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France to ban mobile phones in primary, junior and middle schools

• djsumdog 9y ago
  There's a funny scene in the movie Paper Plans where an Aussie school teacher makes all his students put their phones in a big hat before class starts.
• jondwillis 9y ago
  Cell phones were banned during my years in high school, and smartphones didn’t even exist until halfway through my final year. In hindsight, I am thankful for the enforcement as it made for fewer addictive interruptions in attention that I currently deal with in my professional career and personal life at large. Texting under a desk or playing a 2d game on a flip phone was about all you could get away with. I doubt that my sentiment is very unique here.
  • on_and_off 9y ago
    Not at all, I share the same view. Electronic devices can be quite addictive. I don't have kids yet but when I do I don't see myself letting them have unlimited access to them. So no problem with that rule for me, on the contrary. (Anecdotally, I am French)
• mankash666 9y ago
  I'd like to be able to call my kid in the event of an emergency. I understand banning general cell phone use during class hours, but it's infringing on civil liberties to force an unrestricted ban
  • mino 9y ago
    Or, in an emergency you could simply call the school. You know, they have a phone.
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    Civil liberties and cell phone usage in school have nothing to do with each other. Emergencies are dealt with using emergency channels, cell phones are a distraction in school and push kids into the 'upgrade' cycle or they'll be considered not cool because they have old hardware. Clothing and shoes are bad enough. I'm so glad I wasn't a child in the age of constant parental supervision and communications. And I'll definitely leave my kids free from that. School is there to learn and to socialize with our peers, it is not there to be an extension of parental control.
  • praneshp 9y ago
    Eh, call the school instead of disturbing all other kids for your self-proclaimed emergency.
    • watwut 9y ago
      You mean demand that teachers do your personal messagers? That is entitlement a bit higher then calling kid during lunch or break - this ban is specifically about lunch and break phone usage.
      • function_seven 9y ago
        In an actual emergency? Sure. "Entitlement" is a strange way to frame it. Emergencies should be rare, the school can accommodate them when they occur.
        • watwut 9y ago
          "Disturbing all other kids" is strange way to frame phone call during lunch or break too. A bit dramatic since the supposedly disturbed kids were not disturbed from anything. And there is nothing wrong or disturbing about those even if the message is ordinary "go home alone cant come for you today" due to unexpected meeting or deadline. Or "go from school to grandma we will dinner there today" or "wait for me in school I will take you shopping today" change of plans that happen normally. Are they super dangerous emergencies? No. Are they practical to be called about? Yes.
          • makapuf 9y ago
            Can those SMS be checked when just outside of school ? yes. Go back in school in the third case, I'm sure schools can let you get back inside.
            • watwut 9y ago
              Yes they can, if the kid remembers to check the phone which is usually unreliable. But even if kid is super reliable, so what? The original argument was "I like to call". Still does not make the call during lunch disturbing to other kids. Going from work to school just so that you can ask them to let you inside, just so that you can tell the kid to wait for you after school instead of going home is ridiculous suggestion and disturbing for everyone including employer.
  • gsich 9y ago
    What is an emergency? If you call for minor stuff, your kid will start to ignore your calls.
    • TeMPOraL 9y ago
      That applies to teenage years too, when kids start to mark clear boundaries between their world and parents' world. Keep calling with bullshit trivia at the most socially or practically inconvenient moments, and your kid will soon stop picking up.
  • wiz21c 9y ago
    Come on, is it that hard to understand that : 1/ When the kids are at school, the school take care of them 2/ If your kid has an emergency at school, the school takes care of it (mostly they'll call the emergency service and afterwards call you) 3/ if you have an emergency, a simple call to the school is more than enough to have both the school and you manage it. The people in school are just as good as you to manage your kid in these situations Trust the school.
  • Yetanfou 9y ago
    A long time ago in a galaxy very close there once was a people who managed to get through their lives without having access to mobile telecommunications. In contrast to what many of you readers might guess they actually did very well without, they did not stumble from one emergency into the next and their stress levels were generally lower than those of mobile-carrying people in our own galaxy. I was born in that galaxy, I vividly remember it. If my train was late I made my way to a rectangular box on the platform and used the archaic device attached to one of its walls - it was called a payphone, think of an iPhone with a handset but without touchscreen and a physical coin slot to make you pay for whatever you did with it instead of the digital coin slot in the iPhone - to tell whomever I was travelling to that I would be late. At school there was someone ready to answer the telephone for all those emergencies which people keep on expecting nowadays. It might have been that things in that galaxy were more benign than they are in ours but for some reason those emergencies were few and far in between, leaving that person free to do other things.
  • mankash666 9y ago
    I'd wager that most respondents to this aren't patents with kids in schools. There's overwhelming support to allow parents to contact their kids without having to go through an intermediary at my kid's school, so who are all these people making academic arguments that are irrelevant?
    • praneshp 9y ago
      FWIW, I went to a school for 14 years. I don't mind discredit for not being a parent but my arguments aren't academic. Also honest question: I'd also like to see the overwhelming support you claim there is.
• yoz-y 9y ago
  The important thing in the article is that this ban concerns phone usage during breaks and lunch. Phones in classes were already forbidden long time ago.
  • noobermin 9y ago
    I think that is a step too far. Imagine they banned books during breaks. That's how far this is. I get you want to not have them use them during class but that is the general policing class behavior that teachers are supposed to do. Why ban them during breaks when it doesn't hurt their studies?
