16 ms·

France bans smartphone use in schools

232 points by deegles 8y ago

sp332 8y ago
There's more to life than homework, even when you're in school. If I have my work done and want to read Slashdot or Ars Technica, or if I'm between classes and want to check the news, that's really not something that should be banned at the national level.
- WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
  You don't need to read the news every day, let alone every hour of the day. It's an addiction to the way news is currently produced. It's entirely reasonable to spend an evening a week reading up on tech news. It's not reasonable to have a compulsion to check the news whenever you have a down minute. I'm guilty of that myself, I'm currently writing this while a program compiles but I wouldn't wish this on a developing mind. Besides, there are other places where news and the internet is available, why shouldn't places legislate away having that 24/7 on smartphones during school.
  - test6554 8y ago
    The older I get the more I realize that just because something is good for the average person doesn't mean it should be the law for everyone. There are billions of ways to go through life, and sometimes the freedom to make and learn from mistakes is just as important as a formal education.
    - wild_preference 8y ago
      I’m arriving at the opposite conclusion as I age. Exceptional people are so rare that it seems to make more logistical sense to ignore them and let them bend the rules themselves. Kind of like a browser leaving advanced features to power users. For example, the vast majority of kids in school are using their smartphones to do stuff like watch Ninja play Fortnite on Twitch, not whatever self-enriching bullshit we can point out they could be doing. Also, when I was a kid, there was no greater injustice than my parents kicking me off the computer to go outside. Ugh, don’t they know how productive I’m being?! But boy do I understand as an adult. What better time to learn how to entertain yourself without a computer screen than in school?
  - vorpalhex 8y ago
    > You don't need to read the news every day As someone who votes, you should read the news on a very regular basis. Ideally that means reading a variety of news sources from a variety of political leanings.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      > As someone who votes, you should read the news on a very regular basis. Ideally that means reading a variety of news sources from a variety of political leanings. Why? To poison your mind with lies and misrepresentations of reality? To get distracted from important issues and spend lots of time following irrelevant dramas? Mainstream news has negative informational value these days.
      - vorpalhex 8y ago
        Obviously you have the special truth from the only true source, and all news media is fake except for the ones who hawk gold pills and testosterone boosters - they know how it really is.
        berbec 8y ago
        The news can do better, I'm sure we can all agree, but let's not go over the top on either side. I doubt GP is QAnon and doubt all news media makes brain juice drip out of your ears.
        TeMPOraL 8y ago
        I don't have any special truth from a true source; I just believe that a typical news story is mostly misinformation intended to drive pageviews instead of presenting accurate picture of reality. I don't think adding more false information helps get a more true picture. I mean, you could try to tease out some true information by "averaging" news from multiple distinct sources, but that's pretty much a full-time job, and most news are just a waste of time. (I mean, seriously. Doesn't everyone here know of Gell-Mann amnesia? Or are people just afraid to follow it to its logical conclusion?)
    - 8y ago
- bytematic 8y ago
  Under the age of 15?
  - sp332 8y ago
    That's halfway through highschool. I picked actual examples of sites I visited in highschool. I also played video games and learned how to hack the terminal server (a bit). But generally not in the middle of a lecture.
adamnemecek 8y ago
Gotta get them used to misplaced authority and fascism while young.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - adamnemecek 8y ago
    Sorry. What exactly is "this" thought?
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantive or inflammatory comments.
jacknews 8y ago
Surprised they weren't banned already. How can a teacher droning about valence levels possibly compete with instagram feeds, and much more so for younger kids. Possibly even, aspects of smartphone use should be treated as a potential health risk, in the same ways as alcohol, tobacco, sugar, etc. (though not all of those are treated appropriately yet)
- JeanMarcS 8y ago
  Actually there was already a law from 2010, which was stricter than the new one and, therefore, not applied in any school. This one is lighter in the way that now, the phone can be used outside teaching hours (so between lessons) and on certain events (like museum visits or sports event during school time) And as always in France, it’s a law above a law above another law, etc... But French president Macron was very proud of it, so bravo...
- kehrlann 8y ago
  There was no law about this but school staff sometimes enforced it anyway.
- antpls 8y ago
  To me, banning smartphones at school is an urgent measure taken to face a fundamental, but misunderstood, change in society. Why not use smartphones to improve education rather than seeing it like a threat? My guess is that 1) most teachers have no idea how to teach using smartphones, and 2) the new digital economy is threatening the job of teachers.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  Well I am curious how much effort will be put into it. In the US local governments cannot even keep cell phones out of prisons, the State of Georgia was confiscating over ten thousand phones per year. With regards to children in school we need to just start early and teach them that not using one in class is being courteous to their teachers and others while at the same time perhaps offering them more time between classes to check their phones. It is just a matter of showing them how it should be done and rewarding proper behavior.
- 8y ago
pwaivers 8y ago
> “In reality, the ban has already been made. I don’t know a single teacher in this country that allows the use of phones in class.” Not allowing kids to use smartphones during class is a huge difference than not allowing them at all in school. Cell phones are huge part of people's lives, whether they like it or not.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Not allowing kids to use smartphones during class is a huge difference than not allowing them at all in school Learning how to put down their phones while socializing and working will probably be more valuable to these students, in the long run, than scoring a few extra minutes of Instagram. It isn't like they can't use their phones once off campus.
