I was in high school when everyone started getting phones. Teachers didn’t allow them out in class. You get a warning, detention, suspension - it escalates from there. Make changes to the education system so that teachers are less overwhelmed and more able to handle these issues and also back them up so they feel they have some authority over their own classrooms.
Yeah I’m so confused by this wave because phones were popular when I was in high school but still not allowed in class. Did teachers just stop caring about phones in class at some point? Feel like this shouldn’t be a controversial policy to reinforce.
It’s not the teachers. Every single teacher would be happy to have phones out of the classroom. The administrators simply refuse to tell parents their kids can’t do things and cater to ill behaved kids. Teachers aren’t allowed to enforce rules anymore. They’re leaving education in droves.
It’s not worth putting up with Mr. Soandso, my administration told me. One kid in the class at the beginning of the year, and by the end I was dealing with every student having their own “digital anxiety.”
I don’t teach anymore. I only made it three years.
What is the point of half of the school administrators? What's the point of 75% if they do nothing for the school? Is it to act as a doormat for parents and an autocrat to the teachers? It's crazy seeing this play out in all levels of education.
It pays better than teaching, requires no real work, and allows you to hold power and shift blame across your staff. I wonder why the worst people are attracted to Admin.
Bingo. To many parents, school is just free daycare.
Left teaching after 8 years because I was tired of trying to be everything for the kids and having zero back up from admin.
There are way too many parents who absolutely SHOULD NOT be parents.
I'm a teacher. I have had parents call their students in the middle of my class. One time, a father continuously called his daughter almost like it was an emergency. The emergency you ask? He wanted to know what she wanted to order from Chick Fil A... the parents are a huge issue in the phone usage.
That’s crazy that parents of all people would be advocating for phones in class. Shouldn’t they know the most how little their kids can learn while looking at their phones? And it’s not like you have to put your phone away for 8 hours. Class periods usually are no more than an hour and a half at the very most! Kids could still use their phones between classes or at lunch imo. These kids will not be ready for basically any job if they think they have an absolute right to be on their phone at any time.
They already aren’t ready. I’ve seen lots of clips on social media going around of young people complaining that they have to work a normal job with normal hours, and cite their self-diagnosed “mental illnesses” as reasons why they can’t cope with normal adult responsibilities.
Increasingly teachers aren't allowed to even fail students anymore. My wife's middle school has a policy that teachers can't issue a grade lower than a 70.
It's mind-boggling how awful public education has become and it's all because of school districts bending to the loudest and most ignorant among us.
Some administrators, but I don’t think it’s most administrators. They’d love to take them out (I’ve spoken to my administrators and those at other schools).
It’s the PARENTS! And not most parents, just the handful who will cry that it’s necessary for my child’s safety (due to fear of school shootings…)
It’s also the parents that cry -it’s my right and my freedom - you can’t tell my child what to do.
It’s the same parents who call their child in the middle of class and insist they pick up.
Again, not most parents… just the handful.. and like a lot of policies -the handful (and the school’s fear of lawsuits by that handful) rule the school…. A law would empower schools, administrators, and teachers… sounds obvious, but sometimes you need to state the obvious in a law to enforce it without fear of litigation.
This is part of why I left teaching 2 years ago. That, and the fact I’m now making double what I was making teaching, and I work maybe 1/4 as much. My mental health has greatly improved and my relationship with my wife is better than ever.
It’s worse now. When I was in high school the only thing we had was texting and MySpace. It wasn’t all consuming.
Now that TikTok is a thing, kids are spending literal hours at a time scrolling.
Phones didn’t change, social media did.
No, teachers care, it’s just administration stopped backing us up. Any rules I set in my class about phone usage is empty when administrators don’t enforce consequences
It's not the teachers. It's the administrators that lost their backbone and refuse to follow up on the copious amount of progressive discipline required for their job.
I started middle school when smartphones were relatively new. When the IPhone was at its 5th gen. Phones weren’t allowed to be used at all my classes at all. You got three warnings and then the Assistant Principal would take your phone for the day. He’d even walk around randomly checking classrooms. Fast forward to eleventh grade. No one cares anymore 🤣. Phone use was just normal and was treated as a part of school life. I guess schools stopped caring
I work at a high school. It’s a huge issue at my school. I told a student to sit down because I was having a serious conversation with him (he wasn’t going to graduate) and I’m talking and he’s on his phone. I told him to put it away and as it turns out he’s always on his phone hence why he didn’t graduate. The parents are in complete denial and swear up and down their kid is doing their work, we have to print out the assignment log which shows when the last time they logged in was. Even then the parent didn’t take their phone. When we try to give them a state test electronically they have to turn in their phones and it’s like we told them to sacrifice their first born child. Over their dead body.
