4 ms·

I see what you mean. I'm still curious why this has to be a law though? Aren't there a bunch of policies in schools that are enforced without the need for law?

• opportune 9y ago
  Sure, there a few reasons to do it like this. First, my impression is that you still have the right to send your children to a private school where this won't be enforced. So it's not a law, it's a policy passed at the national level for the public schools, which are organized from the national level. Secondly, passing the law at the national level deals with the situation where a school gets "bullied" into not passing the policy to begin with. For example, parents might prioritize being able to coordinate pickups in real-time over their children's education (I'm not implying bad intent: they just might not recognize the negative impact of their children's mobile use during class time) and thus pressure a school to not ban mobile use during class time. Personally I think your own definitions of what are reasonable and what are not are skewed. You think it's over the line to claim that "children are not too often, or even at all, in front of a screen before the age of seven"??? What could a five or six year old possibly be doing on a smart phone aside from watching videos and playing games? Why do middle schoolers need access to their phones during lunch - what do they gain from it? I'm not French though, so someone will have to double check me on the claim that this is actually a national policy for public schools rather than an actual law.
  • seszett 9y ago
    > First, my impression is that you still have the right to send your children to a private school where this won't be enforced. So it's not a law, it's a policy passed at the national level for the public schools, which are organized from the national level. > I'm not French though, so someone will have to double check me on the claim that this is actually a national policy for public schools rather than an actual law. As far as I understand it, they have not yet decided which legal way they will use to enforce that but it will most probably be in the "Code de l'éducation", so applicable to private schools as well. Private schools have different funding, some liberty in choosing what they teach in addition to the nation-wide requirements, and more freedom in choosing the pupils they accept, but most policies do apply to them. The basic idea in France is that all children are supposed to get the same education, no matter where they are and what their parents want (with some leeway regarding regional culture and language). Children are future citizens rather than just property of their parents. It's very clear here that the ban is intended to be for all children, not just public school children. Private schools are really anecdotal in France anyway, outside of a few regions (like mine in the rural West where almost 50% children used to go there, though it's been declining).
    • opportune 9y ago
      Thank you for that, didn't realize the Code de l'éducation applied to private schools. Funnily enough, in some areas of the US, private schools are the only places to get a real education (e.g. in states which don't teach evolution in public schools), and I went to such a school, so I'm of the opinion that you should have the option to give your child a different education so long as it is not drastically different. I understand the argument for nationalizing this policy across all schools public and private, but like the person I was replying to originally, I'm not entirely sure I agree with that argument. Then again, I think the difference really stems from a deep ideological disagreement on the priority of freedom from the government vs. freedom of the government. So it's no surprise that this doesn't make sense to us Americans
• seszett 9y ago
  > I'm still curious why this has to be a law though? Aren't there a bunch of policies in schools that are enforced without the need for law? Well, nation-wide rules for education are written as laws in the "Code de l'éducation", maybe it's different in other countries but as long as it's legally binding for the schools I don't think it's very important whether it's called a law, a directive or an executive order. Policies that are not laws are decrees from the local authorities, but they only have the power to enact rules that are directly relevant to their level (like, the local region can forbid children from going outside during hurricanes in Réunion, but not to forbid cellphones in Brittany). > we have an opinion about how you should raise your kids and we'll use laws to send that 'message' Yes, that's the universalist basis of the French National Education. It has been working well enough for the last two centuries and I don't see anything wrong with it.