Comment on Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?
averyminya@beehaw.org 5 months agoThere’s a fine line between being allowed to have your phone in school and mitigating its usage. I don’t entirely disagree with you, but I do think you’re being a bit too… Strong, about your stance.
When I was in middle school, phones were banned through and through. Weren’t allowed to be on, weren’t allowed out, etc. One day I think at lunch period, I was digging through my backpack while walking and the phone flew out of the bag. It was confiscated by the jerk volunteer and given to the principal, and I had to get it with my parents after school. It’s was embarrassing and I knew it was wrong because I had done nothing wrong. This fits to your point.
Everyone involved with a rational mind knew it was bullshit. However, this was also the same school that had major issues with gang violence. We had a (pretty reasonable) dress code policy that involved no local gang colors - no red, no blue, no purple. Phone were banned because there had been a driveby shooting that was called in by a gang affiliated student who got into an argument. From their perspective, they wanted to take no chances from insane 11-13 year olds who were already smoking weed and active in gangs.
I grew up in the ghetto where school is the only opportunity for people to get out of a terrible situation. My high schools graduating class was the first to have reached over 74% graduation rate in over a decade. This school (literally nicknamed Jail For Kids), had actual students with probation officers. We had multiple lockdowns monthly, almost all of which were due to people with weapons and police activity nearby.
The point I’m getting at is that, to an extent, schools absolutely mold and shape the status quo. However, it’s completely wrong to make the assumption that all schools feed into the prison industrial complex. In my area, school was the one chance a kid who grew up slinging had to get out, and for many in my class it was.
I agree with you that schools have a number of issues, but from what I’ve read here today I don’t entirely agree about your stance, from having grown up in and worked with schools like this as an adult. And to get back on topic, students not being allowed to use their phones during class is not a bad thing. During lunchtime, I agree a ban is too much, however I can also understand wanting to keep students socialized with each other. That 30 minutes during lunch doesn’t need to be spent on your phone, when you have the rest of your day at home to do so.
After Covid, in my area, this dynamic changed entirely. By the time I came back from college and started working, kids weren’t involved in that anymore. Middle school was completely normal, kids weren’t affiliated with gangs, had no idea what weed was, let alone the other stuff. But the one thing they all had in common was the debilitating addiction to their phone. You can’t go 5 minutes without seeing a child smashing their finger on the screen, in classes, during lunch, after school, on the bus. Just walking around with their eyes glued to their phone.
And I get it, I’ve been a screen kid too. I’ve always loved tech and games, still spend way too much time on it. But as a kid we had more options, our entire lives weren’t spent engaging through the phone, whereas now that is how you have to engage with others. When we had playtime growing up, only a portion of it was spent on the PlayStation and a majority of the rest was imagination and exploring. Then when we were done, I’d explore the Internet on a laptop with Neopets, Gamefaqs, or Gaia Online.
To me, it seems that the intent is pretty obvious. Students have had a really difficult time being properly engaged in school due to how poor quality the level of schooling had become from the changes after 2016 that were made from the Secretary of Education, then further floundered through Covid. When schools came back into session, the level of dependency to phones has grown exponentially, and these students abilities to go without have been shortened drastically.
If the one common trend among all these students is that poor support during a critical period of education led to the overabundance of cell phone dependence, doesn’t it make sense to consider banning it, to at least try and see if it results in a positive change?
From what I’ve read from you, it seems like the answer would be no, because it’s taking away the freedom. Which, sure. But shouldn’t we also make as many efforts as possible to prepare our students? If the options are 1) teach people or 2) let them ignore it and spend all their time doing nothing, wouldn’t we choose to avoid option 2?
The way I have experienced it, we need to allow for healthy technological exploration while encouraging the focus on school studies. Right now, I’m honestly more on the side FOR banning phones from schools because I’ve seen firsthand the way students use them. When I was in highschool, it was common for people to put in headphones and ignore the teacher, and it was common for the teacher to put them on blast for it. When I go to do my job at the schools, it is a majority of the students using headphones or their phone during class to ignore the teacher. The teachers can’t do anything about it, the parents don’t care, and so what options are left? We just let our youth grow up going to school for 12 years ignoring every part of it?