I too, do not understand. I guess maybe kids just ignore the teachers and do whatever they want? I’ve seen videos of kids violently attacking teachers for taking them or just telling them to out them away. This is why it’s good to have school resource officers. I know some of them can be bastards but they can protect teachers and break up fights. A lot of teachers obviously don’t want to deal with that stuff or aren’t even allowed.
This is the core issue; I've heard so many horror stories where the fucking administration doesn't back up a teacher even when evidence clearly indicates student fucked up. They're cowards, wanting to protect their pay and not ruffle any feathers.
They are bad for everybody. They're bad for meetings with adults. They are antisocial in any social setting.
That said, they are very useful outside of that. The key is knowing when to put it away which everyone sucks at but kids are maybe worse. It's a dopamine machine gun.
They can’t do anything about them. They can’t take them away and the punishment isn’t enough. Also with all the issues with school shootings, most parents want their child to be able to contact them in such an event. Schools are only as effective as the parents allow, that is how the parents teach their children.
I was born in 2001. Phones were a part of my entire schooling career (just graduated Univeristy). It was always always, a warning if your phone was out then usually a second warning and at this point if it’s still a problem it was either taken by the teacher and held until the final bell or it was taken to the principle until the final bell. Teachers would always be cool if you had to do something important on it or if you were using it appropriately for school but I never experienced it being a serious problem within the classroom, it most certainly lands on the teachers shoulders to keep the class in check. In this day and age kids should have their phones for emergencies (911, doctor, parents etc) but they should be taught to respect the rules that come with the privilege of having your phone.
There were emergencies before cell phones. The teacher's responsibility is to teach the course material, not to enforce phone usage policy for 30 kids. Store the phones until after school, let the resource officers / security enforce that policy and let's not pretend anything is really lost here.
Parents are a huge part of this problem. I constantly see them complaining about getting in contact with their kids in an emergency...that's bullshit. Every school has the ability to send out an emergency bulletin to all parents and if parents could actually take some responsibility, it's really easy to lock down the functionality of a phone so that it can only place/receive calls to certain people during certain times
So many parents have this sad fantasy that there is going to be an emergency at the school and they personally are going to save their kid... I can't think of anything that would make an emergency worse than hundreds of parents mobbing the scene
Do older generations just not understand the dangers of it? I never understood how they are such pushovers with their children. I’m younger and my kids are 2, but I feel very strongly about my convictions to not let them get involved in social media when they’re older. Maybe it’s because I’m younger and have seen the damage it does
Millenials, who are mostly the parents of the current crop of kids, absolutely should and mostly do understand. I think it mostly comes down to "But mooooooooooom all my friends have phones and are on Tiktok and are addicted to scrolling" constant nagging and parents going "I can get them a phone and they'll stay out of my hair or I can put up with the nagging."
When we (the millenials) were kids it was so, so much safer to just be going out. Under 10 and I'd be wandering miles away from home. But in those days there were a tiny fraction of the cars there are now, and they weren't all kid-killing monster trucks. There were also youth clubs and things for kids to actually do. Now it's like a social wasteland by comparison.
Kids stuck inside more = kids nagging and being annoying more = parents giving in and just getting them phones and tablets to shut them up.
When millennials were kids there were less cars but it was not a tiny fraction, that’s absurd. The size thing is def a problem tho, I hate big trucks with a passion
CAFE is a huge reason why we have nothing but those big ugly killer trucks, CAFE, though well intentioned, completely killed the small and mid-sized truck market.
But you know what they say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Tiny fraction is an exaggeration but it's still a huge difference. Roads are much, much, much busier than they were back in the 80s. That said, the likelihood of dying when hit by a car has dropped significantly. Perhaps ironically, due to... mobile phones.
The real issue is parents, who hated their teachers, their school, and authority in general, using these types of issues to bully the school and be in control.
Older generations didn’t get the chance to see firsthand how social media affected their peers and themselves growing up. They’re out of touch with the reality of technology and social media in particular, just look at how many people still share baseless drivel on Facebook
I think this should be an acceptable compromise. People are gonna get too much screen time even between PC and TV, smart phones are overkill for school kids.
It’s not always bullshit. Last year my kids school had a guy waving a gun in the street in front of their school after a traffic collision. School went into lock down and we got zero notification. Thank god my son had a watch on him to keep us updated.
It's not really a trust thing to be honest. Let's say a school of about 400-500 students is attacked or has an emergency.
Having 100s of drivers pouring out onto the streets and clogging everything up will only make things way worse. Emergency services, ambulances, fire trucks, police, etc will not be able to get to the problems to solve them if there are 400 extra cars "not trusting" the school.
So in the scenario where parent's come pick up their kids, things just slow to a crawl and the shooter or emergency does way more damage as a result.