    • ArmandGrillet 9y ago
      Mobile phones get stolen and can take pictures/videos that can then be used for bullying others, it's quite different from a book. I don't have an opinion regarding this new law but those are the arguments I heard in the news. It will still be allowed to use mobile phones for "emergencies" from what I read, i.e. a teacher is not here and a child wants to contact a parent regarding that.
      • isostatic 9y ago
        > It will still be allowed to use mobile phones for "emergencies" from what I read, i.e. a teacher is not here and a child wants to contact a parent regarding that. If that happened in my son's school (he's 5) I would expect one of the pupils to simply wander into another classroom, or reception. Given the number of parents who work full time I'm not sure what good a child phoning their parent is going to be. In the highly unlikely event I need to contact my child, I will phone the school and they will pass on a message.
    • cspags 9y ago
      It may not hurt their studies, but perhaps their social skills. I recently stayed at a hostel, and when I first walked in I noticed how in the common area almost every single person was alone on their phone. It made me long for the pre-smartphone days in which I imagine travelers were forced to socialize with each other. While school lunch is a slightly different situation, I think it still applies that without phones kids will be forced to communicate more directly with each other.
• hux_ 9y ago
  Good move. Should be extended to colleges and workspaces too where any sort of concentrated work/discipline is required. Nobody will die.
  • noobermin 9y ago
    Consider this is a ban set by the government.
    • hux_ 9y ago
      So? Who you expecting the move to come from Zuckerberg? He has already got you touching your phone 80 times a day on average and if you bend over and allow him you will be touching your phone 200 times a day. It's a great way to produce Trump's and nothing else.
      • Yetanfou 9y ago
        > It's a great way to produce Trump's Your comment started off well and then you throw in this flame bait. Next time leave it out please.
  • TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Yeah, if you want to make better places for concentrated work, how about leaving alone this voluntary source of distraction, which is in a big part a coping mechanism for staying sane while facing the bullshit at work? Maybe let's focus on the second big distractor - other people. As in, meetings, open offices and unnecessary teamwork.
• alacombe 9y ago
  Meanwhile, my high school was authorizing students to smoke during recess in the school...
  • makapuf 9y ago
    Would it be better if they go out of the school in the streets to smoke ? Better have them smoke in a given space outside (not too nice, and placated with anti-smoke prevention posters ofc.) (Provided they’re old enough to come and go freely, of course, meaning high school / college)
• latch 9y ago
  Shouldn't this be a matter for individual schools or school boards (the article says some already have this in place)? I like the policy, but as I get older, I wonder why we have so many laws that control so much of what we can and can't do. I agree this one's pretty benign, but it still seems like an excess of authority. When I was in school, if I distracted another student or played on my calculator, I'd get in trouble. Despite the lack of law banning talking, the school wasn't impotent to enforce discipline.
  • dovdovdov 9y ago
    Today teachers can get suspended if they even set an angry look on the pupils. I guess they hope people will abide the law at least. https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/1400/5ab76c44469257.581356eaa1698.png https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/1400/5ab76...
    • eesmith 9y ago
      Neither of those are true, not in any systemic sense. Some old people love to grouse about how Things Were Better Then, and how Children Used To Respect Authority. It's been that way for millennia. You ever read Heinlein? Back in the 1950s, his "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" complained about how schools were too touchy-feely, intent more on having students feel good than providing a good education.
      • dazc 9y ago
        'Some old people love to grouse about how Things Were Better Then, and how Children Used To Respect Authority...' I don't know if things were better then but (as a kid in the 70's) we certainly respected authority because the threat of physical violence was a real one. I am not saying that was a good thing by the way, just explaining.
        • isostatic 9y ago
          As a kid in the 80s I didn't respect authority because I read Enid Blyton books (written in the 40s), who taught me that the local police were at best benign, but more likely incompetent.
• yummy 9y ago
  I had such rules in school and no one actually was capable of explaining why exactly it was good for me. It was a long time ago and I still don't understand
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• Montezuma_II 9y ago
  I think this is a mainly positive move. Mobile phones are massive distractions to children, especially in a school context. When it comes to young children, I am skeptic to the use of digital technology in education in general. School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as reading books, and nailing reliance on phones into children is not something we want to be doing in schools.
  • sgift 9y ago
    > School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as reading books, and nailing reliance on phones into children is not something we want to be doing in schools. School should help incorporate good habits into a child's routine, such as being outside, and nailing reliance on books into children is not something we want to be doing in schools. Slightly paraphrased, same content. Care to elaborate what it is that makes phones more undesirable than books? At the moment this reads like an "in my times .." rant.
    • jacquesm 9y ago
      Phones tend to be distraction machines, books much less so.
      • rejschaap 9y ago
        Books are distraction machines on a different level. When I become immersed in books I tend to deprive myself of sleep, neglect my daily chores and procrastinate my work. I do feel much better about periods where I read a lot, otherwise I tend to incessantly grab my phone to check blogs, news sites and stock/crypto prices.
        • adrianN 9y ago
          Books don't exploit every psychological trick there is to try to cram as many ads in your face as possible
• avip 9y ago
  Sounds like pure common sense to me. Schools are implicitly responsible for the overall well-being of kids. Many schools ban smoking, sugary snacks/drinks, some dressing style (or non-dressing), makeup. Many parents would love to send their kids to schools without a phone, this will empower and support them.
