anyways - no need to waste tax dollars on extra educational, transportation, and other associated demands on society's wallets. We need people capable of competing with the third world migrants. :D
OK boomer. I left secondary education a decade ago. We were allowed to use our phones in school; basically whatever we liked during breaks, and listening to music, looking up references for art, as a calculator, etc in class. It wasn't controversial, or difficult to manage then.
@0x15aacI'm afraid to say things have changed. I sub in high schools and the students are watching Netflix in class. They don't even try to hide it. They don't want to learn. Might as well let them stay home and work in the factories, farms, and home businesses
Once our generation grows up, policies like this will never run again.
School is for learning. Not Instagram.
Put it down kid. You'd be better off if you only had those things maybe twice a week.
Did you listen to the arguments made?
Felt this whole attitude in my school time as well.
Students are a treated like a 2nd class. Basic human respect must not be applied to them.
Rights are for people, not students.
Hah, no. Your school is right to do this. Every school should do this. Phones are a blight on mankind. You can live without these awful devices for a few hours a day and actually take your time to socialize with people that are around you.
These are all such zoomer arguments. You know people went to school without phones for milenia before your generation was born with a screen taped to its face, right? None of those concerns are real issues. Just excuses from addicts. If anything it shows how much this should be enforced if you think leaving your phone off for a few hours is so disastrous.
As a 32 yo adult.
If you can guarantee that students will learn the subjects by implementing such a ban, then go ahead.
If you can't, then your teaching sucks.
As a student at the school i could completely as your wrong about this, IEP kids that absolutely need their phones can't even uses them which is affecting their learning. People are having trouble times getting ahold of parents as some of the student at the school state that they have very broken families and need to know what is going on. The fact that people really didn't go on their phones unless getting the ok to do so, honestly your argument can be overthrown to the side.
The issue isn't "Oh no! I can't use TikTok in class to waste mine and everyone's time." The issue I'm trying to point out is the strictness of the rule and the difficulty of contacting parents during class time. We shouldn't have to waste 15-20 minutes going down to the office when we can just send a text to them. We shouldn't have to go back to "Boomer" times with the current modernization of technology.
When I was in middle school 10 years ago, phones were allowed during the breaks and people did still talk to each other. We even had more topics, because we could show off achievements in games or play them together or even watch movies together.
Then a year later the phones were banned and we actually couldn't talk to each other anymore. The first year kids were wild and loud, so we had to almost yell to hear each other if we wanted to have a conversation.
@@dogecat2256Phones are a tool. Of course they increase efficiency by making communicating with parents or whatnot a lot faster but you can’t deny phones 1000% will be used as a distraction for many children at school, let alone the impacts of social media on them. I think the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. Also depends on what ages phones are used as they have been shown to negatively impact development in many cases. Once kids start to mature, say ages 16-18 then I think you could argue they may be reasonable but even then they are still overall worse than good.