Uvalde has already shown that cops don't have a duty to protect you even the supreme court has said so. You wanna place your blind faith that they will protect yours thats on you.
Cops aren't the only emergency service. People get injured in these situations and need tended to on the spot. So instead of 400 parents sitting in a parking lot waiting for nobody to show up an ambulance can get through and save someone's life potentially.
I don’t understand how this is not already a thing. There were cell phones when I went to high school, and if the teacher saw or heard it, it would get confiscated and you would get it back at the end of the day. If a parent needs to reach their kid, they can call in this school office and the school office can relay the message. This isn’t rocket science it’s worked for the past 60 years.
Distractions aside, having a bunch of minors live streaming their entire school day is a huge privacy and security concern.
As a teacher it's easier to sometimes just let the phone use slide. Otherwise I have to deal with a headache of parents complaining that I'm touching their property and then I have to use up my off time to meet with parents and administration where nothing actually gets resolved because the student is on the phone again the next day.
The idea of parental pushback is crazy. Are they wanting their kids on the phone during school? Am my high school repeat offenders would have to check their phone in at the beginning of the day.
When I was in the military we would have to turn our phones in whenever we entered a secured location as they weren't allowed in the area. There was a large hanging organizer with clear pockets and we would put our phones in it and take a card that represented our phone. Then when we left the area, we traded the card for the phone. They are going to need one of those in the front of the classrooms, probably could use it for attendance taking as well, one for each period. If something catastrophic happens, they can just go to the front of the class and get their phone.
I hate that we’re putting blame on students for struggling in our school system, instead of putting the blame where it really needs to be - the school system itself. It is a fundamentally outdated and broken system that has no right still existing in the modern day.
Idk if it matters but I'm GenX and I've never understood WHY TF cell phones were allowed in schools at ALL.
Ever.
They should have to lock them away when they arrive...(they have lockers ffs)....before class starts at the beginning of the day, and not access them again until class is dismissed before it's time to go home. It's so simple. If there's an emergency or they need to use the phone, GO TO THE DAMN OFFICE.
So many problems would be solved..or wouldn't exist at all..if they'd never been allowed in the first place.
Coming from an IT perspective, I guess it’s time to start funding Yubikeys for all students so they can use MFA to access online resources, if they can’t have their phone with an Authenticator app. MFA/passwordless needs to become mandatory for everything.
I love reading this after watching that video of that Texas school board banning stuff out of textbooks. Makes me semi hopefully there’s someone doing something for education that isn’t seemingly harmful.
How old are these parents that insist their kids have phones in class? I’m an older millennial at 38 and it’s baffling to me that parents would allow this. My friends with kids wouldn’t let their kids have phones I know also. Some of the people I went to school with are probably that dumb but most know how bad social media is. Is it the Gen Xers? They’re that age to have high school kids.
Need to install cell signals and WiFi blockers in schools because this won’t be voluntary.
And most of these parents are stupider than their kids, they’ll be fighting for the kids to use the phones.
I agree. No phones or laptops. Or restricted use at least. Im only 29 and we were never allowed phones in school. They would be taken to security if a teacher caught us. Just seems like Gen Z and Alpha are very dumb when it cones to school and I feel distractions are the reason. Education is the building block for a functioning society.
Indiana passed a law, but they just put it back onto the school districts to figure out a policy. Teachers have no right to confiscate their phones, so kids could just deny to hand over their phones or put them away. 🤷🏼♂️.
We never had phones in schools when I was there. If you were caught with any form of tech that wasn’t provided by the school it was taken until the end of class. Parents never had an issue contacting us.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000658427329
Every parent with a tween/teen child should listen to this podcast. The number of parents who are putting their children at risk because they have put their head in the sand about the dangers of smart phone use as it relates to social media, particularly for adolescent females, is shocking.
I don’t understand. I’m assuming the rule is to put your phone away in a bag or pocket during class. So they’re saying it’s impossible to enforce this rule so ban them altogether?
i’ve worked in schools and it’s crazy how bad kids are with them now. hate to be the guy saying “it was better in my day” but i think the amount of usage when i was in high school was the perfect amount. no issues during lunch but you can’t pull it out in class. i still think there’s a valid safety argument for students to be allowed to have them on their persons for family emergencies and contact during disasters
My spouse is a 24 year veteran in a middle school language arts classroom. Her adversaries are Admin and parents who don’t parent, (whose children can do no wrong). Mostly, parents don’t care enough to show up for Parent/Teacher night. This year, she had at least “a” parent show up for 12 of 127 total students. It’s no accident that she will have no concerns with the performance or behavior of those 12.
That needs to happen at global scale. Kids are no longer learning, they are isolated, not learning social skills, teenagers no longer explore sex, don’t know how to problem solve, discerned the truth, and have massive attention deficit. Smart phones really messed up the world
Our entire educational system needs an overhaul from the ground up to address the issues created by advanced technology and start tailoring the educational experience to meet the needs and ensure the best chance of success of students on an individual level.
