I mean it kind of needs to be both. But it’s hard to find a compelling reason why kids need their smartphones fully accessible during class.
Well, by their teenage years, why not all the reasons adults need smartphones fully accessible? Looking up information from authoritative sources? Emergency contact? Coordinating schedules for office hours?
Schools often simultaneously demand more from children than workplaces do adults, and give them less opportunity to excel.
I’m not saying work-inappropriate phone use should be accepted, but taking them away entirely is downright irresponsible. Just like schools who still demand students write on a notebook instead of using a laptop. Raise your hand if you had RSI-related issues for a decade or more after high school? We old people tend to forget how bad school used to be (and can be) for physical and mental health AND for learning.
Well, you can quickly search up some information. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that once in middle school teacher said something I wasn’t quite sure about, but also I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t more sure. So I looked it up, seeing that I was right, I asked if it rather wasn’t meant to be that other thing, he checked too and indeed he was wrong.
Also, my mind often wanders off. And it may happen that I suddenly can’t remember something. Could just be some word I could look up on my phone in less than a minute. Option B: Keep thinking about it till the rest of the class. I can’t stop thinking about that until I either remember or find it.
Next, spine. I am currently in high school. Phones are allowed here. Any time. So, I utilized my scanner and digitized one 500 or so page book I couldn’t find on the internet, and then used it as PDF instead of a physical book. It is less likely that I would forget my phone. I wish schools would have options for e-ink tablets instead of having to carry many heavy physical books. That used to be problem mostly in elementary school and middle school. Same goes for note taking.
Obviously, the last example can be easily solved by modernization.
Fast talking teachers. I can’t write that fast. I mean, I can, but then I can’t decipher my handwriting, which is already hard anyway. Voice recorder is a quick solution. Obviously, it is easier to look through notes than audio, but IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE A REPLACEMENT FOR NOTES, just a help.
But do take that with a pinch of salt. Especially in elementary school, I used to be one of those weird kids who greatly preferred being liked by the teacher over having friends. So even though I had a phone at the time, I never used it during classes because teachers disliked it.
But at least during breaks it should be allowed. Otherwise kids will find much more dangerous ways to entertain themselves.
If you want to teach kids how to look up information, you can create spaces for that. They don’t need unrestricted access to their smart phones to accomplish that throughout the day. Hell you can relax your policies as they grow up and show the maturity to handle having a smart phone in the classroom. If schools want to do that, I am all in favor of it. But they would have to start early and build a system, which is a lot to ask of already overworked educators.
… yes, my phoneless childhood was super dangerous. it’s amazing i survived a couple of decades without one!
I mean, comparing class with active kids throwing stuff around and ones just sitting and playing on their phones, I’d take the second. Cyber bullying may be hard to detect though, but it’s not like schools care either way.
Option B: Keep thinking about it till the rest of the class. I can’t stop thinking about that until I either remember or find it.
Option C: Write it down.
It’s not like I am thinking about it to not forget what I wanted to remember. It’s that it will keep bugging me until I remember.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
Bugging you until you remember? You write it so that you can’t forget and so it stops bugging you.
Bugging you because you need that info itch scratched right now? Aka instant gratification. Then you have to learn to not need instant gratification. Seriously, it’s another skill.
All this is spoken like an entitled bratty immature kid. (No offense, it’s just your age and you’ll grow out of it)
There’s a reason why you can get a ticket or be charged with distracted driving while you’re on your phone and behind the wheel of a car. IT IS A DISTRACTION. FULL STOP.
Stop lying to yourself and to us in the process.
- Using phone while driving is much bigger issue.
- This phone issue has never affected me personally. I am defending OP and others.
- I am not talking about using the phone all the time for some stupid thing. It gives you access to a lot of information when needed.
Also if you trust kids with making life changing decisions, this is unfair.
Also sorry if I sounded as you described. I only started carrying the phone with me since I was 15. I was too worried about breaking it (it’s not cheap thing). That makes finding positive points (that would apply to younger kids) a bit harder.
Edit: Also, don’t be worried, I would almost never voice my opinions in real life.
Spoken like an introverted someone who HAS ALREADY been affected socially in a negative way by their cell phone use.
The entitled and bratty part of your comments = when people tell me not to use my phone I simply DONT use it or bring it. What’s the problem exactly? You want access to an encyclopedic knowledge in class? You don’t have a laptop or computer in the room you can use ?
Maybe you use your phone only for the most strictly academic things, but most people don’t.
Finally, I don’t trust kids to make life changing decisions. See all the high schoolers who got suckered into a worthless degree from the University of Phoenix. It’s very fair to take the reigns from people who can’t control themselves and their impulses.
Spoken like an introverted someone who HAS ALREADY been affected socially in a negative way by their cell phone use.
Can’t disagree with this. I got a tablet when I was 8. With unrestricted access. On the positive note, it did help me learn quite a lot of stuff. Like English.
