What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation | US education | The Guardian::Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them
Don’t all schools ban phones? They were banned when I was in highschool maybe ten years ago. And smartphones were already very much a thing by that point. Everyone still used them because enforcement was basically impossible.
The only teacher I ever saw who had an effective strategy was my math teacher. He told kids to put their phones on their desk at the beginning of class so that they were out in the open. If he found out you had come to class with a phone and didn’t put it on the desk, you’d lose it, even if you weren’t using it. And then he said you could use them for a few seconds to check them, but you had to keep them out in the open. No hiding the phone by your legs.
“Back in my day” (when phones were not that smart but already had color screens and crappy cameras) the teacher would seize your phone if you dared to take it out of your pocket or if it even did as much as vibrate. Not sure why kids would need to check their phone during class nowadays.
I think we’re from the same day. I’m pretty goddamn glad, honestly. I’ve seen how much the phone has invaded my life, and I’m on the lowest scale of intrusion. I typically find myself out with a group of people all on their phones. It feels weird and gross. I could see how that constant attachment could be such a problem for teachers today, even if they were banned. It’s almost automatic, when someone gets bored or distracted, their hand is already in their pocket pulling out the phone.
We had texting, but the smart phone was invented the year I graduated high school. So really even my college years weren’t really tainted by constant phone use. We were really lucky for that reason, I hink.
That’s how most teachers in my school operated, and it meant people were constantly screwing around on their phones and not paying attention, because it was an unenforceable policy. Like I said, the only teacher I ever had who effectively prevented people from screwing around on their phones excessively was that math teacher.
Was very enforceable at our school. Teachers had eagle eyes, they simply took your phone and if you were lucky they gave it back to you after class, but most of the time you had to come pick it up after school, and if you were a multi-time offender, your parents had to come get it.
my kid once stuck his phone in his underwear and told them to go for it.
i was on his side for that one, he was not being disruptive, it was outside of class i believe.
That’s when the kid gets sent to the principal, if they had any functioning sense of discipline in that room.
alas, i did not get the opportunity to laugh in the principals face.
whomever stopped him clearly had a sense of sanity… that its just a phone and its just a kid and its just a school and people prolly shouldnt gets so worked up over nothing.
And then he had his victory: a phone that smells like ass. 🤢
plus i get to laugh in the administrators face when they tell me
damn i love that kid
When I was in school, just pulling out a phone meant confiscation.
Even ringing meant a call for the parents to get it back.Definitely depends on the school and where you live, but in my experience the rules have become really loose. Every kid has a phone and mobile data. They’re banned in class but kids always try to open their phones to check them and hide them quickly anyways. Many kids spend breaks on their phone. Banning kids from coming into school with phones in their first place is what the article means.
My local school has a simple system. Every student is required to place their phones in a clear plastic similar to this - []https://www.amazon.com/Gorilla-Grip-Breathable-Organizer-Accessories/dp/B09MJH9V2V/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1X4FP5L6YX60T&keywords=hanging%2Bshoe%2Bcaddy&sprefix=hanging%2Bshoe%2Bcaddy%2Caps%2C239&sr=8-6&th=1 - hanging right next to the door. The pockets are transparent so the teacher can quickly see if everyone has done so and they are cheap.
Today my computer science teacher asked a friend of mine to show his screentime statistics as a joke. Bro literally spent an average of +11h A DAY on his phone…
Smartphones and apps are scientifically designed to be addictive. The same techniques that make people spend hours at slot machines goes into modern games.
I’m paranoid about checking mine… Plus my Deck and computer (for work). It’s probably more than your mate.
I configure mine to show it to me weekly. It helps me keep tabs on a low social media diet. I’ve been reading, playing music and watching movies more frequently thanks to that.
Having lived my whole life in the Information Age, I am 100% in support of this.
Problem with the digital world is it’s all fake, it’s all bullshit. It’s only anything at all because we’re here. But like everything, it comes with a cost.
During the brain formation years, the brain should get opportunity to form both with and without it, so the maximum number of possible capabilities are preserved for future access.
I watched the first generation that got personal unrestricted mobile phones for themselves. Somehow I thought it was a good idea at the time. It fucked them up mentally, and then Covid-19 came and doubled the effect.
Now I think that a parent who gets their under 12 year old kid a smart phone should be treated roughly in the same way as if the parent gave the kid cocaine.
We got an iPhone for my niece who is 8. It’s locked down so all she can do is text, call, and take pictures/video and she can’t contact anyone not in her contacts list. She has some games but can’t use them for more than an hour per day and they won’t open during school hours.
A big issue is parents not bothering to learn how to use and set up parental controls.
Controls like these don’t work if the kid is smart, determined or the parents are too tired or uninvolved. There’s more to the cellphone issue than the actual cellphone.
It doesn’t matter if the kid is smart and determined, parental controls can’t be circumvented.
Unless the parent is stupid enough to leave their phones unlocked or lax enough to unblock the phone every time the kid asks for it.
I think you’re being a little naive…
Circumventing parental controls that “couldn’t be circumvented” is what I did as a child that led to me being a computer programmer
No, they literally can’t be bypassed unless they figure out the passcode. Parental controls on iOS are part of the OS, not like the easily bypassed software you would install on a computer.
One of the ways I got around my parent’s settings after getting caught by simply resetting their password was by using alternate operating systems on livecds
Saying they literally can’t be bypassed is why I’m saying it’s naive to trust them implicitly
Sure they are buddy. Perfect security. Why would anyone think otherwise?
Apple screen time parental Controls were created because third party software was using MDM which Apple didn’t like. If Apple can lock down a phone with mdm for companies to give to their employees why exactly do you think software built into the OS is easy to get around like net nanny?
Googling found an article about getting around it.
Nothing on there an 8 year old would do and there’s directions on how to prevent any of it. You can lock down changing system settings or even stop them from editing their contacts.
oh no…anyway…
12? Those kids get phones at 8-9 around here as far as I saw.
Yeah, I haven’t gotten to that point with my kids but he’s getting a flip phone first if I can find one. I see other kids on his bus (elementary level) with smartphones and I think it’s insane.
Anyone and everyone can benefit from putting away their smartphone, not just students.
Off topic, but when were the photos of these students taken? Their clothing and hair looks like they came straight out of the 90s. Even some of the photos themselves looks “film-like”.
The 90s are in rn. All my friends kids have nirvana shirts and such.
I don’t think the Nirvana shirts have ever really gone away.
That may just me bias based on my exposure. I have lots of exposure to kids my kids’ ages and that group is moving into the Nirvana phase.
Crazy how people otherwise firm supporters of freedom of speech and freedom of tech suddenly change their minds when the person involved is under 18.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Students, faculty and guests grab their food from the kitchen, and eat together under a white tent that overlooks western Massachusetts’ Berkshire mountains.
As the close of the school year neared last June, talk turned to final assignments (the English class was finishing Moby-Dick) and end-of-year fun (there was a trip planned to a local lake).
The devices can make calls, send texts (slowly) and can’t load modern applications; instead coming with deliberately cumbersome versions of music and mapping apps.
When a middle school in Canada surveyed staff, 75% of respondents thought that cellphones were negatively affecting their students’ physical and mental health.
Providing dumb phones could be part of the way forward, Nina Marks admits, but she wonders if funds at already strapped public schools could be put to better use.
While Hollier says that Light Phones are intentionally small and slow, so that people use them less, students report that they also break easily and the batteries die quickly, which wasn’t in the plan.
The original article contains 1,688 words, the summary contains 166 words. Saved 90%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