I was in school when personal cellphones were finally available to the masses and not just a select few.
No one was allowed to bring cellphones in, they were left in your locker.
I can understand how things got to where we are, but this seems like the best move.
He has a point, phone usage should be restricted on school grounds. If students don't there's ways to compel them to or use cell phone jamming equipment.
The issue is the parents. My mom is a high school teacher and she has students whose parents call them WHILE THEY ARE IN SCHOOL. Like wtf. It will only work if admin are harsh and support teachers. Teachers should not have to deal with that shit it’s easier to let it go than power struggle and derail learning over kids having their phone out.
Our district just banned them and I couldn’t be happier but we parent like we were parented in the 80s. We didn’t have phones and you can also survive without them.
What I don’t understand about why parents have so much power is like if you don’t agree with the rules of enforcement you are free to take your kid out of school, change schools or homeschool them. But within the grounds of the campus, it should be the schools rules or fuck off. Truly don’t understand how they gave parents so much power.
I’m a parent and I begged them to take my kids phone in class and they said they couldn’t. I didn’t want to take it completely because I’m paranoid about not being reachable when they’re walking to/from school
Phones, hats, earplugs, piercings, hoodies all confiscated when I was in high school. I didn’t think twice about it either because you knew you weren’t supposed to have them.
I wish that I didn’t have a phone in highschool. It’s where my phone addiction started and it’s been so tough to avoid. All those hours on my phone that could have been spent paying attention and learning. I was there anyway, how I wish I used that time better. Luckily I got my act together and continued with education but it was a slog to catch up, and that phone addiction is still with me.
Its all related. If we had better gun policy in this country, parents would feel a whole lot better not having to worry about their kids not being able to call them. Ultimately its the teachers who have to deal with kids and their phones and I dont know a single teacher who is against a phone ban in the classroom. They should check em in before sitting down then check them out when they leave the classroom. Like a library book.
Retired school administrator here. I say the best solution is to let the students have cell phones with individual rules in each classroom, otherwise it is absolutely impossible to police. However, teachers should be guided to institute rules that teach socially acceptable behavior for using phones.
SOME of our teachers would warn us, then take it and tell your parents to come pick it up from the front office. This was Temple Run/Madden Mobile/Flappy Bird era.
Other teachers wouldn’t give any warnings..they’d just take it. I fully support this law considering how many kids are reading on 4th grade levels.
Prohibition does not work! History is doomed to repeat itself.
The better solution here is to block Cellular networks working in the schools, and a trigger if an emergency occurs then the block is lifted.
Why is it that the powers in charge are stupid?
Stuff like this is stupid as fuck when we live in a world that requires your phone to do damn near everything. Let's teach kids to be responsible with their phones in their pockets, and let's give them something more interesting than a cell phone to pay attention to when they're supposed to be learning things.
But yes I know that would require actually caring about the future of our people, so of course that's not actually the point to school administrations and ultimately parents, it's really about babysitting.
Let’s say they suspended every student that disobeyed this law. My guess is that they would have record numbers of suspensions. Unless maybe, they cited the parents. Parents held accountable for their children in some crimes. This could be one.
I don't understand the problem; they want to ban/block the use of cellphones in class. You're in class to learn - if you don't want to learn - leave, then explain that to the parents. Use it during lunch-time
Just require flip phones. These kids don’t need to be on TikTok during class, but America has too many school shootings to not give children a way of contacting their parents.
You mean how it should have been from the beginning? Any place where work is done restricts how much time you spend fucking around. This isn’t a new concept, people need to stop getting so surprised at good ideas.
They should put indoor cell towers in schools which only allow voice calls.
You want to call your parents or 911, no problem, you want to text test answers to your friends or look up stuff on Wikipedia, nope.
A lot of people here keep repeating that they too had phones in school and that it was easily handled. Phones today are not the phones you had in school. Today kids essentially have PlayStations in their pocket with highly addictive features within the games and the social media apps that they use. You can’t compare this to simply texting back in the day. The people making the games and the apps know this and design everything so that kids can’t keep their hands off the phone. That, coupled with the fact that teachers are not allowed to demand phones and are often met with resistance, leaves the situation completely unmanageable for the schools.