  • saberlynx 9y ago
    Sure. It’s pure common sense. And parents can totally send their kids to school without a phone. I agree with everything in this legislation save for the fact that it’s a legislation. My future kid wouldn’t even get a smartphone until age 15, if I keep my mindset for this long. But do we live in an age where parental and community authority are so diminished that parents need the power of the state to bolster their discipline of their kids? Maybe we cater to the kids too much in that case. My mother was never afraid of enforcing rules with me. Every kid in my life had a gameboy growing up. Except me. I complained and said everyone had one. I’m really grateful she didn’t just fold to me because I’m not addicted to video games and knowing my generally addictive personality, I would be if I had been playing games for hours since the age of 4. I threw a tantrum. For sure. Many tantrums. I said abusive things that I’m ashamed of, because she wouldn’t buy me a gameboy. But dealing with childish outbursts is a part of parenting. We don’t fold to children just because they make our lives unpleasant. She was also under social pressure from my uncle (whose son had a gameboy). She ignored it. My high school has a VPN that banned Facebook during school hours. We were sent to the principal’s for disrupting the class or playing with our phones. Must we involve the state in everything? It’s also pure common sense not to cheat on your spouse, or let a young child have an iPad, or watch more than 3 hours of TV in a day. Or drink too much soda. Or not going to them gym. By this logic, we should outlaw these too? Why is our reaction to minor suboptimal behavior to involve the state? There are many intermediary steps to enforce such a thing before needing to do this.
    • dpeck 9y ago
      Public school is a function/instrument of the state, isn’t it?
• j9461701 9y ago
  >The minister said the ban was also a “public health message to families”, adding: “It’s good that children are not too often, or even at all, in front of a screen before the age of seven.” I remember being a little kid and wanting to learn about space and submarines and sharks, and not being able to. I'd read my local library's books on those subjects, but I lived in a little town with a puny library so quickly exhausted my supply of information. I'd have given my front teeth to have access to a tablet with wikipedia access - even just one geocities article on Great Hammerheads would've made me jump for joy. Information diving on subjects you're interested in is one of the greatest boons of the modern age, and I think it's a terrible thing to deny a curious child. Yes a kid can spend all day every day on facebook or twitter or watching youtube videos, but to say all kids shouldn't have access because some might turn into little zombies is foolish. Assuming usage is properly curated by parents or other authority figures, smart devices can be some of the most powerful tools for educating children this side of a Greek tutor. Also this is a hobby horse as old as time. "New Techology is evil, and it's corrupting our youth like never before!" It wasn't true with TV, or radio, or codexes, or writing itself, and I see no reason this time in particular should be exceptional. >“This new announcement from the [education] ministry leaves us dubious because we’re having trouble understanding what is the real issue here. In general, we’re used to them being logical and pragmatic about things, and here, we can’t find the logic or the pragmatism in the announcements,” said Philippe Vincent, the union’s deputy general secretary. Ah. So it's a meaningless publicity stunt that will never go anywhere, and the original promise was a cynical election ploy to win the votes of luddities. Due credit to Macron’s administration though, at least they're making token efforts to stick to their campaign promises. >“In ministerial meetings, we leave our phones in lockers before going in. It seems to me that this as doable for any human group, including a class,” Blanquer said in September. Do you seriously see no difference between between a handful of elderly government officials leaving their phones in individual lockers guarded by armed men while they discuss affairs of state for hours on end, and hundreds of 8 year olds putting their iPhone 65s in unguarded communal bins while they run around for 15 minutes and then have to retrieve them again?
  • icelancer 9y ago
    >The minister said the ban was also a “public health message to families”, adding: “It’s good that children are not too often, or even at all, in front of a screen before the age of seven.” Citation-fucking-required for this one, with conclusive evidence proving that it's true for all kids under seven. AKA he pulled it out of his ass.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• jpkeisala 9y ago
  This is great. Actually, school that my kids goes to forbid smartphones this year. It's been all positive.
• zelos 9y ago
  Can we limit them for use by parents as well? Playgrounds seem to be the place parents go to look at Facebook while their kids yell "look at me mummy" forlornly.
  • abootstrapper 9y ago
    Cut parents some slack and give children some credit. Everyone is going to be just fine (possibly better) if dad gets a tiny break and junior gets a small taste of independence.
    • aluhut 9y ago
      This has nothing to do with independence. Kids need the attention of their parent. We are social beings. Those zombie parents kids develop into something the parents will later want to medicate shifting the blame on the kid. In no way will there be something BETTER.
      • greglindahl 9y ago
        When I grew up, I had long periods of time during which my parents weren't around. I socialized with other children. Imagine that!
        • aluhut 9y ago
          You are aware that there are playgrounds and ages where parents have to be around their kids are you?
          • greglindahl 9y ago
            I am aware that the rules for that are very different from when I was a child and now.
            • aluhut 9y ago
              It's got nothing to do with rules. It used to be common sense when I grew up. Also, there are bonding mechanisms in all kids that require feedback from a parent in their early years. This is where your parents attention is necessary. This is also where a kid can develop certain problems if they don't get this attention. My SO sees those failures of zombie parents every day at work. The only thing worse is the parents ignorance. Same goes for playgrounds that are in difficult areas or conditions of course.