That’s a recipe for disaster. We’re already seeing the effects of this with Gen Z entering the workplace (and I don’t mean your standard retail or 9-5, I work in performing arts) and while many have been beyond amazing, there are a few who clearly are struggling. I worry this will be the case as more younger generations begin trying to navigate their career choices. As I said at the beginning, there is a clear line between trying to motivate the usage of phones in spaces where their presence isn’t needed, and outright controlling people. In my opinion, mitigating cell phone usage in students isn’t an attempt at control. It’s an attempt at giving students a chance to thrive.
Btw: I definitely think we should adjust curriculums to allow for more engaging education. For some odd reason, the usage of cell phones in certain classes is way, way down. For example, yearbook, art, music, and digitally related classes (hardware/software) almost none of the students pull out their phone during class. Almost as if having students engaged in something they are interested in is a way to mitigate them using their phones to entertain themselves. I can’t imagine why. (/////S)
Instead we are seeing further funding cuts to these programs, so that’s great…
Tl;Dr I don’t disagree, but I also do.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Gamefaqs and Gaia, you’re taking me back. :)
One thing that leans me towards technocrit’s more absolutist stance on schools is how different they are now compared to when I was in high school (2003-2007):
Schools have become much more prison-like since then. My partner is a high school teacher, and all the stuff I remember being important parts of socializing like recess, gym, free periods, clubs, band, theater, etc, have been absolutely slashed.
There are schools now that are trying to endorce “no talking in the hallway” rules in place.
My partner is on teacher conversation boards where other teachers are lamenting that kids talk to each other too much, but they’re locked inside with each other for 8 hours against their will! People are treating kids like school is their job, but it’s completely uncompensated from the kids’ view.
Is school an important tool for social mobility? Yeah, absolutely, and I don’t think either I or technocrit would advocate abolishing schools, but they need to be heavily reformed in terms of what they actually offer the students before I’m comfortable discussing the next thing that schools want to strip away from them.
averyminya@beehaw.org 5 months ago
I graduated in 2013 and my first two years of highschool we lost our extracurricular classes, music and theater, which only came back in my senior year, so I definitely understand that. My class was on the cusp, as now schools bring in programs like the one I work with in order to teach them music and theater. It is not nearly the same as an actual course.
I think the examples you mention have been exacerbated by the changes made during Sec. Of Education’s Betsy DeVoss time, which some states have really shined to, so I think this is something that varies widely by region. California instituted few of the national policies outside of the leniencies on homeschooling curriculums, so so just like California in 2016, some states in 2020 are doing the same by igno, and these states that have weaker support for education have suffered immensely. I cannot even imagine what the landscape looks like in Arizona, Texas, the Carolina’s/Dakota’s, Florida.
In that regard I definitely don’t disagree, but I’ve noticed that our current Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, the pushes have been trying to make public schools more able to deal with the problems they have on their own - here’s money set aside, here’s better Internet for your schools… Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis just cut funding for arts programs entirely in Florida.
So if the states don’t want the help and avoid the wider national policies put in place to help them, I really have to wonder how much of it is regional microcosms that are actively trying to impede on the public education system from being effective. Or rather, a branch of our government that doesn’t want to educate people. To that end, I don’t think the education system should be dismantled and I don’t think the original commenter necessarily does either. It’s clearly flawed since not even 2 different states, but 2 different local counties have wildly different experiences, just based on the county’s school board and how rich the area may happen to be.
From personal experience, John F. Kennedy high school, or “Jail For Kids”, in my freshman year I witnessed our senior class try and join the U.C. Berkeley College walkouts, which resulted in a student getting tased when an altercation between a student and an officer happened resulting in a stampede, which the tasing prevented. I mentioned the lockdowns, but not that it wasn’t entirely uncommon for them to last over 2 hours after the end of the day, but we couldn’t leave due to safety concerns. My sophomore year we had metal detectors installed at the entrance (due to students bringing guns on campus). So I definitely understand how easily it has shifted into what you’re talking about with your partners experience.
I just wonder how much of the changes are in areas where education isn’t something that matters to the politicians making the local policy. I know for a fact that some areas are unaffected entirely, my friends ritzy high school in Malibu and my local highschool in Orinda for rich white students are still making kids doctors and senators both in the top 400 schools in the U.S.