  - waterhouse 8y ago
    > Learning how to put down their phones while socializing and working How many years do kids spend in school? And how long do you think it takes to learn how to do that? Surely not more than one year. Arguments of the form "They need to learn how to behave in later life, therefore they should spend 12 years behaving that way" are wrong. (The conclusion may be correct, but the reasoning is not.) Given that it takes only x years to learn that, the question is whether it's worth having them behave that way in the remaining 12-x years.
- xexers 8y ago
  So why not use a dumb phone as a cell; They're cheaper too!
- gaius 8y ago
  Cell phones are huge part of people's lives, whether they like it or not. The generation that invented smartphones did not have smartphones in class
- themagician 8y ago
  They don’t have to be a big part of your life. Let the battery die on Friday night and don’t pick it up again until Monday morning. You might be surprised how you spend your time and how much more of it you appear to have.
Yoric 8y ago
To be clear: phones have been banned in most French schools for years, but faculty had no legal authorization to actually touch the phone or look at it to ensure that it was off. I haven't read the actual text of the law, but I believe that it gives faculty the authorization to do just that.
- conradk 8y ago
  I've heard the same about a school in my town. Apparently, what is planned is a confiscation by the school of any phones teachers will see in the school.
- yardie 8y ago
  I guess this is different for private and religious schools. Our son's catholic school had no problem confiscating phones, 3DS's, or card games. To take them home them and the parent would need to pick it up from the headmaster's office.
  - Yoric 8y ago
    Hum. Don't tell your kid, but I don't think that's legal :)
    - tk75x 8y ago
      In a private school where the policy is clearly stated and the parents signed their agreement, this is a perfectly legal.
DeBraid 8y ago
> The measure prohibits the use of tablets, computers, and other internet-connected devices as well. Ban phones, sure, but no computers? Bring back the typewriter?
- lbeziaud 8y ago
  The ban only concerns "students under the age of 15", who typically take notes on paper. The teacher can also make an exception for pedagogical purpose. > There are exceptions in place for students with disabilities and for the educational use of devices in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities
  - sp332 8y ago
    Sure but they also use Google and Wikipedia etc.
    - bytematic 8y ago
      Under 15? Not really, can use purely offline sources for that generic material. Good skill as well. Still should have a basic computing class though, perhaps wrapped into a library class.
      - tomjen3 8y ago
        In my experience all printed material is incomplete, obsolete, or one-sided and frequently all three. That is not to talk about materials that can't be encoded as text, such as instructions and how-tos for whatever the French version of shop-class is. You would propose that students be taught such subjects as the French revolution, based on what materials are available in the school library? How can you even ethically do that, when the kids probably can't even get the complete text of the Tennis court oath?
        izacus 8y ago
        I very much doubt the historical consensus about French revolution changed in last 1-4 years since last high school history books were updated and printed.
swiley 8y ago
I'm really not sure how I feel about highschoolers having phones. On the one hand, not having one seems like it could cause isolation and practical/logistical problems. On the other hand, the whole point of most of the smartphone ecosystem is to manipulate people and these people are especially prone to that. Highschoolers therefore should be only allowed to use completely free (as in freedom) community maintained software/OS/hardware devices.
- chpmrc 8y ago
  How about educating kids on the proper use of such powerful tools, including the concepts of FLOSS (and, in general, how to question and think critically)? TV is not the problem, having more kids watching Jersey Shore rather than some good documentaries is.
  - tjr225 8y ago
    I agree that we should be educating children on healthy device usage. However, having a computer in your pocket that is connected to the internet 24/7 is an entirely different beast than any other mode of entertainment.
  - Molaxx 8y ago
    It's hard, these apps are built by a huge amount of people to maximize attention hogging and addiction. Fighting addiction without going cold turkey is nearly impossible. Awareness usually doesn't help. Further more, it is hard teaching people to think critically while their faces are stuck to their phone.
- chriswarbo 8y ago
  > On the one hand, not having one seems like it could cause isolation That may be true for banning individuals, who might end up excluded from activities everyone else is doing. A blanket ban would have different effects, since it's excluding everyone, who can find other activities (or ways around the ban) to do together. You're definitely right about practical/logistical problems though.
ythn 8y ago
Now if only we could do this in America...
- pandasun 8y ago
  Or maybe you should move to France.
chpmrc 8y ago
Typical prohibitionist mindset. Lots of people use X, we don't like X, we ban X instead of understanding how to properly and moderately integrate X into our lives. Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices. If we keep blaming the ineptitude of teachers on devices the quality of education will never progress. EDIT: part of the education process is to teach kids how to use and not abuse these devices and when it's appropriate to use them for entertainment. Telling them "you can play Fortnite for an hour after you finish this math challenge" is way better than "you can't play Fornite at school!". I remember having the same policy applied for when I was in school and we would play Pokemon TCG. When it was banned we would play in secrecy during class, when they gave up and allowed us to play during recess we stopped playing during class. It's just common sense.
- Yoric 8y ago
  Would you allow students to come to class with their own TV and to watch it whenever they want? Because, in a school setting, that's exactly what phones and tablets are: distraction engines.