• peterburkimsher 9y ago
  I think this is a bad move. When I was in school, I didn't want to carry heavy books all the time. I downloaded Shakespeare and other eBooks, and wrote my own script to convert the text into 1000-character iPod Notes. When someone forgot their book to class, I could share mine with them. Will other portable electronics be banned, or only communication devices? What about the Ti-84 calculator, which is still required for exams?
  • Majestic121 9y ago
    Would you agree that using electronic devices to "download Shakespeare" is highly unusual in primary school, and that most kids just use their phones to play games/watch YouTube and other distractions?
    • TeMPOraL 9y ago
      The deeper question is - how do we make it not unusual, but a normal things that kids just do?
      • eesmith 9y ago
        It looks like your response is focused on the "download"/"wrote my own script" aspect of peterburkimsher's account, and that you want to make that more common. I believe that Majestic121 is trying to point out that this ban is for the younger grades. Elementary school students rarely read Shakespeare. Or am I wrong, and your intent is that reading Shakespeare in grade 6 should be "a normal thing that kids just do"? FWIW, carrying too many heavy books is a known problem. In the US, from http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117633&page=1 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117633&page=1 : > Shelly Goodgold found that 55 percent of fifth- through eighth-grade students she surveyed carry backpack loads weighing more than 15 percent of their body weight. One-third of those students said they've suffered back pain. In Hong Kong, from http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1310896/children-are-still-damaging-their-spines-carrying-school http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/13108... : > Despite government reminders to parents and students, children are still carrying school bags that are too heavy for them, leading to serious spinal damage > "Studies indicate that 96 per cent of students carry school bags which are heavier than 15 per cent of their weight," says Dr Grace Szeto Pui-yuk, an associate professor at the Polytechnic University's department of rehabilitation sciences. That last one, from 2013, ends: > The adoption of electronic textbooks (e-books), which is encouraged by the Education Bureau as part of e-learning programmes, might help reduce the weight on young shoulders, but that's not always feasible. > Secondary school teacher Mo Kin-ping says her school considered using e-books. "But we found out they were more expensive than the actual hardcopies, and students may not be able to afford them."
• jageen 9y ago
  I think they must specify they banned smart mobile phones OR mobile phones By reading all comments I think problem is in smart mobile phones. which have extra features for user entertainment which also act as distraction (for student during study) Before coming to any decision we should not forgot that phone can also use as medium of communication with our guardian in emergency and emergency is something we could not predict.
  • abootstrapper 9y ago
    The school has a phone in case of an emergency. So do the teachers.
    • koonsolo 9y ago
      Not on the way to and from school
      • IMTDb 9y ago
        Phones can be brought to the school (and brought back home). They plan to implement (locked) boxes at the entrance of the building. So no worries there.
      • pixl97 9y ago
        Neither did any generation of kids since about the beginning of kids going to school. I don't think the world will end if they don't have it.
  • TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Dumbphones had games and entertainment features since probably the first model ever released. And let's not forget that any form of communication is itself entertainment, especially in school context. > Before coming to any decision we should not forgot that phone can also use as medium of communication with our guardian in emergency and emergency is something we could not predict. Technically they can, but schools usually place responsibility for handling emergency contact on the school staff.
• pavelludiq 9y ago
  I had a flip phone with no internet in HS, I played minesweeper on it about half a day everyday at school. It was the only way I had of staying awake during some of my classes. I literally fell asleep during class if I didn't have some stimulation. Not having that would've been a torture since falling asleep is a good way to get in trouble. Before I had my phone I drew. About 90% of my ink expenditure in school was drawings. I would've probably resented the hell out of a measure like this)
  • Jedd 9y ago
    > I played minesweeper on it about half a day everyday at school. It was the only way I had of staying awake ... I think it's risky to assume that what we think is best for ourselves (as children) is in fact best for us. It's even more risky extrapolating that over the set of { all children } I'm a big fan of the precautionary principle, and I think that most definitely is applicable here, as the social, cognitive, and cultural risks are quite high.
  • aluhut 9y ago
    Is this HN's version of r/iamverysmart?
    • ornitorrincos 9y ago
      I find an age divider here, when I was joung a cell phone was something my parents had one, as such I took to class some magazines to read, no matter what bored pupil will find something, regardless academics, no one is special for being bored
  • craigsmansion 9y ago
    > Before I had my phone I drew. There you go then. Although I'm sure either activity exasperated teachers, I hope you'll agree that drawing is a much more creative and useful skill. If you would have had access to a networked phone, you might not have gotten anything done. Not even doodling.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• rejschaap 9y ago
  My kids are still young, but I've been thinking about what is the right moment to give them mobile phones. Ideally, I would wait like to wait until middle school and then hope they will put them into their locker during class. I think concentration is one of the important skills to cultivate, I'm probably biased because it has been so important in my career. Phones are designed to distract and break concentration, responsible phone usage seems important. Also, I see kids cycling while using their phones all the time in Holland. If I would ever catch my kids doing that they will have to hand in their phones immediately.
  • motdiem 9y ago
    middle school was the right time for me, mostly because their social life became so active that it was overtaking my own phone most weekends just to coordinate their activities...
• motdiem 9y ago
  I think it's mostly posturing. Mobile phones were already banned in class, and this was well enforced. But many kids, especially in cities, take public transportation to get to middle school. My experience with middle school in Paris is that it's also very unreliable schedule-wise. When school suddenly finishes 2 hours early, I appreciate getting a text message from my kid telling me what they're up to. It looks to me that it'll be hard to enforce reliably - are they going to search backpacks, and keep phones in lockers during the times kids are in school ?
