6 ms·

This is a weird comment. Did you really think most schools widely police cell phone usage in the year 2023?

• donatj 3y ago
  I am well aware that they don't police it. What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly? Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.
  • tempsy 3y ago
    because cellphones became ubiquitous and admins never felt empowered to strictly limit them in schools
    • tivert 3y ago
      >> What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly? >> Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction. > because cellphones became ubiquitous and admins never felt empowered to strictly limit them in schools You're missing the point. But there was a time when they weren't ubiquitous and admins did feel empowered to strictly limit similar distracting devices. It's anachronistic thinking to cite the present-day situation as a reason for a past change, when the conditions in the past were different. This is purely hypothetical, but I could see a process for the change where teachers and admins were ignorant of texting, so allowed phones under the mistaken belief that they would not disrupt class, because students would only use them to make voice calls to parents outside of class (because it would be far easier and cheaper for students to talk to each other in person). Then a new status quo was established. Then the school's awareness of the harms came like a frog boiling in a bot: a little bit a time, and too slowly to motivate action until it was too late.
      • zztop44 3y ago
        I remember I could send texts (including selecting the contact) in my pocket without looking at the screen of my Nokia 3310 in high school. So I think the boiling pot analogy holds. Things were already pretty advanced by the time smartphones came along. And the importance of cell phones to everyone’s lives (even children and teenagers) has massively increased since then. For schools to blanket ban them on campus or on the person of students in class would be swimming against a strong tide indeed. My guess is that the reason they don’t is that they believe that to do so would be constant war. And they aren’t paid enough for that.
  • fumar 3y ago
    Smartphones. I like to think they snuck in as a communication device more so than pocket computer. As in, kids and parents wanted to stay connected for emergencies but the software grossly exceeded text or phone call capabilities. I had a Nokia 9930 to reach my folks and rarely used it outside of making calls.
    • talldatethrow 3y ago
      I know what you mean, but I'd love to hear what kind of emergency communication a child needs to make to an adult, or adult to child. (That isn't accomplished the exact same way via the school staff)
      • tjr 3y ago
        I suspect part of it is overall societal changes pertaining to phone usage. When I was an elementary school student, I carried a few coins in the event that I had to call someone on a payphone. (Which happened very rarely.) But today, we have no payphones. Well, almost none. So what else could you do, with no payphone? Perhaps you could find someone else who had a phone that they could let you borrow. In years past, it wouldn't have been that uncommon to walk into a store or other place of business, or walk into your school office, and politely ask if you could use the phone. They might let you, or they might not, but it was a reasonable request. I imagine today that it would come across a lot more suspicious. Why don't you have your own phone? Both infrastructure and ways of thinking have shifted toward assuming that all individual people who might need to make a phone call have their own personal mobile phone. Children being assumed to have their own phone is probably more of a grey area, but even so, things have changed, and there may be no going back.
        • talldatethrow 3y ago
          The kid can own the phone. In silent. In the backpack. Never to be seen on school grounds. And if they need to make a call, they go to the admin building, and explain why, and use the office phone.
  • chrisco255 3y ago
    Probably because teachers lost moral authority to police cell phones since they themselves likely use their phone during down time in class.
  • layman51 3y ago
    I think they swung quickly because maybe aside from some families using them for communication in case of an emergency, the phones just became more of a liability to take away from a student. I haven’t been in classrooms recently, but I can imagine for high schoolers, taking away their phone == taking away their wallet.
    • lp0_on_fire 3y ago
      I’ve never bought the “we need them for emergencies” argument. Are there _that many_ emergencies happening that the school office is unable to field calls from parents who need to reach their child right now? I don’t see the “it’s like their wallet” argument either. That the phone is expensive and it contains personal information doesn’t mean it’s not disruptive to the classroom.
      • axus 3y ago
        What if the collected wallet/phone gets lost or stolen? That becomes the school's problem.
        • lp0_on_fire 3y ago
          You don’t need to collect that which should be left at home or in the locker between periods.
      • ksenzee 3y ago
        You’re picturing emergencies at home. They’re picturing an emergency at school.
        • riversflow 3y ago
          Neither are common though?
          • drdeca 3y ago
            Emergencies generally aren’t, but emergency preparedness can still be worthwhile. Ok, but yes, I suppose that does suggest that, for personal emergencies, the office won’t be too overloaded with personal emergencies to deal with all of them. How often would the latency of getting to the office matter? I’m not sure.
  • pempem 3y ago
    Honestly I generally agree with you. I dont even want my kid to have a phone but now that I have a child I am worried about them being able to call me if there is some kind of: - natural disaster - school shooting - third type of personal issue where the school doesn't share what happened Growing up I do not remember my parents having these fears despite there being a bomb scare (once during my schooling).