  - djaychela 8y ago
    That's a great phrase - 'distraction engines' - which my stepkids will be sick of fairly quickly. Love the TV analogy, BTW.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- EliRivers 8y ago
  Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices. My experience is certainly the opposite. I do all my best learning without smartphones and without tablets.
  - chpmrc 8y ago
    You prefer other devices, not everyone does. Most people nowadays own a smartphone but not a laptop. And books are arguably less engaging than apps for a generation that grew up not reading them (hard to swallow, since I'm an avid reader, but it's true).
mercwear 8y ago
Oh how the times have changed! I graduated from high school over 18 years ago and ANY cell phone was confiscated and you had to go see the principal to get it back.
- berbec 8y ago
  I remember many trips to the office to get my pager back
pmichalina 8y ago
Typical statist mindset.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 8y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
jonbaer 8y ago
If you can have "airplane mode" you can surely come up with some type of "school mode" (apps locked and calls in/out to certain specific numbers). Also nothing in the article re: smartwatches.
- WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
  There is a "school mode": Off.
  - dosbre 8y ago
    That may ask for parents unlock.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- athenot 8y ago
  I think that could be done today with mobile management device profiles. Of course that would require quite a bit of IT infrastructure, which means money, and that is a tight resource in schools so probaby not feasible.
modells 8y ago
tl;dr psa for everyone: configure your phone for grayscale, least animation, vibrate-only and turn off most notifications. Smartphones are mental cocaine. Look around a city almost anywhere and most people are hunched over, staring at glowing glass and oblivious to almost everything... so much so the Dutch are putting crosswalk lights on the ground to keep people from walking into traffic while they’re getting their fix. It’s clearly unhealthy as focus, socialization and personal safety suffer.
- joaomacp 8y ago
  What's the difference between that and a book? Lots of people reading books on the subway, oblivious to almost everything around them...
- Pulcinella 8y ago
  Yes. This is going to be very pop-pshychology, but I feel like smartphones are almost gambling-adjacent. Flashing lights and constant, small hits of dopamine.
  - sp332 8y ago
    Gotta ask, what kind of apps do you have on your phone? Flashing lights??
Pulcinella 8y ago
My thoughts as a High School teacher: I have tried[1] to allow students to have their phones, teach them to use their phones responsibly, etc. It doesn’t work. They are banned in my class. I’m just a single teacher with basically no budget. I can’t compete with giant corporations that spend millions on design, UX, UI, etc. [1] Also, technically trying to teach kids to use their phones responsibly (or even generically teaching them how to be responsible adults) isn’t legal state standard for any of my subjects so I could get yelled at by parents or admin for doing it and I would have no recourse. It’s unlikely to happen out, but it is something admin can use if they don’t like you and want to nail you on something.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  It's not only competing with the addictive nature of smartphone apps, but competing with a child's interests too. Personal anecdote, but, going to school and learning stuff was more about discipline than enjoyment, that only came later on subjects in college I actually found interesting. But I do support that method of education, and I also support a ban on smartphones by extension.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > I also support a ban on smartphones by extension I support a ban during class. Between classes, however, it seems fine to let students co-ordinate extra-curricular activities on their phones.
    - DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
      Kids standing around checking phones or kids talking to each other. That the basic choice. The trade off of some small convieneice seems worth while. If hadn't thought about it much, mobile phone didn't exist when I was at school. However I recently visited a school as a prospective parent and they had a strict no phone policy. Locker or lose it. After listening to the principle talk about the problems they had with bullying, distractions, social status, I'm supportive. I can see that not being able to co-ordinate activities could be a non-trivial inconvenience, though.
weliketocode 8y ago
Like much of education policy, this seems to help some at the expense of harming others. For the intelligent & motivated, there will be unnecessary boredom during downtime/study hall, potential hatred for learning/school, and other negative effects. For the lackluster students, this policy will help some pay attention to class, learn lessons, and complete work. In general, however, I'd have to say I'm against it. Any widespread banning of freedoms or ignorance of new technologies will have outsized negative consequences.
- Daishiman 8y ago
  > For the intelligent & motivated, there will be unnecessary boredom during downtime/study hall, potential hatred for learning/school, and other negative effects. Boredom is a fact of life, and learning to accept it without forcing yourself to depend on a smartphone is an underrated skill. > Any widespread banning of freedoms or ignorance of new technologies will have outsized negative consequences. This argument does not really apply completely to children. And it is not ignorance; they're free to use their phones as they please, after class is done. I agree with many posters here: phones have been designed explicitly to rob you of your attention span. The amount of willpower and self understanding to deal with that healthily is far more than what most children can muster.
  - privacypoller 8y ago
    absolutely - teaching my kids how to entertain themselves for a couple of hours has been one of the major challenges in raising them. A combination of parents scheduling the entire life of a kid and always-available media has made it very hard for a tween to just "find something to do" for an afternoon.
  - xexers 8y ago
    > Boredom is a fact of life, and learning to accept it without forcing yourself to depend on a smartphone is an underrated skill. There is a whole book on that topic: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06VTZYPTF
- megaman22 8y ago