  • Symbiote 9y ago
    The second sentence of the article starts: "Children will be allowed to bring their phones to school"
    • motdiem 9y ago
      I think you underestimate the practicality of it - it’s a big topic of conversation at our middle school currently. I think it’s going to cause more issues than solve problems to be honest
  • jylam 9y ago
    The school can send you an text message to inform you your kid will quit 2 hours early. Problem solved.
    • motdiem 9y ago
      That would be great, if I could trust the school communications system. My experience in Paris public schools leads me to prefer other ways of communicating
• vuyani 9y ago
  Everybody seems to agree on this. But when we continue to ban drugs. Do the same people scream "prohibition does not work!"?
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• fredley 9y ago
  The web, and social media in particular is as addictive, and perhaps even as damaging as smoking ever was (is), albeit in less obviously perceptible ways. This is a good move.
• snvzz 9y ago
  Good riddance.
• mFixman 9y ago
  Blanket bans of this kind rarely work, and policies like this are usually caused by other factors. My primary school had a concrete playground without any trees, and school policy forbid us from running (so we wouldn't hurt ourselves), from playing games like tag (so we wouldn't run) or clapping each other's hands (because we could hurt ourselves). We also couldn't play card games to protect against gambling, nor gather in a group of 5 or more people for some reason. I would have loved a cellphone or anything not to be bored out of my mind during break, but that wouldn't be necessary with a more reasonable school policy.
  • opportune 9y ago
    Kids will find something else to do if you take away one thing they weren't using responsibly. The problem is when, as in your case, you take everything away Additionally, just because something gets a blanket ban doesn't mean the intent is to blanket ban. If the blanket ban simply encourages kids to only check their phones during breaks or when they go to the bathroom, that still has a pretty positive effect on kids using their phones throughout the day. I honestly can't imagine the thought process behind doing what your primary school did. When I was in primary school the only restriction on play was that you couldn't tackle or do anything else that would obviously hurt people. I think you would legitimately either need to be a terrible person, a complete idiot, or both to ban essentially all forms of play.
  • jnty 9y ago
    It sounds like your school was run in an authoritarian and deeply unpleasant way. That's sad and infuriating, but I don't think that has any particular relevance to banning an object which didn't exist at the time.
  • aluhut 9y ago
    > nor gather in a group of 5 or more people for some reason Seriously...? There is like several worlds between this (even if it's true) and the topic. You should ask yourself why your parents didn't do anything against those ridiculous rules and I assume you grew up in some normal western country and not in NK or something where I would assume those rules to be normal.
• pergadad 9y ago
  Thie is completely the wrong approach. Rather, schools should work to ensure that all kids learn how to use digital devices (not just phones) for their own benefit. If all they see at home is parents or siblings on Facebook, Skype and mobile games, then that's what they'll do too. Schools have to teach for reality, boy try to recreate some unrealistic and nostalgic "how it was in the day". Look at Finland and Estonia, they use technology meaningfully in class and get great results. It's not about using it all the time, but about using it where it fits. Prohibiting phones will just lead to new ways of circumventing the ban, new kinds of conflicts, punishments for kids for living what is today a normal life. If your only approach is to ban & punish, then those phones in kids' hands will be only used for whatever is the easiest low-value engagement. Teach kids that they can use Wikipedia, ebooks, educational videos, and creative tools to satisfy their interests, look up things from class that they don't understand, work together to make a presentation for class, programme Lego or other robots, practice vocabulary and interact with students from abroad in their second or third language, make little videos about the things they've learned, etc and you'll get great results. Frontal lecture causes distractions because it's fundamentally boring, unengaging and loses half the class. Tech can help - if used right. To give just one reference, out of thousands, see eg the OECD Report on this [1]. Tech can be really disruptive. And it can be a great facilitator for learning. It's about how it's used and whether students learnb to use it creatively, critically and constructively. You won't learn which mushrooms are edible by being kept out of the forest, and neither by being thrown into a forest and told to do whatever. You learn to understand what is edible, harmful, useful, ... if an experienced person that knows how to do so accompanies you in the forest once in a while and shows it, explains it and watches as you try to do it yourself in a real forest that you might encounter. Keeping kids away from phones, or allowing them to do whatever will have the same results - they'll play, eat the harmful mushrooms and fail to see the fantastic opportunities. Accompany them in using their own devices. That's the task of an educator today - teach kids how to live in today's world. Not smartphones every minute of the day, but also not forbidden. Use them were it fits. Show them what role they can play. Principally, this requires teacher training, adapting curricula and testing, and efforts in particular to make sure no kid is left out. Those from good families with educated parents will mostly learn this through parents or after-school activities, but especially poor/migrant/otherwise low performing students will suffer if you don't make sure education teaches them for the world of today. Really, really sad. This is a purely ideological move, catering to an older, reluctantly digital voter population. But it is also a betrayal of the very kids it claims to help. [1] http://www.oecd.org/publications/students-computers-and-learning-9789264239555-en.htm http://www.oecd.org/publications/students-computers-and-lear...
• Vosporos 9y ago
  They were already banned 7 years ago, this policy is a scam.
• PeterStuer 9y ago
  Parents keeping an electronic leash on their kids is also part of the problem.