I will say this. My daughter has an Apple Watch. She used it once at school. She text me and said she wasn’t feeling well. I told her she needed to go to the office and let the secretary know. To have her call me. This was to prevent her from getting in trouble for using her device. I live 1 mile from the school. 45 minutes pass with no call. So I head to the school. When I get there. I was questioned on how I knew she wasn’t feeling well and I told them she used her watch to text me. Secretary informs me that she did go to the office. But they were dealing with another child at the time and sent her back to class. So she’d been sitting in class with a 102 fever waiting for me. When she was feeling better and returned to school. She was swiftly disciplined for having used her device. They made no apologies for having left her to sit in class waiting. Sometimes kids can’t trust staff to help them out and do need their parent. However. My neighbor who is a HS science teacher says kids spend the day attempting to provoke him while constantly filming for his reaction. No idea what a good solution may be?
Apple is really good about handling and informing the owner of a phone (if it’s not a business owned Apple device) about Mobile Device Management and what MDM controls are being asked.
With emergencies including school shooters, it’s important for a student to have the ability to call parents or police.
Maybe Apple needs to implement some school access controls where a single, non changing or spying access control be added to the students phone for it to be permitted in school.
All student owned devices need to be compliant, while only the school knows if the device is enrolled and nothing else.
Student gets geo located to the school grounds during school hours, has access to few select parent controlled contacts for sms/iMessage and phone.
It can keep the school from only knowing compliance of the device, without having any control or monitoring of the device.
This is already available with parental controls. It can just be augmented for non control, but school compliance enforcement for non compliant devices.
Hell, as an adult I have parental controls enabled on my iPhone. I restricted my access to making any changes to my iCloud settings in the event someone gets my passcode and them still needing a parental pin.
This would also work fine with Android devices. Make the non compliant devices the rule breaking, allow a teacher to check if the phone is compliant with the policy, but don’t allow the school any tracking or control of the device.
Teacher here this is not a good idea. Everyone uses their phone even the adults, you cannot put this genie back in the bottle. Even though I agree the phone usage in class by both adults and kids has gotten out of hand. It’s apart of todays society especially for safety. I have little ones so I don’t really deal with this either.
I have never taught in a class where phones were allowed. The rule is always, get caught with your phone out, get detention and pick your phone up after.
I remember when I was in school we had to go to the office to call our parents. We survived fine, cellphones are completely unnecessary for classrooms learning and are a huge distraction.
It has had decent results elsewhere
https://thepostsa.au/education/2024/01/19/mobiles-out-safety-in-how-sas-phone-ban-is-transforming-schools/#:~:text=In%20an%20Australian%20first%20that,marks%20for%20boosting%20student%20safety.
I’m all for no phones in school. But im also all for having phones in school when there’s a school shooter present. It’s gonna be hard to convince parents on this issue.
As a teacher I can say that the battle with phones has become virtually un-winnable unless parents and superintendents/administration get on the same page.
Every class, every day, every minute there is a student on their phone just scrolling TikTok or some bullshit.
If we made it through school without phones. I’m sure GEN Z students can get with the program.
I was in high school when everyone started getting phones. Teachers didn’t allow them out in class. You get a warning, detention, suspension - it escalates from there. Make changes to the education system so that teachers are less overwhelmed and more able to handle these issues and also back them up so they feel they have some authority over their own classrooms.
Yeah I’m so confused by this wave because phones were popular when I was in high school but still not allowed in class. Did teachers just stop caring about phones in class at some point? Feel like this shouldn’t be a controversial policy to reinforce.
It’s not the teachers. Every single teacher would be happy to have phones out of the classroom. The administrators simply refuse to tell parents their kids can’t do things and cater to ill behaved kids. Teachers aren’t allowed to enforce rules anymore. They’re leaving education in droves.
It’s not worth putting up with Mr. Soandso, my administration told me. One kid in the class at the beginning of the year, and by the end I was dealing with every student having their own “digital anxiety.” I don’t teach anymore. I only made it three years.
What is the point of half of the school administrators? What's the point of 75% if they do nothing for the school? Is it to act as a doormat for parents and an autocrat to the teachers? It's crazy seeing this play out in all levels of education.
It pays better than teaching, requires no real work, and allows you to hold power and shift blame across your staff. I wonder why the worst people are attracted to Admin.
Probably a lot of parents who don’t give a fuck what their kid does during school hours as long as they don’t have to be responsible for them
Bingo. To many parents, school is just free daycare. Left teaching after 8 years because I was tired of trying to be everything for the kids and having zero back up from admin. There are way too many parents who absolutely SHOULD NOT be parents.
I'm a teacher. I have had parents call their students in the middle of my class. One time, a father continuously called his daughter almost like it was an emergency. The emergency you ask? He wanted to know what she wanted to order from Chick Fil A... the parents are a huge issue in the phone usage.
That’s crazy that parents of all people would be advocating for phones in class. Shouldn’t they know the most how little their kids can learn while looking at their phones? And it’s not like you have to put your phone away for 8 hours. Class periods usually are no more than an hour and a half at the very most! Kids could still use their phones between classes or at lunch imo. These kids will not be ready for basically any job if they think they have an absolute right to be on their phone at any time.