alkonaut 8y ago
Just use one after school. I see zero problems. Allow one to be used at lunch hour if you feel it’s an infringement not to be able to post a selfie for 8h straight?
cube2222 8y ago
My thought as a University student and only a year ago - high school student: Phones are a really great learning aid. There are also people who prefer to listen and participate more actively in lessons instead of writing down everything written on the whiteboard, with a smartphone they can just take a picture of the whiteboard. Smartphones are the smallest thesaurus and translator you can get. Smartphones can graph or take the derivative of any function you want. Wolfram alpha is a wonderful application. Smartphones can quickly give you the life background of any author. Which helps immensely when analysing literature. I've never experienced any real problems at school in relation to phones, as the teacher could just tell you to put it away. They have all the power to give you an F if you don't abide. Admittedly, I've been both at a good highschool and a good University, but banning phones seems like not taking the time to show students how to use those effectively, and at the same time tries to hide the issue of people just not being interested in their lessons. And a lack of phone won't help you grab their interest. They'll switch to talking with each other additionally disturbing those who do want to pay attention.
- truncj 8y ago
  This sounds like a persuasive essay just lists facts without researching the benefit/detriment of each. Taking a picture of a whiteboard is not the same as writing/typing notes.. and no, teacher's don't have the luxury of failing kids due to ignoring phone rules (unfortunately).
  - TremendousJudge 8y ago
    there are few things as useless as taking a picture of the whiteboard
    - cube2222 8y ago
      Your mileage may vary. Sometimes I like to write everything down, number by number, symbol by symbol, but oftentimes I prefer to talk to the teacher about what he's writing to understand it better but keep it for future reference. Writing down aids memory, but not understanding in my experience. In complex topics like discrete mathematics it's been a lifesaver to me.
dawhizkid 8y ago
I'm honestly very relieved I graduated from high school just before the iPhone was released (+ early FB days). JR HS + HS were anxiety-inducing enough...I can't imagine what it's like now.
joshuaheard 8y ago
My daughter's (private) middle school in Washington State bans cellphones during school, which must remain in lockers. However, it is a paperless school, so they use laptops during class.
Accacin 8y ago
This seems sensible, when I was at school we had dumb phones and even those were banned.. And all you could do on those was text message each other!
noobermin 8y ago
I will be supportive of this when adults decide to ban cellphones in cars when in the driver's seat. Studies show driver's even with handless systems are significantly more likely to get into car crashes. If you support curtailing young people's cell phone use but don't support curtailing the use by adults which has proven to lead to traffic fatalities I'd have to ask you why.
- privacypoller 8y ago
  First regular cell phone use is already banned in a lot of places, and everywhere has a general distracted driving law on the books. It's pretty tough to surf facebook or instagram hands-free. Second, your essentially saying I'll support a ban that students don't like when drivers stop putting everyone a risk on our roads - why the linkage? You could support both today, or either independently. This sort of linear-justification derails a lot of necessary change with artificial preconditions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hashmush 8y ago
  It is illegal in a lot of countries if I'm reading this page correctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safety#Legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safe...
trumped 8y ago
an article that I read about this claimed that turned off phones were allowed... It is still a step in the right direction though...
themihai 8y ago
I would like to see how this is implemented. As far as I know it's been proved impossible.
mnm1 8y ago
This is how it was here in the US when I was a kid in the 90's with pagers and cellphones. I don't see what the big deal is. I'm surprised it's taken this long. I don't know how schools are today, but I would assume they would not have changed the rules and such things would still be banned in all of high school and below. If not, maybe parents should ask their schools why they changed the rules? Assuming of course that they don't want their kids to be on their cellphone 100% of the time in school, something that's inevitable if they are allowed to have them.
gaius 8y ago
Good on France. Now all they need to do is mandate OCaml, the great French programming language and they will own the next 10 years. This is where the UK blundered in the 80s, the government should have bought a million Archimedes for the entire public sector and jumpstarted the U.K. tech industry. We would be 30 years ahead of where we are today.
Demoneeri 8y ago
Phones are a distraction to an institution that refuses to evolve. We don't work the same way, we don't entertain the same way but for some reasons we teach the same way as a 100 years ago...
- izacus 8y ago
  Who is this "we"? Are you talking for all hundreds of thousands of schools of the world? All schools of France? Who are you speaking for?
  - Demoneeri 8y ago
    I think you should read again my comment, the "we" doesn't refer to anything you mentioned. "We" as people in developed countries who have the luxury of having kids in high school with smartphone. Let me rephrase that. People in developed countries don't work the same way as a 100 years ago. (farming, manufacturing, etc.) People in developed countries don't entertain the same way s a 100 years ago. (social media, TV, etc.) Almost everything is different. So, why are we trying to teach the same way as a 100 years ago?
paulie_a 8y ago
My school had a very simple method in dealing with this. The phone got confiscated until the end of the semester. That was also in the late 90s. It was effective.
Bizarro 8y ago
I find it amusing and not surprising that a country like France would ban it at the national level.
sxp62000 8y ago
Smartphones should've been banned from schools 5-6 years ago. It's too late now. These days kids start tapping smartphone/tablet screens at a really young age. Taking away there smart devices now is like sending them to school blindfolded. Doesn't matter if they use smartphones for work or as a distraction, they're hooked!

