Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy? This happens everytime a new technology becomes popular and schools don’t know how to regulate it they do this.
The downside is, a fair few student will have their phones confiscated by the school. But it won’t dissuade them from bringing them in. You make them better at hiding them instead of creating tools and protocols to enforce for when they can and can’t use them.
The crazy thing is, this should be about schools not wanting to be liable for or responsible for these pieces of tech. But Everytime I see legislation like this, it’s to do with “children’s mental health”, or these devices being a distraction.
Model it. Nobody should be allowed to have a phone in schools by this metric. No phones for students? No phones for teachers and administration.
Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy?
Except none of these things were feeding Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan garbage straight into their highly impressionable skulls.
I, for one, support the banning of phones in schools. The social media addiction has been shown to cause depression, particularly in girls, and the brainwashing is ever more apparent.
If anything, this policy fails by not going far enough. I question whether kids should have access to social media at all before a certain age.
What’s your point? Are you banning the entire Internet?
All this stuff is still accessible once the bell rings and before they get to school, just like it was when I was a kid. Kids were still going on YouTube/MySpace/ Facebook and more to share things. This argument doesn’t make sense.
You’re attributing the issue of algorithms to the medium itself.
Facebook and YouTube weren’t as good at recommending things back then. It’s not the internet as a whole that’s the problem, it’s what social media has become. Addiction skinner boxes. It’s not ok for kids to grow up using that.
And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about. (Edit for clarification: what I meant by “so anything about it” was schools aren’t responsible for teaching good and responsible phone use and self control, nor is it their job to step in when the parent is doing their job with teaching these skills).
I’ll also point out the argument that there was a push back then for outlawing video games and violent music because of its effect on young children and regardless of the validity of the danger to kids, it’s still the fault of parents who were allowing their children to listen to that music or play those games. Schools already likely have policies about cell phones, or at the very least policies about confiscating distractions.
You seem to have taken this as not support for banning phones in schools rather than what it really is. A criticism of this method for the deficiencies that it creates without solving the problem or even (more than likely) changing anything about the protocols already in place for handling distractions in schools except potentially creating a worse situation for the administration who have to now be responsible for these items en masse because students and parents are going to ignore this until it hurts them personally.
It also doesn’t teach students anything at all about moderation or the dangers of the internet, nor does it teach them anything about this tech which they will end up having to use as adults. And if you have seen adults with this tech you know it’s not just a danger to kids.
And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about
Okay so, because some parents are bad and fail at educating their kids properly, society shouldn’t take a role in correcting that behaviour and instead should just let kids be damaged for life, did I understand you correctly?
I don’t know where you’re from (although I can guess), but here in Europe, and this is an article about France, we recognise the state has a role to fulfill in society, we all pay taxes and expect them to be used for the benefit of all. I don’t see any problems with schools being the enforcers of government legislation in this instance.
Also, everything else you wrote… I mean, it is obvious that your school system is very different from what I’m familiar with. Because yes, it IS the school’s responsibility to make sure that rules are applied properly in their premises, the money/resources necessary to do so are a secondary thought. This shouldn’t be something that needs to be explained, but well, here we are.
So, what (in France I know!) are you getting for said taxes that you were not getting before?
Because that’s exactly what I’m getting at. It is the schools responsibility to enforce the rules. The point is, it’s not the schools responsibility to take on the liability of what comes with that (ie. Holding onto thousands of dollars worth of tech with the ability to keep that tech in the same condition it was in when it was confiscated for an untold amount of time), it is the parents responsibility to make sure their children aren’t ringing such distracting material to school. And this means there are already likely protocols in place for distracting material. So what are you getting out of this ban?
it’s not the schools responsibility to take on the liability of what comes with that (ie. Holding onto thousands of dollars worth of tech with the ability to keep that tech in the same condition it was in when it was confiscated for an untold amount of time),
But it is, actually. Lol. It’s always been. I’ve had my phone taken in class a few times, and it was always returned at the end. It’s really not a big deal.
I don’t know what you mean by “Holding onto thousands of dollars worth of tech”. Its up to the teachers to keep it for the duration of the classes, and to return them at the end. They don’t need a safe to keep them in. It really isn’t that big a deal.
it is the parents responsibility to make sure their children aren’t ringing such distracting material to school.
It should be, but again, they aren’t. Which is why the schools must intervene. And it’s not really something they want to do, it is something they have to do, by government mandate.
So when one of these phones start a fire because it’s been improperly kept and the battery has a thermal runaway event?
If the phone is always returned then literally the law does nothing. The phone is being given back to the student? That’s a failure in the implementation of protocol or policy. You can’t use that to claim my argument is invalid because it literally does not make sense in this context.
You still haven’t answered what you are getting at here. These rules have to be enforced either way, so I don’t know why you think complaining your way out of it should even be a factor. It isn’t. Schools need to deal with it, simple as.
Or are you just saying “well, I don’t see how this can be enforced so they might as well not do anything!”?
I remember when people didn’t have phones on them 24/7 and kids didn’t die and parents could call the school if they needed to talk to the kids. Somehow we survived.
Well the #1 reason US parents want their kids to have phones is because so many kids die in school shootings and parents have a need to be able to get ahold of their kids.
That’s the #1 reason, no matter how illogical it is
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, you’re right. Kids calling 911 is what gets first responders on scene. Until kids in America can attend school without the threat of gun violence, banning phones is not an option.
Good, you don’t need smart phones in school
For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t.
We’ve been without smart phones for millenia, literally, and we were fine without. You will be fine without.
we didnt have clean drinking water either, or daily showers, we lived without soap for millenia
Lol, we definitely have had clean drinking water for far longer than we have had dirty drinking water, thank the industrial revolution for that. And try skipping a shower for a day - you’ll be fine. Soap also has a long history https://www.soaphistory.net/soap-history/ over 4000 years
So literally wrong on all three points. Perhaps you need to read more instead of doom scrolling and swapping nudes on your smartphone
For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t
I have a feeling that you haven’t gone to school recently lol
Educational resources are blocked that you literally cannot do your assignments without accessing. Teachers will tell you to use your phone to access it.
If you have some questions for someone who is actively in highschool right now, I’d be happy to answer :)
edit: tone
Do I really need to explain this? I guess I do
I’m sure there are classes in school now that require a phone. There better be, kids need to learn how to properly and responsibly use them. Having said that, 90% of other classes never required and still do not require a phone.
Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media, harmful to the development of the brain. This is not news, this has been known for a while.
This is not fascism, this is not me trying to be a dick this is simply kids needing to be away from their phone for a few hours per day and everyone is losing their minds because OMG, how are we going to make it without phones? Such opinions alone are reason enough to ban phones in schools. Learn ti be a human being first.
If we’re talking about how it SHOULD be, the educational system to properly teach kids knowledge about life and not encouraging cheating (which a teacher has implied to do before) on some math equations.
never required and still do not require a phone
If your teacher does their job and teaches, sure. In the modern age where the teacher just tells you to “google it” then you DO Google it and it’s blocked, yes you DO need a way to get information related to your studies online.
As an example:
I need to make an essay on a song… that I can’t access because it’s blocked. Literally today.Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media…
I do agree with your reasoning though. Ideally the schools provided resources would be able to do this. However due to the fact that we have 2 IT guys for 4 schools, 6,000 students assuming similar size, there’s not enough people to actually make stuff work.
Good on you France!
I hope more countries start realizing how important this is. We have more than enough evidence demonstrating the damage that comes from being permanently connected, or even online for more than a couple hours per day, and minors are taking the worst of it because they are developing under those conditions.