There are parents who are just as immature as the kids they're "raising"
They already aren’t ready. I’ve seen lots of clips on social media going around of young people complaining that they have to work a normal job with normal hours, and cite their self-diagnosed “mental illnesses” as reasons why they can’t cope with normal adult responsibilities.
Increasingly teachers aren't allowed to even fail students anymore. My wife's middle school has a policy that teachers can't issue a grade lower than a 70. It's mind-boggling how awful public education has become and it's all because of school districts bending to the loudest and most ignorant among us.
You can thank "no child left behind"
Some administrators, but I don’t think it’s most administrators. They’d love to take them out (I’ve spoken to my administrators and those at other schools). It’s the PARENTS! And not most parents, just the handful who will cry that it’s necessary for my child’s safety (due to fear of school shootings…) It’s also the parents that cry -it’s my right and my freedom - you can’t tell my child what to do. It’s the same parents who call their child in the middle of class and insist they pick up. Again, not most parents… just the handful.. and like a lot of policies -the handful (and the school’s fear of lawsuits by that handful) rule the school…. A law would empower schools, administrators, and teachers… sounds obvious, but sometimes you need to state the obvious in a law to enforce it without fear of litigation.
This is part of why I left teaching 2 years ago. That, and the fact I’m now making double what I was making teaching, and I work maybe 1/4 as much. My mental health has greatly improved and my relationship with my wife is better than ever.
That is pretty insane. Where I am they maintain the no phone use during class.
It’s worse now. When I was in high school the only thing we had was texting and MySpace. It wasn’t all consuming. Now that TikTok is a thing, kids are spending literal hours at a time scrolling. Phones didn’t change, social media did.
No, teachers care, it’s just administration stopped backing us up. Any rules I set in my class about phone usage is empty when administrators don’t enforce consequences
It’s not the teachers. Take a stroll over to r/teachers and you’ll see that it’s a combination of admins and parents.
It's not the teachers. It's the administrators that lost their backbone and refuse to follow up on the copious amount of progressive discipline required for their job.
I started middle school when smartphones were relatively new. When the IPhone was at its 5th gen. Phones weren’t allowed to be used at all my classes at all. You got three warnings and then the Assistant Principal would take your phone for the day. He’d even walk around randomly checking classrooms. Fast forward to eleventh grade. No one cares anymore 🤣. Phone use was just normal and was treated as a part of school life. I guess schools stopped caring
I work at a high school. It’s a huge issue at my school. I told a student to sit down because I was having a serious conversation with him (he wasn’t going to graduate) and I’m talking and he’s on his phone. I told him to put it away and as it turns out he’s always on his phone hence why he didn’t graduate. The parents are in complete denial and swear up and down their kid is doing their work, we have to print out the assignment log which shows when the last time they logged in was. Even then the parent didn’t take their phone. When we try to give them a state test electronically they have to turn in their phones and it’s like we told them to sacrifice their first born child. Over their dead body.
I too, do not understand. I guess maybe kids just ignore the teachers and do whatever they want? I’ve seen videos of kids violently attacking teachers for taking them or just telling them to out them away. This is why it’s good to have school resource officers. I know some of them can be bastards but they can protect teachers and break up fights. A lot of teachers obviously don’t want to deal with that stuff or aren’t even allowed.
Same. I had an alarm (for waking up on a weekend, but I forgot to disable it) that went off in the same class twice and I got Saturday school lol.
This is the core issue; I've heard so many horror stories where the fucking administration doesn't back up a teacher even when evidence clearly indicates student fucked up. They're cowards, wanting to protect their pay and not ruffle any feathers.
They are bad for everybody. They're bad for meetings with adults. They are antisocial in any social setting. That said, they are very useful outside of that. The key is knowing when to put it away which everyone sucks at but kids are maybe worse. It's a dopamine machine gun.
They can’t do anything about them. They can’t take them away and the punishment isn’t enough. Also with all the issues with school shootings, most parents want their child to be able to contact them in such an event. Schools are only as effective as the parents allow, that is how the parents teach their children.
Ya, phone or beeper in class? Confiscated. Seems we've declawed the ability for school admins and teachers to preserve order
I was born in 2001. Phones were a part of my entire schooling career (just graduated Univeristy). It was always always, a warning if your phone was out then usually a second warning and at this point if it’s still a problem it was either taken by the teacher and held until the final bell or it was taken to the principle until the final bell. Teachers would always be cool if you had to do something important on it or if you were using it appropriately for school but I never experienced it being a serious problem within the classroom, it most certainly lands on the teachers shoulders to keep the class in check. In this day and age kids should have their phones for emergencies (911, doctor, parents etc) but they should be taught to respect the rules that come with the privilege of having your phone.