232 points by deegles 8y ago

There's more to life than homework, even when you're in school. If I have my work done and want to read Slashdot or Ars Technica, or if I'm between classes and want to check the news, that's really not something that should be banned at the national level.

WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
You don't need to read the news every day, let alone every hour of the day. It's an addiction to the way news is currently produced. It's entirely reasonable to spend an evening a week reading up on tech news. It's not reasonable to have a compulsion to check the news whenever you have a down minute. I'm guilty of that myself, I'm currently writing this while a program compiles but I wouldn't wish this on a developing mind. Besides, there are other places where news and the internet is available, why shouldn't places legislate away having that 24/7 on smartphones during school.
- test6554 8y ago
  The older I get the more I realize that just because something is good for the average person doesn't mean it should be the law for everyone. There are billions of ways to go through life, and sometimes the freedom to make and learn from mistakes is just as important as a formal education.
  - wild_preference 8y ago
    I’m arriving at the opposite conclusion as I age. Exceptional people are so rare that it seems to make more logistical sense to ignore them and let them bend the rules themselves. Kind of like a browser leaving advanced features to power users. For example, the vast majority of kids in school are using their smartphones to do stuff like watch Ninja play Fortnite on Twitch, not whatever self-enriching bullshit we can point out they could be doing. Also, when I was a kid, there was no greater injustice than my parents kicking me off the computer to go outside. Ugh, don’t they know how productive I’m being?! But boy do I understand as an adult. What better time to learn how to entertain yourself without a computer screen than in school?
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  > You don't need to read the news every day As someone who votes, you should read the news on a very regular basis. Ideally that means reading a variety of news sources from a variety of political leanings.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > As someone who votes, you should read the news on a very regular basis. Ideally that means reading a variety of news sources from a variety of political leanings. Why? To poison your mind with lies and misrepresentations of reality? To get distracted from important issues and spend lots of time following irrelevant dramas? Mainstream news has negative informational value these days.
    - vorpalhex 8y ago
      Obviously you have the special truth from the only true source, and all news media is fake except for the ones who hawk gold pills and testosterone boosters - they know how it really is.
      - berbec 8y ago
        The news can do better, I'm sure we can all agree, but let's not go over the top on either side. I doubt GP is QAnon and doubt all news media makes brain juice drip out of your ears.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        I don't have any special truth from a true source; I just believe that a typical news story is mostly misinformation intended to drive pageviews instead of presenting accurate picture of reality. I don't think adding more false information helps get a more true picture. I mean, you could try to tease out some true information by "averaging" news from multiple distinct sources, but that's pretty much a full-time job, and most news are just a waste of time. (I mean, seriously. Doesn't everyone here know of Gell-Mann amnesia? Or are people just afraid to follow it to its logical conclusion?)
  - 8y ago
bytematic 8y ago
Under the age of 15?
- sp332 8y ago
  That's halfway through highschool. I picked actual examples of sites I visited in highschool. I also played video games and learned how to hack the terminal server (a bit). But generally not in the middle of a lecture.

adamnemecek 8y ago

Gotta get them used to misplaced authority and fascism while young.

dang 8y ago
Please don't do this here.
- adamnemecek 8y ago
  Sorry. What exactly is "this" thought?
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't post unsubstantive or inflammatory comments.

jacknews 8y ago

Surprised they weren't banned already. How can a teacher droning about valence levels possibly compete with instagram feeds, and much more so for younger kids. Possibly even, aspects of smartphone use should be treated as a potential health risk, in the same ways as alcohol, tobacco, sugar, etc. (though not all of those are treated appropriately yet)

JeanMarcS 8y ago
Actually there was already a law from 2010, which was stricter than the new one and, therefore, not applied in any school. This one is lighter in the way that now, the phone can be used outside teaching hours (so between lessons) and on certain events (like museum visits or sports event during school time) And as always in France, it’s a law above a law above another law, etc... But French president Macron was very proud of it, so bravo...
kehrlann 8y ago
There was no law about this but school staff sometimes enforced it anyway.
antpls 8y ago
To me, banning smartphones at school is an urgent measure taken to face a fundamental, but misunderstood, change in society. Why not use smartphones to improve education rather than seeing it like a threat? My guess is that 1) most teachers have no idea how to teach using smartphones, and 2) the new digital economy is threatening the job of teachers.
Shivetya 8y ago
Well I am curious how much effort will be put into it. In the US local governments cannot even keep cell phones out of prisons, the State of Georgia was confiscating over ten thousand phones per year. With regards to children in school we need to just start early and teach them that not using one in class is being courteous to their teachers and others while at the same time perhaps offering them more time between classes to check their phones. It is just a matter of showing them how it should be done and rewarding proper behavior.
8y ago

