Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy? This happens everytime a new technology becomes popular and schools don’t know how to regulate it they do this.
The downside is, a fair few student will have their phones confiscated by the school. But it won’t dissuade them from bringing them in. You make them better at hiding them instead of creating tools and protocols to enforce for when they can and can’t use them.
The crazy thing is, this should be about schools not wanting to be liable for or responsible for these pieces of tech. But Everytime I see legislation like this, it’s to do with “children’s mental health”, or these devices being a distraction.
Model it. Nobody should be allowed to have a phone in schools by this metric. No phones for students? No phones for teachers and administration.
About ‘better at hiding them’; maybe so; but that will largely be down to how the rule is enforced. Some schools basically just say “please don’t carry your phone. Put it in your locker.” In those schools, basically every student has their phone in their pocket. Whereas other schools are more strict about it. The phone can be confiscated on site, and in some cases require the parent to collect it. In those cases, compliance goes way up.
As for ‘no phones for teachers and admin’; unfortunately, some of the jobs and responsibilities of teachers are done using a phone. Teachers are required to carry a phone during yard-duty, for emergency purposes. And teachers often use their phone to mark class attendance rolls. … But its definitely a bad look when a teacher is walking down a school corridor staring at their phone while student phones are banned.
As for the reasons for the ban… well, they are many and varied - including all of the things you mentioned. (liability, mental health vs bullying in particular, and distraction from class activities.)
Are they going to allocate money to every school to employ technologies to prevent cell phone usage on the premises? Unlikely because, as I said, this law is to prohibit students from having cell phones, not teachers or administration.
So what happens when a school now has to confiscate and hold $1000 phones en masse? It makes them a target for theft. It makes them a target for lawsuit in the event that any of those phones are misplaced, stolen, damaged etc.
Teachers and admins didn’t used to have cell phones in schools either. What are they doing on a phone that they can’t use a landline and a computer for? Why is a cell phone so important for yard duty? Why is it a requirement? What does the cell phone do that a landline can’t do?
To avoid any risk of legal liability the school rule becomes “do not bring a mobile phone to school”, similar to the advice that schools give about valuables in general - especially on sport days. Bring at your own risk. This is especially true when it is a government policy - i.e. not the school’s decision.
Note, this article is talking about France. But as has been pointed out, France is not the first country to do this. I live in Australia, and my comments are based on the phone bans here which have been in place here for a few years (I think the state of Victoria was first, and all states have seen one-by-one followed that example because they see it as a good idea.)
The discussion about whether or not teachers should have smart phones is a separate issue. It has a totally different pros and cons, benefits and challenges.
Schools likely already have a policy about bringing valuables items to schools which applies here. They also likely have policies about objects that are distractions in class or not suitable for school environments with protocols in place to enforce and or deal with said objects. So tell me. Why is this different? I know the article is talking about France.
So, explain to me why this law is necessary? What does it achieve? What does it do that wasn’t already being implemented?
The primary purpose of making it a government policy is to defuse the endless arguments and pushback that schools were fighting to stop students using phones.
If the rule is a case-by-case thing implemented by individual classroom teachers, it doesn’t work at all - because students will quickly see and exploit differences in how the rule is enforced by different teachers. It means the phones still get used, and any attempt to remove that distraction becomes a massive battle of “why are you targeting me. That other student is allowed to use theirs. The other teachers don’t mind.” etc etc.
Having a clear school-wide policy mostly fixes that; but it still gets a very similar effect from the parents. “I give my child permission, because they need it for such-and-such reason”. It can be dealt with, but it is genuinely a large burden on the school. But having a clear government policy removes that battle for the school. The answer is always clear “it’s a government policy, it is not our decision to make”. (By the way, there are still some exemptions for medial reasons; but again, there are no case-by-case arguments, because the policy is the same for all schools.)
So in short its about consistency; to reduce conflict between teachers and students, and between schools and parents.
Flip that argument around for me and tell me what that argument is. Because what it seems like it boils down to is a version of favoritism which will still exist and be taken advantage of under the law. What does this law fix exactly? How does this law prevent favoritism?
I don’t know what you mean by favouritism. The reasoning for the phone ban goes something like this:
- Teachers and education researchers have agreed that children are less productive in school due to mobile phones.
- But preventing children from using their phones in school creates significant additional workload, due to conflicts and arguments.
- Various governments have recognised this, and have created a law which can remove the phones without the workload.
If you’re talking again about the fact that teachers are allowed phones but students are not, then I’m disappointed. I’ve put in quite a bit of good faith effort into talking about this stuff. At the start of our conversation I felt that I was answering genuine questions, and perhaps helping clarify why someone might want a law like this. But now I’m starting to feel like that was entirely wasted, because you never wanted to think about it anyway - you only wanted to fight it. That’s how I’m starting to feel. Maybe I’m wrong, but this ‘how does the law prevent favoritism’ seems like a totally bullshit line to reasoning to me.
Different laws and rules target different groups of people for different reasons. There’s a huge list of rules and responsibilities that apply exclusively to teachers and not other professions. And there’s a heap of rules that apply to children and not adults. There can be different rules for different reasons. As for phone usage, I’d personally be totally fine if all smart phones were phased out for everyone for all purposes across the entire world. But I do think it’s a false equivalence to say that if phones are banned for students they should also be banned for everyone else. It a totally separate argument. And note: I’m not introducing this law. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t design it. I don’t even live in the country that the article is from. I’m only try to outline what I understand to be the motivation. If you think something negative is going to result from this law, you should try to outline what that is. What-aboutisms are not helpful.