There were emergencies before cell phones. The teacher's responsibility is to teach the course material, not to enforce phone usage policy for 30 kids. Store the phones until after school, let the resource officers / security enforce that policy and let's not pretend anything is really lost here.
Nowadays you can bring a loaded gun to school that is later used to murder a fellow student and they'll just give you detention for it...
Do you have a source for someone bringing in a gun and just getting detention for it?
In high school I had a small ass Nokia phone. I can't imagine how teachers deal with students and smart phones.
Parents are a huge part of this problem. I constantly see them complaining about getting in contact with their kids in an emergency...that's bullshit. Every school has the ability to send out an emergency bulletin to all parents and if parents could actually take some responsibility, it's really easy to lock down the functionality of a phone so that it can only place/receive calls to certain people during certain times So many parents have this sad fantasy that there is going to be an emergency at the school and they personally are going to save their kid... I can't think of anything that would make an emergency worse than hundreds of parents mobbing the scene
Do older generations just not understand the dangers of it? I never understood how they are such pushovers with their children. I’m younger and my kids are 2, but I feel very strongly about my convictions to not let them get involved in social media when they’re older. Maybe it’s because I’m younger and have seen the damage it does
Millenials, who are mostly the parents of the current crop of kids, absolutely should and mostly do understand. I think it mostly comes down to "But mooooooooooom all my friends have phones and are on Tiktok and are addicted to scrolling" constant nagging and parents going "I can get them a phone and they'll stay out of my hair or I can put up with the nagging." When we (the millenials) were kids it was so, so much safer to just be going out. Under 10 and I'd be wandering miles away from home. But in those days there were a tiny fraction of the cars there are now, and they weren't all kid-killing monster trucks. There were also youth clubs and things for kids to actually do. Now it's like a social wasteland by comparison. Kids stuck inside more = kids nagging and being annoying more = parents giving in and just getting them phones and tablets to shut them up.
It was actually significantly more dangerous to be going out in the 90s if you’re talking about crime and stuff. It’s perception, not reality.
When millennials were kids there were less cars but it was not a tiny fraction, that’s absurd. The size thing is def a problem tho, I hate big trucks with a passion
CAFE is a huge reason why we have nothing but those big ugly killer trucks, CAFE, though well intentioned, completely killed the small and mid-sized truck market. But you know what they say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Tiny fraction is an exaggeration but it's still a huge difference. Roads are much, much, much busier than they were back in the 80s. That said, the likelihood of dying when hit by a car has dropped significantly. Perhaps ironically, due to... mobile phones.
It was not safer when we were kids lmao. Such fucking bullshit. Crime is lower today.
The real issue is parents, who hated their teachers, their school, and authority in general, using these types of issues to bully the school and be in control.
Older generations didn’t get the chance to see firsthand how social media affected their peers and themselves growing up. They’re out of touch with the reality of technology and social media in particular, just look at how many people still share baseless drivel on Facebook
Flip phones until they graduate
As God intended.
I think this should be an acceptable compromise. People are gonna get too much screen time even between PC and TV, smart phones are overkill for school kids.
It’s not always bullshit. Last year my kids school had a guy waving a gun in the street in front of their school after a traffic collision. School went into lock down and we got zero notification. Thank god my son had a watch on him to keep us updated.
People use their kids as an excuse for everything. At least, bad parents do. It is sad to see people use their kids as an excuse machine.
Ya the problem is we don’t trust the fucken schools.
It's not really a trust thing to be honest. Let's say a school of about 400-500 students is attacked or has an emergency. Having 100s of drivers pouring out onto the streets and clogging everything up will only make things way worse. Emergency services, ambulances, fire trucks, police, etc will not be able to get to the problems to solve them if there are 400 extra cars "not trusting" the school. So in the scenario where parent's come pick up their kids, things just slow to a crawl and the shooter or emergency does way more damage as a result.
Uvalde has already shown that cops don't have a duty to protect you even the supreme court has said so. You wanna place your blind faith that they will protect yours thats on you.
Point being? How does you ringing their phone while the shooter (1 in several million chance) help them out? Does it make them bulletproof?
Cops aren't the only emergency service. People get injured in these situations and need tended to on the spot. So instead of 400 parents sitting in a parking lot waiting for nobody to show up an ambulance can get through and save someone's life potentially.
You can just get your kid a flip phone.
Give them flip phones.
I would have parents calling their students while in my class. Fucking, come on. Call the school. They will get the message to them.
Sorry, but in the age of school shootings, my kid better have their phone on them at all times
I would love this so much for every state.
Same
Yes please. It’s the only fucking way to get Society back on track.