pwaivers 8y ago

> “In reality, the ban has already been made. I don’t know a single teacher in this country that allows the use of phones in class.” Not allowing kids to use smartphones during class is a huge difference than not allowing them at all in school. Cell phones are huge part of people's lives, whether they like it or not.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Not allowing kids to use smartphones during class is a huge difference than not allowing them at all in school Learning how to put down their phones while socializing and working will probably be more valuable to these students, in the long run, than scoring a few extra minutes of Instagram. It isn't like they can't use their phones once off campus.
- waterhouse 8y ago
  > Learning how to put down their phones while socializing and working How many years do kids spend in school? And how long do you think it takes to learn how to do that? Surely not more than one year. Arguments of the form "They need to learn how to behave in later life, therefore they should spend 12 years behaving that way" are wrong. (The conclusion may be correct, but the reasoning is not.) Given that it takes only x years to learn that, the question is whether it's worth having them behave that way in the remaining 12-x years.
xexers 8y ago
So why not use a dumb phone as a cell; They're cheaper too!
gaius 8y ago
Cell phones are huge part of people's lives, whether they like it or not. The generation that invented smartphones did not have smartphones in class
themagician 8y ago
They don’t have to be a big part of your life. Let the battery die on Friday night and don’t pick it up again until Monday morning. You might be surprised how you spend your time and how much more of it you appear to have.

Yoric 8y ago

To be clear: phones have been banned in most French schools for years, but faculty had no legal authorization to actually touch the phone or look at it to ensure that it was off. I haven't read the actual text of the law, but I believe that it gives faculty the authorization to do just that.

conradk 8y ago
I've heard the same about a school in my town. Apparently, what is planned is a confiscation by the school of any phones teachers will see in the school.
yardie 8y ago
I guess this is different for private and religious schools. Our son's catholic school had no problem confiscating phones, 3DS's, or card games. To take them home them and the parent would need to pick it up from the headmaster's office.
- Yoric 8y ago
  Hum. Don't tell your kid, but I don't think that's legal :)
  - tk75x 8y ago
    In a private school where the policy is clearly stated and the parents signed their agreement, this is a perfectly legal.

DeBraid 8y ago

> The measure prohibits the use of tablets, computers, and other internet-connected devices as well. Ban phones, sure, but no computers? Bring back the typewriter?

lbeziaud 8y ago
The ban only concerns "students under the age of 15", who typically take notes on paper. The teacher can also make an exception for pedagogical purpose. > There are exceptions in place for students with disabilities and for the educational use of devices in the classroom and in extra-curricular activities
- sp332 8y ago
  Sure but they also use Google and Wikipedia etc.
  - bytematic 8y ago
    Under 15? Not really, can use purely offline sources for that generic material. Good skill as well. Still should have a basic computing class though, perhaps wrapped into a library class.
    - tomjen3 8y ago
      In my experience all printed material is incomplete, obsolete, or one-sided and frequently all three. That is not to talk about materials that can't be encoded as text, such as instructions and how-tos for whatever the French version of shop-class is. You would propose that students be taught such subjects as the French revolution, based on what materials are available in the school library? How can you even ethically do that, when the kids probably can't even get the complete text of the Tennis court oath?
      - izacus 8y ago
        I very much doubt the historical consensus about French revolution changed in last 1-4 years since last high school history books were updated and printed.

swiley 8y ago

I'm really not sure how I feel about highschoolers having phones. On the one hand, not having one seems like it could cause isolation and practical/logistical problems. On the other hand, the whole point of most of the smartphone ecosystem is to manipulate people and these people are especially prone to that. Highschoolers therefore should be only allowed to use completely free (as in freedom) community maintained software/OS/hardware devices.

chpmrc 8y ago
How about educating kids on the proper use of such powerful tools, including the concepts of FLOSS (and, in general, how to question and think critically)? TV is not the problem, having more kids watching Jersey Shore rather than some good documentaries is.
- tjr225 8y ago
  I agree that we should be educating children on healthy device usage. However, having a computer in your pocket that is connected to the internet 24/7 is an entirely different beast than any other mode of entertainment.
- Molaxx 8y ago
  It's hard, these apps are built by a huge amount of people to maximize attention hogging and addiction. Fighting addiction without going cold turkey is nearly impossible. Awareness usually doesn't help. Further more, it is hard teaching people to think critically while their faces are stuck to their phone.
chriswarbo 8y ago
> On the one hand, not having one seems like it could cause isolation That may be true for banning individuals, who might end up excluded from activities everyone else is doing. A blanket ban would have different effects, since it's excluding everyone, who can find other activities (or ways around the ban) to do together. You're definitely right about practical/logistical problems though.

ythn 8y ago

Now if only we could do this in America...

pandasun 8y ago
Or maybe you should move to France.

chpmrc 8y ago

Typical prohibitionist mindset. Lots of people use X, we don't like X, we ban X instead of understanding how to properly and moderately integrate X into our lives. Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices. If we keep blaming the ineptitude of teachers on devices the quality of education will never progress. EDIT: part of the education process is to teach kids how to use and not abuse these devices and when it's appropriate to use them for entertainment. Telling them "you can play Fortnite for an hour after you finish this math challenge" is way better than "you can't play Fornite at school!". I remember having the same policy applied for when I was in school and we would play Pokemon TCG. When it was banned we would play in secrecy during class, when they gave up and allowed us to play during recess we stopped playing during class. It's just common sense.

