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> But it rolled in so rapidly that it was universal before we had the chance to push back. This can't be it. I was in high school when smartphones were coming

> But it rolled in so rapidly that it was universal before we had the chance to push back. This can't be it. I was in high school when smartphones were coming out and there was zero tolerance for them or any other electronic devices (dumbphones, ipods, palm pilots, etc) in the classroom. I don't know when or why it happened but allowing smartphones in school was a conscious choice and a policy change.

pessimizer 1y ago
Upper-middle class parents addicted to constant communication with their children started complaining about their kid's not being allowed to carry their phones, nearly at the level of implying it was a human rights violation. They combined this with worries about school shootings (that cellphones haven't ever helped with to my knowledge, unless having live recordings of children being murdered is help.) After they got it, it was instantly allowed everywhere. It was another result of the "activism" of the same suburban let me speak to your manager class that has been ruining everything for the past 20 years. edit: A lot of parents are constantly texting back and forth with their kids all day. It's basically their social media, especially if they don't have any friends, and I bet in plenty of cases a huge burden to the children.
- thelock85 1y ago
  This. Schools are not employers that can implement take it or leave it policies. You need coordination and agreement between school leadership, district leadership, staff, and most critically parents to put your foot down on anything while also working to ensure basic safety and decent academic outcomes. Now that the ills of social media and screen time are mainstream knowledge, it’s easier to make a common sense argument without much pushback.
- p00dles 1y ago
  Ugh this is so tragic but I think correct
- japhyr 1y ago
  I started teaching in the 90s, and left classroom teaching in 2019. This is how I saw it play out in every school I was aware of. People think "just ban phones". But there are so many factors at play, it has to be a coordinated effort across an entire school. And everyone has to play along. Any policy is only as good as its enforcement, and enforcement is hard.
paulddraper 1y ago
Agreed. There existed a period of time where handheld communication devices existed and were banned. Sometime later, someone somewhere made a conscious choice to change policy. It didn’t just happen.
- therein 1y ago
  > someone somewhere Must have been a powerful person.
  - obscurette 1y ago
    They were. I was there in edu conferences, training sessions and other events years ago and could observe all this massive FUD which appeared – "smartphones are the future", "all communication will be in social media in the future", "books will not matter", "privacy will not matter", "if we ban smartphones, we will handicap our children" etc. People didn't know better and there was genuine fear in education. Or actually, it's still very much there.
    - cameron_b 1y ago
      This is a huge factor, and heavily influenced by the purveyors of the technologies involved. A factor I hadn't realized that is implicated in this transition is the shift from the Teacher-led classroom to the device-led classroom. The teacher is no longer seen as the expert, the interpreter, the model figure of the subject when the laptop or tablet is the delivery tool. Students learn that the teacher is a facilitator, likely not up to date on the latest changes to the app interface, and not an authority on the subject. Device-delivery instead of teacher-delivery puts the student first, even when the student knows nothing, and has zero impulse control. So instead of modelling a productive and enriching data accessing environment, we're actually just tearing down the walls of the school and asking teachers to babysit the mayhem.
zhivota 1y ago
Pretty simple really, we're basically all [1] addicted to smartphones, so we basically all [1] advocated for this. After all, to admit it was a problem for our kids, we'd have to also admit it could be a problem for ourselves. Even I find myself holding onto my phone during most of the day when not on my computer, I don't even know why. It's an incredibly addictive piece of technology. [1] - to a first order of approximation, yes I know you're the exception
- nandomrumber 1y ago
  Did we ever allow the students to smoke in the classroom?
  - lobf 1y ago
    We allowed it in designated areas outside the classroom between classes…
    - wongarsu 1y ago
      My school even had a gazebo on the school yard so smokers didn't have to stand in the rain. They literally spent money to accommodate smokers. Of course by the time I was there smoking on school grounds was prohibited, so smokers had to go just beyond the gate. Which students were not allowed to, but few teachers were willing to enforce that
  - deaux 1y ago
    We allowed teachers to smoke in the classroom, so in some sense..
    - DANmode 1y ago
      Teacher gets the lion’s share of the nicotine, kids get all of the rest, essentially. Raw deal.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    In the class room? No. But students could smoke during breaks at the schoolyard. Funny that we as a society were winning for a while until somebody invented vapes.
DavidPiper 1y ago
Hey, we must have been in high school at the same time. I saw the same thing going through my final years. But when I went back to visit the school a few years after I left... Things were very different. I'd say there was definitely a grace period (roughly iPhone -> iPhone 4 maybe?) where device addiction wasn't yet normalised, and the real world hadn't ceded control yet. Not sure what happened at the school level after that, but somewhere along the way phones (devices as they were called then) everywhere all the time became very normal.
7thaccount 1y ago
Even dumb phones like that Nokia everyone had or the Motorola Razr were banned. You had to have them powered off and in your backpack.
miki123211 1y ago
TBH, I think banning smartphones in class is entirely justified and reasonable. Banning smartphones completely (including during breaks / lunch)? A different matter entirely.
- tda 1y ago
  If you haven't been to a school recently where >99% of kids all direct >99% percent of their attention during breaks I can see where you are coming from. But I was at a highschool with a lax phone policy (allowed in breaks etc), and I was amazed and appalled. A no-phones policy is really important to me, because there seems to be no middle ground possible.
gilbetron 1y ago
The pandemic induced the major change. Schools were forced to put everything online, and so screens became the default learning environment. What's the difference between them being on a laptop/chromebook/tablet and a phone? Not really that much. Plus parents allowed their kids get phones at a younger age to keep track of them. Now we are trying to claw it back, but the big problem is that the parents are the ones preventing it. They need to be constantly attached to their kids. Our son is 16 and while he loves screens, he also is enjoying kids spending less time on them at school so he can chat with people more.
Spooky23 1y ago
Parents are insane and demand access to their kids at all times. My son goes to a private school, and I was on the board of trustees when we basically did the same thing the NYS requires three years ago. The drama and insanity was beyond anything I expected. One parent left me a three minute voicemail excoriating me as being no better than a school shooter - in the event of an emergency her son would die alone, because of me. (I introduced the motion and was called out in the minutes) It’s great that the state passed a pretty sane law on the matter. Crazy people already think the governor is <insert terrible thing>, and the school boards can just nod, point to Albany and get on with their business. There is leeway as well, our school (and some others that I know of), allow 7th graders and up to email parents via GMail. So little Tommy can keep folks in the loop about scheduling changes or whatever.
jpster 1y ago
Well, in the era of school shootings, some parents argued that a phone could be a literal lifeline to their kids and a way to say their last goodbyes if the worst happened. It doesn’t really stand up when you compare the likelihoods of a school shooting (rare) to phone-induced educational and social regressions (almost certain). But it was an evocative argument and it worked to a large degree.