• 110011 9y ago
  The way mobile phones are being used in the present day, by both children and adults alike, is unhealthy and at the very least it can be said that the potential ill effects are not very well understood. Much like how research into the ill effects of smoking were not properly understood during its heydays in the early 20th century when it was a sign of social sophistication and took many decades before a conclusive link (to lung cancer) was established. One of the major changes it has caused in our societies is the splintering of attention and erosion of the ability to confront boredom (let alone the skill to turn it into something useful). For example, if you reach for your mobile phone when your friend with whom you're having dinner excuses himself to go to the restroom, then that is a symptom. By itself, browsing some news websites or checking your social media feed is probably harmless in this context, but there is a huge opportunity cost in those missed moments where you could've profitably exploited that break to think about things that are important to you and to him. Perhaps the ensuing conversation could've been steered in a deeper direction had you paused to think in those moments.
  • mgraczyk 9y ago
    Just because something annoys you or you find it conflicts with your values does not make it unhealthy. I remember life before smartphones. I remember boredom. It sucked. I would never go back to the agonizing pain of sitting in the DMV for three ours or standing in line at a grocery store just for some "missed moment" where I study the shitty tabloids in line or DoT pamphlets. Romanticising the past is not new. Whether it's television, hot showers, or smartphones, there will always be cynics who wish a simpler life on the rest of us.
    • misev 9y ago
      Boredom can be uncomfortable, but it is not necessarily bad. It boosts creativity for example [1]. Not sure what are the benefits of mindless browsing on the phone then, if we suppose that it's mainly about killing boredom. 1. https://www.fastcompany.com/3042046/the-science-behind-how-boredom-benefits-creative-thought https://www.fastcompany.com/3042046/the-science-behind-how-b...
    • lsd5you 9y ago
• artur_makly 9y ago
  BRAVO!!!!
• alexduros 9y ago
  I don't know if it's good or bad news. But what is very disappointing is that when French government deal with digital natives issues, it's a question about "should we fear about smartphones or not ?" As Laurent Alexandre explains it perfectly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJowm24piM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJowm24piM4, in french) in many talks he gives those times to the French government, we should spend more thinking about how to educate our children to use and understand those new technologies, instead of fearing it and applying the "good old french precautionary principle" to keep our eduction system free of smartphones, full of chalk and blackboard...
  • bambax 9y ago
    > full of chalk and blackboard Thanks for the link to Mr. Alexandre's talk; very informative. He's a little heavy on the hyperbole but many of his warnings ring true, esp. the fact that Europe is squashed between the American GAFA and the Asian BATX, with no response of her own. That said, French schools are not esp. technology-adverse; most (all?) classrooms are equipped with a "TNI" (tableau noir interactif) which is in fact a great improvement versus traditional blackboard and chalk. Banning smartphones in schools is a very good thing IMHO; teaching technology is a distinct issue; kids don't use smartphones to learn technology but, most of the time, to consume content or exchange messages. Just because you have a car doesn't make you a mechanic, but it makes you walk less.
    • jeromenerf 9y ago
      s/TNI/TBI/ : "tableau blanc interactif". Having led some experiments with those, I am not sure they are a real improvement over a chalkboard: - they cost much more and are pretty useless without computers / tablets for the teacher and pupils - they require skills from the teachers to operate them - the software ecosystem is poor - slightly OT, wifi is not allowed in schools So, while the concept is attractive, the current implementations requires a lot of efforts and little value, even in the corporate world. I'd like to read some reviews about google's jamboard though.
      • ornitorrincos 9y ago
• bobsman123 9y ago
  I learned more on my own in middle and high school than I ever did from a teacher. This is a Luddite move.
• germinalphrase 9y ago
  TLDR: As a high school level teacher, this would be less of a problem if teachers had stronger enforcement powers. Since we often don't - I would strongly favor a ban. If students need a computer, we have them available all day, every day. As a high school level teacher, I appreciate the attitude that there are amazing opportunities for learning and skill development with computers. I agree with this wholeheartedly. That said, a majority of my students are addicted to social media (they are teenagers, after all) and cannot self moderate their attention and/or behavior on this issue. They are not, generally, breaking their attention away from class for some other kind of educational outlet (for which I am already fairly lenient when appropriate). They are sending their friends snaps, plays both games, and texting. Of course, using phones in class is already against school policy, but it will remain and issue until I am able to take a phone away from a student. At a prior school, this was explicitly against policy becuase it was considered a liability issue as phones are expensive personal property that the school did not want to be responsible for them. Additionally, parents give minimal support and/or flip out when it happens. Very few have the willingness to keep their student's phone at home during the school day even when it is a known and acknowledged problem. Often, they simply don't want to argue with their teen about it. I believe that we - as a American culture - are still too enamoured with our smart phones to effectively acknowledge the potential negative effects they can have on our attention/learning/cognitive development.
  • philamonster 9y ago
    >They are not, generally, breaking their attention away from class for some other kind of educational outlet (for which I am already fairly lenient when appropriate). They are sending their friends snaps, plays both games, and texting. I'm all for moderation but the kids I have come across in my K-12 experience, if they're not paying attention, are generally pretty bored out of their minds with whatever else is going on in the classroom. Which begs the question; whose fault could that possibly be? The child's or the adult in the room?
    • cicero 9y ago
      Wrestling with learning a hard subject, even under the best teacher, will often lose out to the instant gratification that is available from a phone if that distraction is available. Adults have problems with this, so why wouldn't children?