    • boopmaster 3y ago
      80s/90s kid here.. I remember my car breaking down and needing to walk to a rest area, to use a pay phone to call for help. That and using pay phones generally as a convenience when I would bike miles into town, well that isn’t really available anymore. I’ve had to knock on a door to ask a stranger to use their phone. I’ve had to ask a store to use their phone. A lot of this seems so strange now, like I cannot picture myself needing to rely on strangers and stores!
    • riversflow 3y ago
      I read this as your peace of mind being more important than maintaining a schooling environment conducive to education. We need to protect kids, not expect our kids to protect us, which is what expecting them to be able to contact you during school is, protecting you from anxiety. This seems incredibly selfish, but not out of line for a society so incredibly narcissistic as that of American Millenials.
      • pempem 3y ago
        LMAO Thank you riverflows. I needed that. 1. Unintentional injuries account for 30% of all deaths of teenagers 2. Within that, suicide and homicide are the top two causes 3. Pretty sure its biological not narcissism that makes me want to make sure my progeny are safe esp when in a space that continually seems to be failing children and coming up with such mindbending solutions as more guns in schools
  • lozenge 3y ago
    I think part of the answer was in your post- most students allowed the policy to continue. They used the Walkman out of sight without open defiance and unreasonable use. Once enough students tip over to "I'm going to use it and I don't care", the school can't do anything about it.
    • tivert 3y ago
      > Once enough students tip over to "I'm going to use it and I don't care", the school can't do anything about it. The school can totally do something about that, they just have to be willing to confront the student and enforce the rules.
      • belthesar 3y ago
        I don't know your background, but this definitely reads like someone who either isn't, or doesn't have a family member or friend as faculty in a public high school. You enforce the rule, and confiscate the device. You have an irate parent now emailing you constantly, coming in and demanding that their child be able to have their several hundred dollar smartphone back, to which they will hand it back to their child, give them a weak "don't do that again" at best, and likely forget the incident ever happened.
        • tivert 3y ago
          A school can't have rules if they're that afraid of one parent complaining. They're too weak. What if the student beats other kids up, and the parent behaves similarly in response to discipline? Should the school tolerate that defiance, too? The school obviously can't take the phone and throw it in a shredder or keep it for the year, but they can and should be able to keep it for the school day (and every other school day, if need be).
  • burmer 3y ago
    A walkman costs like what, $20? A cell phone is hundreds. Do you, as a teacher really want thousands and thousands of dollars of students' electronics stashed in your drawer?
    • lancesells 3y ago
      Phone lockers. My kid puts his phone in before class and gets them out with each class.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • aidenn0 3y ago
    In Northern Virginia schools, late '90s, cell-phones and pagers were banned[1] (not even allowed on campus) because they were perceived as tools for accomplishing drug-deals. I think that perception has definitely changed. We also had a half-dozen pay-phones in the school lobby for students to make calls if needed. 1: IIRC automatic suspension on first offense. Note, however, with most of the "zero tolerance" policies that were in place at the time, the offenses were significantly under-reported by the faculty.
  • matteoraso 3y ago
    >What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Where do you even start? For a kid raised on phones, asking them to stop using their phone feels like asking them to cut off their hand. I imagine that most schools do have anti-phone policies, but there's a point where it's just too hard to enforce. Like other people have also mentioned, parents often pressure their kids to have phones in high school. As someone who went to high school after smartphones became popular, my mom would get upset when I want to school (or anywhere) without a phone on me. That means that teachers have to deal with a student body that's completely unwilling to follow the rules and parents that will back them up if you ever try. I certainly wouldn't bother enforcing a phone ban if I was a teacher.
    • hamhock666 3y ago
      > feels like asking them to cut off their hand It seems like this would be good reason to ban phones in school. I worry about the detrimental effects of not being able to concentrate. You could at least enforce school as a place to focus. If a student is using their phone during class, then they are not paying attention. It seems worthwhile to enforce this rather than give up on the kids.
  • bluescrn 3y ago
    They're far worse than a distraction, they enable everything from new forms of bullying to viewing of gore and porn. Then there's the issue of kids having a high-value gadget that's easily damaged and at risk of theft in schools that never managed to solve old-fashioned bullying let alone whatever the kids get up to on social media these days. If kids, or, anyone under-18 really, really needs a phone make calls, something like the original Nokia 3110 would be much more suitable than any smartphone.
• urda 3y ago
  They should but many do not. The students do not need to be on their phones during school hours. They are there to learn.
• rimunroe 3y ago
  Is that such an odd thought? I know about this, but can easily imagine others being unaware of it. It seems like a reasonable thing to expect
• nonethewiser 3y ago
  Of course. Because they obviously need to.