Yeah I think the adverse effect of handing an iPhone to a 10 year old in Atlanta, when that teen is still highly impressionable unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet is far worse than handing a kid a Gameboy on which they can only game, or a Walkman on which the worst thing they can do is listen to Cardi B.
Good, you don’t need smart phones in school
For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t.
We’ve been without smart phones for millenia, literally, and we were fine without. You will be fine without.
People werent fine either, why dont you just google 911 calls from kids and see how many would have been better off without phones
without phones
IN SCHOOLS.
For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t
I have a feeling that you haven’t gone to school recently lol
Educational resources are blocked that you literally cannot do your assignments without accessing. Teachers will tell you to use your phone to access it.
If you have some questions for someone who is actively in highschool right now, I’d be happy to answer :)
edit: tone
Do I really need to explain this? I guess I do
I’m sure there are classes in school now that require a phone. There better be, kids need to learn how to properly and responsibly use them. Having said that, 90% of other classes never required and still do not require a phone.
Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media, harmful to the development of the brain. This is not news, this has been known for a while.
This is not fascism, this is not me trying to be a dick this is simply kids needing to be away from their phone for a few hours per day and everyone is losing their minds because OMG, how are we going to make it without phones? Such opinions alone are reason enough to ban phones in schools. Learn ti be a human being first.
If we’re talking about how it SHOULD be, the educational system to properly teach kids knowledge about life and not encouraging cheating (which a teacher has implied to do before) on some math equations.
never required and still do not require a phone
If your teacher does their job and teaches, sure. In the modern age where the teacher just tells you to “google it” then you DO Google it and it’s blocked, yes you DO need a way to get information related to your studies online.
As an example:
I need to make an essay on a song… that I can’t access because it’s blocked. Literally today.Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media…
I do agree with your reasoning though. Ideally the schools provided resources would be able to do this. However due to the fact that we have 2 IT guys for 4 schools, 6,000 students assuming similar size, there’s not enough people to actually make stuff work.
We’ve been without a lot of things for millennia
Uh huh, and we can do without the bad things
For me school was a great way to learn almost nothing of any use while occupying 11 years of my life with pointless time filing busywork that I hated every hour, minute and each and every eternal second of of. The only thing worse than school has been work and my consolation is that at least it’s not forever!
Aaahhh yes, you’re one of those people that just knew English grammar right at birth. I envy you! I guess that things like history, math, geography, economics, computers, it all was just already in your head and you didn’t need to lean anything. Wowowow
I’m not saying that, I’m saying most of that time was wasted. I got very little for the 20’000 hours and most of my youth. In fact the overwhelming majority of what I kmow I got from the internet after class.
I don’t know what to tell you, it sounds to me that that statement says more about your and or your specific school than in general.
Yeah, the teaching could have been better, everything can be better, that doesn’t mean that everything is useless. You are talking to me by writing, you learned grammar yet you claim you got almost nothing. It’s weird
Well I’m not saying everything is useless nor expressing an opinion about the sum of all students’ experience, only my observation of the factory-like mass reproduction of teaching. It’s one size fits all nature, it’s lack of concerm for the subjective experience of students, it’s time-filling dilution of knowledge, its inability to help anyone outside of normal but its obligation to drag them over the finish line anyway, its belief that people in front are somehow gifted and can wait for the rest to catch up or be put in gifted or delayed groups instead (without regards for the social consequences). Its narrow range of interests, its flattening incuriosity, its concern over production of employee rather than citizens. Its unending wasting of my youth back when minutes felt like hours. Its reality falling so far short of its promises.
I’m sorry if your education sucked, I guess not everyone can win, but don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater
I’m not saying no to education. I’m saying respect my time and listen to me as a student instead of treating me like a product on a conveyor belt. Give back agency instead of 13 years of railroading.
we didnt have clean drinking water either, or daily showers, we lived without soap for millenia
Those are good things.
Mobile ohones, barring a few exceptions, are not
Lol, we definitely have had clean drinking water for far longer than we have had dirty drinking water, thank the industrial revolution for that. And try skipping a shower for a day - you’ll be fine. Soap also has a long history https://www.soaphistory.net/soap-history/ over 4000 years
So literally wrong on all three points. Perhaps you need to read more instead of doom scrolling and swapping nudes on your smartphone
I’m pretty sure there can be other bad stuff in water that existed before the industrial revolution
Sure, loads of sewage. But it also had smaller settlements, less people, and human waste was recycled more in times gone by too. Far more water was far more drinkable even 150 years ago
Where do people like you get their information from? I’m seriously wondering, is there a shitty nonsense site out there or do you just pull shit out of your ass?
Type 1 diabetics would like a word.
About?
That didn’t exist 20 years ago?
There are no teachers with mobile phones around?
You don’t need a mobile phone
Lots of type 1 diabetics now use their smartphones to keep track of their numbers, they use them to work out carbohydrates, the phones also warn them of high numbers and potentially fatal lows. So yes they do need phones.
The child’s phone also sends blood glucose values to family members.
Also a teacher having a mobile phone doesn’t help one iota.
Yay, you mayhaps found a possible potential exception to a rule.
Main point still stands, and yeah, teachers can have a smart phone as long as it’s on do not disturb during teaching hours. If it’s not for a few times, you discipline the teacher. It’s not that hard.
Either way, no phones in class. Students need a no distraction environment and they do not need TikTok or whatever is the craze right now
Good on you France!
I hope more countries start realizing how important this is. We have more than enough evidence demonstrating the damage that comes from being permanently connected, or even online for more than a couple hours per day, and minors are taking the worst of it because they are developing under those conditions.