• gaius 9y ago
  There is literally no reason for an under-18 to have a mobile phone at all.
  • sliverstorm 9y ago
    I'd hardly go that far, calling my parents as a teen on phone booths never worked well, and phone booths are all but gone today. (Smartphones are a different discussion)
• ausjke 9y ago
  totally second this,hope we can do the same here,especially those smartphones are too addictive to young brains.
• HaoZeke 9y ago
  It's surprising that this isn't more prevalent actually.. Here in India being caught with one just means giving up your cell for the rest of the year.
• GnarfGnarf 9y ago
  Fantastic! Very positive move. We are poisoning our minds with mobile technology. Future generations will view our use of cell phones like the radium watch factories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls) or adding heroin to babies' cough syrup (http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-bayer-promoted-heroin-for-children-here-are-the-ads-that-prove-it-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-bayer-promoted-heroin-for...).
• eigenschwarz 9y ago
  The scary thing about smartphones is how they might be permanently changing adolescent and teenage brains, and not in a good way. Checking texts and emails, surfing the internet for information, and yes - even sites like HN and reddit - cause a dopamine surge in the brain that can lead to so-called 'dopamine loops' [1]. In such a crucial part of brain development, my fear is we are turning kids into the equivalent of 'lever-pushing monkeys' [2]. Certainly there is already evidence that smartphones might be contributing to negative development [3]. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-wise/201209/why-were-all-addicted-texts-twitter-and-google https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-wise/201209/why-w... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axrywDP9Ii0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axrywDP9Ii0 [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more-american-teenagers-than-ever-suffering-from-severe-anxiety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more-ame...
  • sridca 9y ago
    The same can be said for video games. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170622103824.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170622103824.h...
    • craftyguy 9y ago
      I believe my parents said their parents told them same thing about TVs, and their parents parents told them radios, and so on.
      • eigenschwarz 9y ago
        Again, same as above: do you watch TV or listen to radio in school unless the teacher introduces it as part of the learning process? It's not that everything about a smartphone is bad - just like not everything about TV is bad - it's the unfettered and ubiquitous distractions inherent in smartphones being used during school hours for uses aside from learning.
        • craftyguy 9y ago
• vectorEQ 9y ago
  ban is good. cell phones in class / school is not needed and just unneccesary distraction. seeing as how addictive the devices can become, it's imo a good thing to throttle the use of them for kids a bit. They should obviously learn about the technology to be able to cope with a highly technology oriented society, but it's not helpful to have all kids with cell phones in schools. it will benefit their school work, and also social interaction with other kids. good ban. go france!
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• ggregoire 9y ago
  I'm surprised they ban them only now, and only up to middle schools. Smartphones are the easiest way in the all history to cheat on school tests. Our parents and grandparents could write 1 or 2 math formulas or verb translations on a small piece of paper; now kids can just have all the courses of the entire year (+ Google and Wikipedia) on their iPhone, completely hidden in their pencil case. When I was in college, everybody cheated that way.
  • GnarfGnarf 9y ago
    How do you feel about going under the knife of a surgeon who got through college that way?
• mschuster91 9y ago
  Jeez. I had not thought the Macron government to be so backwards. IMHO there are two issues at place: 1. teachers not adapting to new times. In ye olde days, teachers had the attention of the students basically guaranteed (as the only thing students could do instead of paying attention to the teacher was drawing messages on papers and passing them around). That frontal instruction is bullshit and should be a thing of the past could be ignored. Now, however, teachers have to compete with the Internet for the attention of the students - but instead of embracing the change and throw some rotten traditions over board, they ban phones. LOL. 2. Mobbing/cyberbullying. I can understand that schools want to tackle this problem, but banning smartphones is a symbolic measure. The students will still use closed Whatsapp/FB/whatever groups after school, without the school being able to interfere in any way. Proper prevention measures, like teaching the students what the effects of social media can be, provide counseling, social workers, etc. - all that costs money, a lot of it. And so politicians rather ban smartphones so that the (rightfully) concerned parents shut up without having to spend huge sums of money.
  • gruez 9y ago
    > Now, however, teachers have to compete with the Internet for the attention of the students - but instead of embracing the change and throw some rotten traditions over board, they ban phones. LOL. how can the average teacher compete with social networking sites that have been engineered specifically to maximize engagement?
  • 1_2__4 9y ago
    LOL indeed. Your (poor) argument could be used to justify televisions running in the classroom 24x7 too, just to shake loose that awful "frontal instruction".
  • Shivetya 9y ago
    with regards to point #1, not all students have access to such phones. the only solution to your point I see is to insure they all have them. teachers can not change unless all students can go along for the change, hence how do we remedy that? teachers should not have to compete for a child's attention nor have to prevent a child from being a distraction to others in class. I do think a total ban is ridiculous, play ground time and lunch time should be more than allowable use periods. I don't recall point #2 being covered, perhaps that is elsewhere in French media that was not brought up and should have been.