The entitled and bratty part of your comments = when people tell me not to use my phone I simply DONT use it or bring it. What’s the problem exactly? You want access to an encyclopedic knowledge in class? You don’t have a laptop or computer in the room you can use ?
No problem, really. If someone wanted to search up something during class, teachers could just allow it, and generally they did. Except when I was in grade 9 and the school decided to prohibit even just having them at school, as if it were grenades. Some teacher would always just collect all into a bucket and return at the end of the day.
When we had free substituted classes, sometimes they would tell us something like “Sorry, I’d allow you phones now, but if I did I could have problems from it.” So clearly they would punish teachers for that. That’s just crazy.
And computers aren’t in every class. Even if they are, they might not always work. Now we use our phones even to do exams sometimes. But, yeah, school isn’t even mandatory for me anymore, so it’s already different.Finally, I don’t trust kids to make life changing decisions. See all the high schoolers who got suckered into a worthless degree from the University of Phoenix. It’s very fair to take the reigns from people who can’t control themselves and their impulses.
I wasn’t even talking about such late decisions. For example, when I was 10 I was given the decision between going into class A or class B since I had good enough results for A. A was class for a little more talented kids. They even had some additional subjects. Well, my dad discouraged me from going to class A. He told me “There won’t be any normal kids. I’d choose B if I were you.” So I did. I regret. I could have gotten to a better school later on.
Some explanation of those classes:
A - Talented
C and D - sport classes (basketball and hockey respectively)
B - everything elseNext, when I was 14, I told my psychologist about my living conditions. Including photos of how our home looks like. She told me that she could call social services. Then asked me if I agreed. I was scared, so I said no. I regret, once again.
And something that’s there always, choosing high school when you’re 15.
I am not sure how it works across different school systems. In Slovakia, they are focused just on 1 particular field of study determining where you’ll be for the rest of your life. 3 year fields are without graduation (e.g.: various mechanics and plumbers). 4 year and 5 year fields are with graduation, meaning you can go to college/university.
I’ve had a few classmates who only chose particular field because their friends were going there too, even though they weren’t interested in it.------------------------------
Oof, sorry. I got too much off topic.
Schools should just be one huge faraday cage. Kids have to learn to focus and pay attention.
And they need to learn the curriculum
I mean I’m not that extreme lmao that’s also a safety issue. Kids will be kids, they will not sit quietly all school day and be total lesson sponges lol
Of course not, but I think we should at least act as if they should.
Knowing it’s not possible, though.
My kids are in 5th, 3rd and 1st grade. I wouldn’t want them on their phones during class as they grow up.
Like I said prior, I don’t think kids should be on their phones either.
No, but the attention span kids have these days seem to be shortening. Phones and the current state of social media intake doesn’t help.
That said, a faraday cage is absolutely too far, but they don’t need their phones when they should be focusing on the course.
No, but the attention span kids have these days seem to be shortening.
I hear this a lot but have yet to see evidence/sources from anyone. It’s just “look around you.” I don’t find it particularly compelling. I didn’t exactly sit quietly as a kid myself.
How much of a safety issue would it really be? Cell phones didn’t really become a thing for my age range until high school. If there was an emergency, there was a landline in the classrooms.
Right? Somehow schools survived until at least the 2010s without every kid having a cellphone in them at all times.
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Those were tools. Smart phones are a distraction for social media 99% of the time.
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Ban pocket calculators because the abacus exists. Lazy kids aren’t learning how to do arithmetic because of them.
I don’t think y’all realize that not a single staff member or administrator or any employee of the school would be able to use a phone either (other than landlines I guess?). Schools aren’t just full of students lol
other than landlines I guess?
You mean that thing I specifically mentioned? Yes, I realize that. Would it be inconvenient? Yes, it absolutely would. Would it suck to work in that environment? Again, yes it would. If I’m just thinking about safety, I’m not sure it’s that much more unsafe.
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It’s incredibly unsafe when you live in a society built around smartphones/tablets for health and safety tools to remove said smartphones.
But is it? Landlines can make the same emergency calls. A Faraday cage also doesn’t mean you can’t have an internal wifi that reaches outside that the staff can connect to, or even the students can connect through with a proxy controlling their connection.
I agree it’s impractical. But it doesn’t mean laptops and phones suddenly don’t work. They can still work within the cage and you can poke holes through it with a landline and a proxy to control traffic in and out.
Ultimately, it’s definitely not worth the engineering and the effort. I just don’t think that safety is the reason it is impractical.
learn to focus and pay attention.
Not all of us have the luxury of that ability
I have very little faith the person you’re responding to even acknowledges the existence of ADHD .
I mean, I’m doing quite well having gone though school without smart devices and 100% would have never gotten straight As if I had one when I was a kid. And I’m every type of ADHD you can be diagnosed as…
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I can try to make the material interesting and be engaging but if you’re watching Overwatch on your phone all of that is a moot point.