pessimizer 1y ago

Upper-middle class parents addicted to constant communication with their children started complaining about their kid's not being allowed to carry their phones, nearly at the level of implying it was a human rights violation. They combined this with worries about school shootings (that cellphones haven't ever helped with to my knowledge, unless having live recordings of children being murdered is help.) After they got it, it was instantly allowed everywhere. It was another result of the "activism" of the same suburban let me speak to your manager class that has been ruining everything for the past 20 years. edit: A lot of parents are constantly texting back and forth with their kids all day. It's basically their social media, especially if they don't have any friends, and I bet in plenty of cases a huge burden to the children.

thelock85 1y ago
This. Schools are not employers that can implement take it or leave it policies. You need coordination and agreement between school leadership, district leadership, staff, and most critically parents to put your foot down on anything while also working to ensure basic safety and decent academic outcomes. Now that the ills of social media and screen time are mainstream knowledge, it’s easier to make a common sense argument without much pushback.
p00dles 1y ago
Ugh this is so tragic but I think correct
japhyr 1y ago
I started teaching in the 90s, and left classroom teaching in 2019. This is how I saw it play out in every school I was aware of. People think "just ban phones". But there are so many factors at play, it has to be a coordinated effort across an entire school. And everyone has to play along. Any policy is only as good as its enforcement, and enforcement is hard.

paulddraper 1y ago

Agreed. There existed a period of time where handheld communication devices existed and were banned. Sometime later, someone somewhere made a conscious choice to change policy. It didn’t just happen.