• davidgh 9y ago
  As a parent of three adolescents I enjoy the fact that I can reach my kids whenever and Find My Friends allows me to confirm that they made it to school safely on a snowy day, for example. However. I did some volunteer teaching for a couple of years at my son’s school. Interestingly, I didn’t seem to observe students reaching in and initiating engagement with their phone very often. It was almost always in response to the “buzz”. It was so clear. They are there taking notes, looking at you, or even just staring at the floor. And I would see the small “snap” bodily response that happens when the phone buzzes with whatever. And mentally they might as well have jumped up and walked straight out of class. They were gone. Not “half paying attention while looking at this thing” but completely transported to a different sphere. Having every student disable all push notifications during class time would have solved nearly all the problems I witnessed. They developed “driving mode”, would sure be nice if they did an easy-to-access “class mode” where every notification of any type except a text or call from mom or dad was suppressed. Sure, some would refuse to enable class mode but with the students I taught, if I reminded at the beginning of class to turn it on, I suspect a fair amount of my students would have done it voluntarily.
  • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >Having every student disable all push notifications during class time would have solved nearly all the problems I witnessed. Back in highschool IT would heavily rate-limit sites that were doing real time updates (basically just Facebook) because our pipe was small enough that 50% of people having Facebook open in a tab was a big enough amount of traffic to care about. We also implemented network level ad-block and really aggressive caching. I'm sure there's similar things being done on a piecemeal basis in schools located where cell service is terrible enough that you want to be connected to wifi at all times. Most kids don't text much anymore so traffic goes through resources the school control. Dropping some arbitrary amount (say 95%) of facebook messanger, snapchat, etc. traffic on the student subnet/vlan except during the time slots between classes would be easy and everyone would just assume that the wifi sucks.
    • baldfat 9y ago
      Why in the world would a school have public access wifi for phones? That is about the worst network policy I have heard of. Also bottle necking WiFi will not make people think the WiFi sucks but that the IT Department sucks by both students and staff.
• artorias 9y ago
  This way no one can video tape the unruly blacks and muslims tearing the school apart.
• mortenjorck 9y ago
  Few things make me feel genuinely old like reading about smartphones in K-12 schools. When I was in high school, there was a part of the student handbook that specifically forbade "wireless devices" used during school hours, and given that only a few kids even had basic cellular phones at the time, enforcement was not only easy, but barely necessary. A modern classroom where kids are not only texting each other (something I didn't encounter until college) but sending Snaps, posting on Instagram, and playing Clash of Clans is so far outside anything I can imagine from my time in public school as to be from a completely different culture. I thought being a teacher must be hard based on my experiences then – I can hardly fathom what it's like today.
• hobarrera 9y ago
  Wow, this is amazing. I've seen kids being told off for NOT having a mobile phone on them at school so they could reach their parents in case of urgency. It's amazing how mindsets can be so different in different places (and I'm saying all this with no tone of judgement).
• wafflesraccoon 9y ago
  I wonder how well this will be enforced, I have to assume that some percentage of students will still bring their phones into school.
• threatofrain 9y ago
  A lot of these problems would go away with sophisticated technological control, such as software which restricts phone use except after school ends.
• juanmirocks 9y ago
  I fully understand the thoughts against the usage of mobiles for kids and early teenagers. Notwithstanding, to me it feels awfully wrong that the state, and not the parents, prohibit the usage of anything (that does not harm others directly). Same with Germany banning smartwatches for kids... https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/germany-bans-kids-smartwatches-that-can-be-used-for-eavesdropping/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/germany-bans-kids-smartwat... And then about enforcement. As technology progresses, I see little real room for no displays / smart everything anywhere. I practically see it as a lost battle. Still, I don't have kids, so I do not fully comprehend the problems that parents' may have with this issue.
  • killjoywashere 9y ago
    Children take cues from more sources of authority than just their parents. Having the state send the signal that "these devices have great potential for ruining your mind" is a strong and, as a parent, quite welcome signal.
  • notatoad 9y ago
    >Notwithstanding, to me it feels awfully wrong that the state, and not the parents, prohibit the usage of anything (that does not harm others directly). They aren't saying it's illegal for kids to own phones. They're saying kids can't have phones at school. As long as the state is running the schools, that seems well within their reasonable area of authority.
• romatthe 9y ago
  When I was a kid in high school in Belgium, mobile phones were definitely banned in every respectable high school without needing it to be enforced on a national level. You were allowed to carry it with you of course, but if anyone saw you using it, the teachers would take it away from you. That included during recess. I don't recall ever seeing anyone using their phone in class, except maybe some kid trying to be edgy once. It was a pretty okay system that I don't recall anyone really complaining about. Parents were happy they could contact their kids if they were worried, and it sure was nice I that I was easily able to call for help when I broke my arm while riding my bike home that one time. Of course, this was before the rise of smartphones. Those only took off around the time I got my first job, so I can't really comment on that. I definitely do recall playing Tetris and Wolfenstein 3D on my Texas Instruments calculator though.
• rootsudo 9y ago
  It's good. Sounds bad, but it is good.
• phil248 9y ago
  I would have gotten in trouble for playing on a Gameboy in class when I was a kid. This isn't much different. Though the ban seems like an over-reach of authority. Kids should be able to use their phones during breaks. And I'm sure many will.
• MarcScott 9y ago
  When I taught, I found that student's having mobile phones was pretty useful. They had to be kept in their bags and on silent during my lessons, unless I gave permission for them to be out. They would use them to add reminders for homework, have a second screen for internet access, take photos of the board, connect to my Apple TV and then point their cameras at their work to display it to the rest of the class. I rarely had issues, and when I did I would just confiscate the phone and then make the parents come in to school to collect it. That soon tempers a child's desire to get their phone out in class.