“oh no i cannot play on my phone, how could school be so cruel”
I actually doubt that phones are the major reason for a post like this. There are many reasons that you could fill in that only happen to some schools but phones happen to be the only one that applies to nearly every school. For example, at my school, our lunches have been cut down to shit 15 minutes at most, and if you buy lunch, it’s much less. We usually have them call 5 minutes left. Sometimes they will say the kitchen is closed, sometimes they can’t because people are still ordering.
It’s always rude to not listen. So phones should not be allowed during class.
However, It’s rude not to allow breaks, growth, emergencies, and the fact that they are in fact, kids. They should be allowed to socialize, enjoy youth, and understand hierarchy/respect. So to earn respect, you must respect first.
Let the kids have their phones/computers as that is the modern world we live in. They will have technology. Don’t discourage it just because some people learned “you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket”. Well, now you do, so rather than ban it, teach them to USE IT!!! Just… properly.
Adapt the teaching, not the class.
One thing I miss about reddit is that I could just filter out r/teenagers
We’ve been so busy fighting extremists and gross fetish porn that we forgot to quarantine the annoying children.
If schools only focused on what students were motivated to learn, I’m not sure schools would really be accomplishing much. Not to say that schools shouldn’t foster motivation in students. Just that technology, especially social media, is very effective at distracting people.
What would you prefer the school do?
How could they motivate you to actually pay attention in class instead of playing with your phone? Honestly ask yourself if this “addressing motivation” would make geometry more interesting than tiktok.
Well said. Social media is designed specifically to hold attention and encourage addictive behavior. There’s no way to compete.
In one episode of hannah montanna they use a song and dance to learn about the skeleton bones. I still remember the song after like 10 years, lol
not treat students like indentured servants? productively encourage them to pay attention instead of imposing austere zero tolerance policies? do you really think that people in ancient greece paid attention to every second of lecture because there weren’t any phones?
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to go through school again? to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
school didn’t have to suck as much as it did.
Sounds like everyday work life
This is how work operates, except I’m there for two more hours.
You can quit work, and you have rights. Children have neither.
You can quit work and starve. You can quit school and get in a little bit of trouble. I don’t really see the equivalence here.
Children have lots of rights in this analogy, in fact in a great many places, they also have a right to be cared for by the state that adults don’t. Statutory service provision routinely is written in protection of children.
Weirdly, most people don’t have a right to take out and use their phone when working, and given that’s the thread topic it’s a decent sized hole in your argument. I worked a high-wage and technical role, white collar as it gets, and you know where my phone was when I was meant to be concentrating on my work, in my pocket. Know what would happen if I was fucking about on it when I had something important to do? Disciplinary, HR, threatened loss of livelihood. If you’re arguing you’re not being treated like adults, I have bad news for you.
Look, you’re not some oppressed underclass of unperson and your myopic determination to cast yourself as such is a genuine insult to people living under actual hardship.
Your statement would sound a lot less dramatic if not for the fact that literally everyone goes to school.
“Not being paid for your work” 🤣🤣🤣
My man, your book report is contributing nothing to society. Future scholars will not look upon it with awe. It is purely an exercise to help students as a whole develop as individuals.
Here’s my question - how do you expect teachers, who are actually providing society with a much-needed service, who are already well understood to be overworked and underpaid, to productively encourage students to pay attention?
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood or freedom just a few years from being born?
The fuck you think everyone has to go through in their lives prior to being an adult.
Edit: though
Maybe if they used blender(the software) to explain it.
yeah, too many school authorities do act taht way. For a approach going more in the opposite direction, see, for example: https://piped.video/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU (maybe skip to aa minute in. presented, the idea, in that case, by sugata mitra. The Talk is not new, but still relevant I’d think, and relates to the post here. ) 💻🖥️
For anotger, similar, but also different example, see https://piped.video/watch?v=WNuv0_MLrKg this one specifically mentions phones early on, too.
So if you believe in, or are open to the idea, that the approach in in the main meme post isn’t the best, then the stories in the piped videos might be of some intrest to you.
tdlr: 🎶you can use your phone if yiu want to, yiu can leave your technophobe schoolmaster behind,… 🎶🎧
Wrong. Get off the phone.
Says the neurotypical teacher to the kid who can’t concentrate without music during study time.
Just do what I did in school and put an earphone down your sleeve. Rest head on hand. Listen to music. It’s not difficult, I got away with it in exams ffs (I dont recommend that last bit btw, that was young stupidity in hindsight)
You aren’t wrong, but I’m hoping for more institutional changes to the way we determine what helps the next generation learn.
many entire generations of people did not have this luxury
Many generations of people didn’t have the luxury of an MRI machine. Are you going to deny people that because of it?
not a great comparison
It’s your argument.
I’m not arguing anything I made a statement
Can you not pair Bluetooth earbuds to your school laptop?
Oh, so laptops are okay, but phones aren’t?
During class. You made up “study time”. No one cares if your on your phone studying during “study time” in the library. But if someone is lecturing you shouldn’t be on your phone or have earbuds in.
OP take a look back at this in about 5-10 years and realize how monumentally ignorant it is.
I just wanted to be able to listen to my music while doing work.