I don’t know what solution there is, other than making all aspects of education the most imperative factor to the success of the U.S. Clearly that’s not of interest, but I can’t trust homeschooling either because of how heavily co-opted it has become by the anti-vax/alt right crowd, and that every homeschooled child I worked with in California were not on the same level as their peers and didn’t have basic foundations – high schoolers who are struggling with sentence structure.
And I know literacy has become an even more widespread issue through and post-covid, but if homeschooling is the answer to combat it and the students I’ve met are even further behind… Granted, I’m just one person in one area and I don’t expect this to be how it is everywhere, but anytime I hear about it online, the people working with homeschooled children say they’re struggling and the people trying to homeschool their kids are complaining about the state requirements. It just doesn’t give me a lot of hope.
Anyway, I went on a bit of a tangent. I agree with your last sentence entirely, I’ve just also seen the damage that not caring about phones in class has had on the students. Post Covid screen dependency is an ongoing symptom of a wider issue though, and I agree that restriction of them at all isn’t the solution.
My personal stance has always been accountability to the individual, so if you’re using it in class for work then I’m fine with it. That means, using it when it’s appropriate and practicing self control/focus by limiting what you do on the device. This inherently forces the students to not have it at specific times, while encouraging using all the tools at their disposal. And if a student is playing around on their phone, I ask them to leave the class or write their notes by hand for the rest of it.
It’s okay to get bored or get distracted, and it’s okay for a teacher to set a reasonable boundary. We are an outside program, so the students 97% of the time want to be there and a majority of the time have no reason to be on their phone in the first place (are you really going to be texting while dancing, acting, or playing an instrument?). But full on authoritarianism is never the way, it’s frustrating that it’s like… the go to solution instead of doing the work to figure out what needs to be changed.
Melody@lemmy.one 5 months ago
While I do agree that rules that are clear oversteps; like “No Talking in the halls”; should be curbed; I don’t think depriving students of their phones is on the same level.
Kids should be required to pay attention when they are a student. Banning things that disrupt classrooms from functioning is a fundamental thing we all should agree needs to be done. In short; the child should have learned something that was being taught before leaving that classroom if reasonably possible.
Do I think that means schools must run like prisons? Hell no. But I do believe the teachers and administration need the ability to contain disruptions in class.
I’d be all for phones in schools if they were school-issued devices that were tailor-made to be educational and actively contributed to the classroom and learning environment…but those sorts of implementations are very sparse and unlikely these days; and tend to be scoffed at because of their cost.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 5 months ago
I agree with this provided we have supplied them with a reasonable learning environment and expectations. Employees should be required to pay attention when at work, sure, but if we are put in a horrible work environment we would also refuse to work, or if it’s really bad, quit. Students don’t have the latter option, (nor the monetary incentive to ‘tough it out’) so the former is, by necessity, what they go to.
I think people have got this backwards; lack of attention doesn’t disrupt the learning environment. Lack of a proper learning environment disrupts attention.
Looking at your phone doesn’t stop anyone else from learning; that’s a disruption to the class. You can’t define “class disruption” as “not learning” (you can stare blankly at a textbook quietly and not learn anything). Class disruptions are behavior that prevents or impedes other students from learning, which looking quietly at a cell phone doesn’t do.
I am reminded of the axiom of, “if one employee (student) is failing (being disruptive), you have a Personnel problem. If many employees are failing, you have a Management problem”. There will always be problem students, but they’re not really who we’re talking about. We’re talking about a widespread disconnect from a large number of students, because they are not being provided with a learning environment that engages them.
I work at a large company, and WFH during lockdown completely changed the employee attitude towards being trapped in a box of our employers’ choosing. My entire team is now remote, and maybe 10% of people go into the office once a week, at most, and probably half of us would quit if you tried to force us into RTO. Students also experienced this, but they are all being given RTO orders, and (to reiterate once again), cannot quit, which really reinforces that it’s entirely possible for them to not be in the school building each day, but are being forced to. This does not make for a healthy mental situation.
But they are. That’s just the reality. What building forces adults to be trapped there, with no choice about whether to leave or not? Prisons. There’s really no way around this parallel. The question is then, “how do we make what is in effect a prison, feel less prison-like?”, and that has to be by making it an enjoyable environment. But no schools aside from the super-wealthy are even able to do this, and most aren’t even trying at the carrot. Instead, they’re switching to the stick, and that don’t work.