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It's amazing how these arguments come about. Were parents freaking out about emergencies at school when they were kids?

ghaff 3y ago
A lot of people have become very adept at conjuring up edge cases for why being out of instant communication is just not acceptable any longer. I am somewhat sympathetic to arguments that lots of things we took for granted growing up really are not especially acceptable today but there are limits.
zeta0134 3y ago
During every school I attended growing up (and I graduated in 2007 so this isn't that ancient history) my parents would just call the school office if something urgent came up, and the faculty would use the intercom system to page the room I was in. The teacher paused their lesson, acknowledged the request, and asked me to pack my things and head up to the front office, no questions asked. It was infrequent, but very well understood and executed efficiently. I'm not sure smartphones have improved on this? If a kid gets a call in class the teacher's almost immediate reaction is annoyance, because there was no chain of authority that led to that distracting element. Now the kid's on the defensive and has to explain that it's their parent, and the whole class gets to wait while the kid awkwardly has this conversation while simultaneously communicating with the teacher that it's a legitimate request, etc. And that's for legitimate emergencies, to say nothing of the troublemakers that will intentionally coordinate fake calls to get out of class and hang out with their friends.
- dataflow 3y ago
  Agree with you, but also, I feel like my imagination is lacking here. What kinds of "emergencies" even exist that require a child to resolve them? In all my K-12 education I feel like I think my parents only needed to contact me in class without prior arrangement maybe... once? Or twice? Zero times? Honestly I can't think of a single instance, I'm just assuming there must've been one I've forgotten about, certainly not an "emergency". Even other students being called from class seemed incredibly rare, and even in those cases I would have just assumed things were prearranged and they merely got a notification that the parent had come to pick them up, or something.
cptcobalt 3y ago
The US does have a notable increase in school shootings since these parents were kids.

A lot of people have become very adept at conjuring up edge cases for why being out of instant communication is just not acceptable any longer. I am somewhat sympathetic to arguments that lots of things we took for granted growing up really are not especially acceptable today but there are limits.

zeta0134 3y ago

During every school I attended growing up (and I graduated in 2007 so this isn't that ancient history) my parents would just call the school office if something urgent came up, and the faculty would use the intercom system to page the room I was in. The teacher paused their lesson, acknowledged the request, and asked me to pack my things and head up to the front office, no questions asked. It was infrequent, but very well understood and executed efficiently. I'm not sure smartphones have improved on this? If a kid gets a call in class the teacher's almost immediate reaction is annoyance, because there was no chain of authority that led to that distracting element. Now the kid's on the defensive and has to explain that it's their parent, and the whole class gets to wait while the kid awkwardly has this conversation while simultaneously communicating with the teacher that it's a legitimate request, etc. And that's for legitimate emergencies, to say nothing of the troublemakers that will intentionally coordinate fake calls to get out of class and hang out with their friends.

dataflow 3y ago
Agree with you, but also, I feel like my imagination is lacking here. What kinds of "emergencies" even exist that require a child to resolve them? In all my K-12 education I feel like I think my parents only needed to contact me in class without prior arrangement maybe... once? Or twice? Zero times? Honestly I can't think of a single instance, I'm just assuming there must've been one I've forgotten about, certainly not an "emergency". Even other students being called from class seemed incredibly rare, and even in those cases I would have just assumed things were prearranged and they merely got a notification that the parent had come to pick them up, or something.

cptcobalt 3y ago

The US does have a notable increase in school shootings since these parents were kids.