Yoric 8y ago
Would you allow students to come to class with their own TV and to watch it whenever they want? Because, in a school setting, that's exactly what phones and tablets are: distraction engines.
- djaychela 8y ago
  That's a great phrase - 'distraction engines' - which my stepkids will be sick of fairly quickly. Love the TV analogy, BTW.
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EliRivers 8y ago
Smartphones and tablets are GREAT learning devices. My experience is certainly the opposite. I do all my best learning without smartphones and without tablets.
- chpmrc 8y ago
  You prefer other devices, not everyone does. Most people nowadays own a smartphone but not a laptop. And books are arguably less engaging than apps for a generation that grew up not reading them (hard to swallow, since I'm an avid reader, but it's true).

mercwear 8y ago

Oh how the times have changed! I graduated from high school over 18 years ago and ANY cell phone was confiscated and you had to go see the principal to get it back.

berbec 8y ago
I remember many trips to the office to get my pager back

pmichalina 8y ago

Typical statist mindset.

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dang 8y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

jonbaer 8y ago

If you can have "airplane mode" you can surely come up with some type of "school mode" (apps locked and calls in/out to certain specific numbers). Also nothing in the article re: smartwatches.

WorkLifeBalance 8y ago
There is a "school mode": Off.
- dosbre 8y ago
  That may ask for parents unlock.
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athenot 8y ago
I think that could be done today with mobile management device profiles. Of course that would require quite a bit of IT infrastructure, which means money, and that is a tight resource in schools so probaby not feasible.

modells 8y ago

tl;dr psa for everyone: configure your phone for grayscale, least animation, vibrate-only and turn off most notifications. Smartphones are mental cocaine. Look around a city almost anywhere and most people are hunched over, staring at glowing glass and oblivious to almost everything... so much so the Dutch are putting crosswalk lights on the ground to keep people from walking into traffic while they’re getting their fix. It’s clearly unhealthy as focus, socialization and personal safety suffer.

joaomacp 8y ago
What's the difference between that and a book? Lots of people reading books on the subway, oblivious to almost everything around them...
Pulcinella 8y ago
Yes. This is going to be very pop-pshychology, but I feel like smartphones are almost gambling-adjacent. Flashing lights and constant, small hits of dopamine.
- sp332 8y ago
  Gotta ask, what kind of apps do you have on your phone? Flashing lights??

Pulcinella 8y ago

My thoughts as a High School teacher: I have tried[1] to allow students to have their phones, teach them to use their phones responsibly, etc. It doesn’t work. They are banned in my class. I’m just a single teacher with basically no budget. I can’t compete with giant corporations that spend millions on design, UX, UI, etc. [1] Also, technically trying to teach kids to use their phones responsibly (or even generically teaching them how to be responsible adults) isn’t legal state standard for any of my subjects so I could get yelled at by parents or admin for doing it and I would have no recourse. It’s unlikely to happen out, but it is something admin can use if they don’t like you and want to nail you on something.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
It's not only competing with the addictive nature of smartphone apps, but competing with a child's interests too. Personal anecdote, but, going to school and learning stuff was more about discipline than enjoyment, that only came later on subjects in college I actually found interesting. But I do support that method of education, and I also support a ban on smartphones by extension.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I also support a ban on smartphones by extension I support a ban during class. Between classes, however, it seems fine to let students co-ordinate extra-curricular activities on their phones.
  - DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
    Kids standing around checking phones or kids talking to each other. That the basic choice. The trade off of some small convieneice seems worth while. If hadn't thought about it much, mobile phone didn't exist when I was at school. However I recently visited a school as a prospective parent and they had a strict no phone policy. Locker or lose it. After listening to the principle talk about the problems they had with bullying, distractions, social status, I'm supportive. I can see that not being able to co-ordinate activities could be a non-trivial inconvenience, though.

weliketocode 8y ago

Like much of education policy, this seems to help some at the expense of harming others. For the intelligent & motivated, there will be unnecessary boredom during downtime/study hall, potential hatred for learning/school, and other negative effects. For the lackluster students, this policy will help some pay attention to class, learn lessons, and complete work. In general, however, I'd have to say I'm against it. Any widespread banning of freedoms or ignorance of new technologies will have outsized negative consequences.

Daishiman 8y ago
> For the intelligent & motivated, there will be unnecessary boredom during downtime/study hall, potential hatred for learning/school, and other negative effects. Boredom is a fact of life, and learning to accept it without forcing yourself to depend on a smartphone is an underrated skill. > Any widespread banning of freedoms or ignorance of new technologies will have outsized negative consequences. This argument does not really apply completely to children. And it is not ignorance; they're free to use their phones as they please, after class is done. I agree with many posters here: phones have been designed explicitly to rob you of your attention span. The amount of willpower and self understanding to deal with that healthily is far more than what most children can muster.
- privacypoller 8y ago
  absolutely - teaching my kids how to entertain themselves for a couple of hours has been one of the major challenges in raising them. A combination of parents scheduling the entire life of a kid and always-available media has made it very hard for a tween to just "find something to do" for an afternoon.
- xexers 8y ago
  > Boredom is a fact of life, and learning to accept it without forcing yourself to depend on a smartphone is an underrated skill. There is a whole book on that topic: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06VTZYPTF
megaman22 8y ago

alkonaut 8y ago

Just use one after school. I see zero problems. Allow one to be used at lunch hour if you feel it’s an infringement not to be able to post a selfie for 8h straight?