therein 1y ago
> someone somewhere Must have been a powerful person.
- obscurette 1y ago
  They were. I was there in edu conferences, training sessions and other events years ago and could observe all this massive FUD which appeared – "smartphones are the future", "all communication will be in social media in the future", "books will not matter", "privacy will not matter", "if we ban smartphones, we will handicap our children" etc. People didn't know better and there was genuine fear in education. Or actually, it's still very much there.
  - cameron_b 1y ago
    This is a huge factor, and heavily influenced by the purveyors of the technologies involved. A factor I hadn't realized that is implicated in this transition is the shift from the Teacher-led classroom to the device-led classroom. The teacher is no longer seen as the expert, the interpreter, the model figure of the subject when the laptop or tablet is the delivery tool. Students learn that the teacher is a facilitator, likely not up to date on the latest changes to the app interface, and not an authority on the subject. Device-delivery instead of teacher-delivery puts the student first, even when the student knows nothing, and has zero impulse control. So instead of modelling a productive and enriching data accessing environment, we're actually just tearing down the walls of the school and asking teachers to babysit the mayhem.

zhivota 1y ago

Pretty simple really, we're basically all [1] addicted to smartphones, so we basically all [1] advocated for this. After all, to admit it was a problem for our kids, we'd have to also admit it could be a problem for ourselves. Even I find myself holding onto my phone during most of the day when not on my computer, I don't even know why. It's an incredibly addictive piece of technology. [1] - to a first order of approximation, yes I know you're the exception

nandomrumber 1y ago
Did we ever allow the students to smoke in the classroom?
- lobf 1y ago
  We allowed it in designated areas outside the classroom between classes…
  - wongarsu 1y ago
    My school even had a gazebo on the school yard so smokers didn't have to stand in the rain. They literally spent money to accommodate smokers. Of course by the time I was there smoking on school grounds was prohibited, so smokers had to go just beyond the gate. Which students were not allowed to, but few teachers were willing to enforce that
- deaux 1y ago
  We allowed teachers to smoke in the classroom, so in some sense..
  - DANmode 1y ago
    Teacher gets the lion’s share of the nicotine, kids get all of the rest, essentially. Raw deal.
- Yeul 1y ago
  In the class room? No. But students could smoke during breaks at the schoolyard. Funny that we as a society were winning for a while until somebody invented vapes.

DavidPiper 1y ago

Hey, we must have been in high school at the same time. I saw the same thing going through my final years. But when I went back to visit the school a few years after I left... Things were very different. I'd say there was definitely a grace period (roughly iPhone -> iPhone 4 maybe?) where device addiction wasn't yet normalised, and the real world hadn't ceded control yet. Not sure what happened at the school level after that, but somewhere along the way phones (devices as they were called then) everywhere all the time became very normal.

7thaccount 1y ago

Even dumb phones like that Nokia everyone had or the Motorola Razr were banned. You had to have them powered off and in your backpack.

miki123211 1y ago

TBH, I think banning smartphones in class is entirely justified and reasonable. Banning smartphones completely (including during breaks / lunch)? A different matter entirely.

tda 1y ago
If you haven't been to a school recently where >99% of kids all direct >99% percent of their attention during breaks I can see where you are coming from. But I was at a highschool with a lax phone policy (allowed in breaks etc), and I was amazed and appalled. A no-phones policy is really important to me, because there seems to be no middle ground possible.

gilbetron 1y ago

The pandemic induced the major change. Schools were forced to put everything online, and so screens became the default learning environment. What's the difference between them being on a laptop/chromebook/tablet and a phone? Not really that much. Plus parents allowed their kids get phones at a younger age to keep track of them. Now we are trying to claw it back, but the big problem is that the parents are the ones preventing it. They need to be constantly attached to their kids. Our son is 16 and while he loves screens, he also is enjoying kids spending less time on them at school so he can chat with people more.

Spooky23 1y ago

Parents are insane and demand access to their kids at all times. My son goes to a private school, and I was on the board of trustees when we basically did the same thing the NYS requires three years ago. The drama and insanity was beyond anything I expected. One parent left me a three minute voicemail excoriating me as being no better than a school shooter - in the event of an emergency her son would die alone, because of me. (I introduced the motion and was called out in the minutes) It’s great that the state passed a pretty sane law on the matter. Crazy people already think the governor is <insert terrible thing>, and the school boards can just nod, point to Albany and get on with their business. There is leeway as well, our school (and some others that I know of), allow 7th graders and up to email parents via GMail. So little Tommy can keep folks in the loop about scheduling changes or whatever.

jpster 1y ago

Well, in the era of school shootings, some parents argued that a phone could be a literal lifeline to their kids and a way to say their last goodbyes if the worst happened. It doesn’t really stand up when you compare the likelihoods of a school shooting (rare) to phone-induced educational and social regressions (almost certain). But it was an evocative argument and it worked to a large degree.