cube2222 8y ago

My thought as a University student and only a year ago - high school student: Phones are a really great learning aid. There are also people who prefer to listen and participate more actively in lessons instead of writing down everything written on the whiteboard, with a smartphone they can just take a picture of the whiteboard. Smartphones are the smallest thesaurus and translator you can get. Smartphones can graph or take the derivative of any function you want. Wolfram alpha is a wonderful application. Smartphones can quickly give you the life background of any author. Which helps immensely when analysing literature. I've never experienced any real problems at school in relation to phones, as the teacher could just tell you to put it away. They have all the power to give you an F if you don't abide. Admittedly, I've been both at a good highschool and a good University, but banning phones seems like not taking the time to show students how to use those effectively, and at the same time tries to hide the issue of people just not being interested in their lessons. And a lack of phone won't help you grab their interest. They'll switch to talking with each other additionally disturbing those who do want to pay attention.

truncj 8y ago
This sounds like a persuasive essay just lists facts without researching the benefit/detriment of each. Taking a picture of a whiteboard is not the same as writing/typing notes.. and no, teacher's don't have the luxury of failing kids due to ignoring phone rules (unfortunately).
- TremendousJudge 8y ago
  there are few things as useless as taking a picture of the whiteboard
  - cube2222 8y ago
    Your mileage may vary. Sometimes I like to write everything down, number by number, symbol by symbol, but oftentimes I prefer to talk to the teacher about what he's writing to understand it better but keep it for future reference. Writing down aids memory, but not understanding in my experience. In complex topics like discrete mathematics it's been a lifesaver to me.

dawhizkid 8y ago

I'm honestly very relieved I graduated from high school just before the iPhone was released (+ early FB days). JR HS + HS were anxiety-inducing enough...I can't imagine what it's like now.

joshuaheard 8y ago

My daughter's (private) middle school in Washington State bans cellphones during school, which must remain in lockers. However, it is a paperless school, so they use laptops during class.

Accacin 8y ago

This seems sensible, when I was at school we had dumb phones and even those were banned.. And all you could do on those was text message each other!

noobermin 8y ago

I will be supportive of this when adults decide to ban cellphones in cars when in the driver's seat. Studies show driver's even with handless systems are significantly more likely to get into car crashes. If you support curtailing young people's cell phone use but don't support curtailing the use by adults which has proven to lead to traffic fatalities I'd have to ask you why.

privacypoller 8y ago
First regular cell phone use is already banned in a lot of places, and everywhere has a general distracted driving law on the books. It's pretty tough to surf facebook or instagram hands-free. Second, your essentially saying I'll support a ban that students don't like when drivers stop putting everyone a risk on our roads - why the linkage? You could support both today, or either independently. This sort of linear-justification derails a lot of necessary change with artificial preconditions.
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hashmush 8y ago
It is illegal in a lot of countries if I'm reading this page correctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safety#Legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safe...

trumped 8y ago

an article that I read about this claimed that turned off phones were allowed... It is still a step in the right direction though...

themihai 8y ago

I would like to see how this is implemented. As far as I know it's been proved impossible.

mnm1 8y ago

This is how it was here in the US when I was a kid in the 90's with pagers and cellphones. I don't see what the big deal is. I'm surprised it's taken this long. I don't know how schools are today, but I would assume they would not have changed the rules and such things would still be banned in all of high school and below. If not, maybe parents should ask their schools why they changed the rules? Assuming of course that they don't want their kids to be on their cellphone 100% of the time in school, something that's inevitable if they are allowed to have them.

gaius 8y ago

Good on France. Now all they need to do is mandate OCaml, the great French programming language and they will own the next 10 years. This is where the UK blundered in the 80s, the government should have bought a million Archimedes for the entire public sector and jumpstarted the U.K. tech industry. We would be 30 years ahead of where we are today.

Demoneeri 8y ago

Phones are a distraction to an institution that refuses to evolve. We don't work the same way, we don't entertain the same way but for some reasons we teach the same way as a 100 years ago...

izacus 8y ago
Who is this "we"? Are you talking for all hundreds of thousands of schools of the world? All schools of France? Who are you speaking for?
- Demoneeri 8y ago
  I think you should read again my comment, the "we" doesn't refer to anything you mentioned. "We" as people in developed countries who have the luxury of having kids in high school with smartphone. Let me rephrase that. People in developed countries don't work the same way as a 100 years ago. (farming, manufacturing, etc.) People in developed countries don't entertain the same way s a 100 years ago. (social media, TV, etc.) Almost everything is different. So, why are we trying to teach the same way as a 100 years ago?

paulie_a 8y ago

My school had a very simple method in dealing with this. The phone got confiscated until the end of the semester. That was also in the late 90s. It was effective.

Bizarro 8y ago

I find it amusing and not surprising that a country like France would ban it at the national level.

sxp62000 8y ago

Smartphones should've been banned from schools 5-6 years ago. It's too late now. These days kids start tapping smartphone/tablet screens at a really young age. Taking away there smart devices now is like sending them to school blindfolded. Doesn't matter if they use smartphones for work or as a distraction, they're hooked!