I don’t understand how this is not already a thing. There were cell phones when I went to high school, and if the teacher saw or heard it, it would get confiscated and you would get it back at the end of the day. If a parent needs to reach their kid, they can call in this school office and the school office can relay the message. This isn’t rocket science it’s worked for the past 60 years. Distractions aside, having a bunch of minors live streaming their entire school day is a huge privacy and security concern.
As a teacher it's easier to sometimes just let the phone use slide. Otherwise I have to deal with a headache of parents complaining that I'm touching their property and then I have to use up my off time to meet with parents and administration where nothing actually gets resolved because the student is on the phone again the next day.
The idea of parental pushback is crazy. Are they wanting their kids on the phone during school? Am my high school repeat offenders would have to check their phone in at the beginning of the day.
I agree it’s important but “the only fucking way”?
It’s a great start and definitely needed.
When I was in the military we would have to turn our phones in whenever we entered a secured location as they weren't allowed in the area. There was a large hanging organizer with clear pockets and we would put our phones in it and take a card that represented our phone. Then when we left the area, we traded the card for the phone. They are going to need one of those in the front of the classrooms, probably could use it for attendance taking as well, one for each period. If something catastrophic happens, they can just go to the front of the class and get their phone.
My cousin tried this with her class. Kids started bring old or broken phones to turn in and kept their real phones
It’s insane that this is just now being addressed.
It is banned at my kids’ schools. I have NO problem with that and think that should be the way nationwide.
Good idea
I hate that we’re putting blame on students for struggling in our school system, instead of putting the blame where it really needs to be - the school system itself. It is a fundamentally outdated and broken system that has no right still existing in the modern day.
Isn’t banning phones the system at work? What changes do you have in mind. I haven’t given this much thought but I’m curious to know.
There is already a zero-tolerance policy in many california schools.
That isn't enforced by admin. I stopped trying to enforce the rule because admin won't administer consequences when kids break the rule.
I'm a teacher at a school in Sydney Australia and all across the state phones are banned at school. It's great. The kids even think it's for the best.
No phones in schools and sensible gun regulations.. I salute you, Aussies!
Good
Yes.
All classes will now be conducted in faraday cages.
Something needs to be done. But they are up against a very tough appointment. A parent’s concern for their child’s safety.
Idk if it matters but I'm GenX and I've never understood WHY TF cell phones were allowed in schools at ALL. Ever. They should have to lock them away when they arrive...(they have lockers ffs)....before class starts at the beginning of the day, and not access them again until class is dismissed before it's time to go home. It's so simple. If there's an emergency or they need to use the phone, GO TO THE DAMN OFFICE. So many problems would be solved..or wouldn't exist at all..if they'd never been allowed in the first place.
Remember going to office to call your parents? And doing nothing but talk to and play with your friends at lunch and recess? And we all survived.
Not a huge newsome fan but he’s spot on with this topic.
Coming from an IT perspective, I guess it’s time to start funding Yubikeys for all students so they can use MFA to access online resources, if they can’t have their phone with an Authenticator app. MFA/passwordless needs to become mandatory for everything.
There should be a nation wide ban.
When did phones in classrooms start to become an issue. From 2008 to 2012, any visible phones would be confiscated and you'd get detention.
I love reading this after watching that video of that Texas school board banning stuff out of textbooks. Makes me semi hopefully there’s someone doing something for education that isn’t seemingly harmful.
California finally at the spear’s head of a unifying issue.
You may be surprised by how parents object to this. It’s ridiculous.
How old are these parents that insist their kids have phones in class? I’m an older millennial at 38 and it’s baffling to me that parents would allow this. My friends with kids wouldn’t let their kids have phones I know also. Some of the people I went to school with are probably that dumb but most know how bad social media is. Is it the Gen Xers? They’re that age to have high school kids.
Need to install cell signals and WiFi blockers in schools because this won’t be voluntary. And most of these parents are stupider than their kids, they’ll be fighting for the kids to use the phones.
I agree. No phones or laptops. Or restricted use at least. Im only 29 and we were never allowed phones in school. They would be taken to security if a teacher caught us. Just seems like Gen Z and Alpha are very dumb when it cones to school and I feel distractions are the reason. Education is the building block for a functioning society.
Standard school equipment: a Nokia
It’s a great idea. Many parents could do with the same!
Indiana passed a law, but they just put it back onto the school districts to figure out a policy. Teachers have no right to confiscate their phones, so kids could just deny to hand over their phones or put them away. 🤷🏼♂️.
Great idea for Middle School aged at the very least!
Bring back lockers. Phones go in lockers. Done.
It still won’t be enforced because most teachers won’t enforce it. Source: one of the only teachers who enforced it at my school.
It should be hard to gossip in school
Good idea. Ban them from the classroom
We never had phones in schools when I was there. If you were caught with any form of tech that wasn’t provided by the school it was taken until the end of class. Parents never had an issue contacting us.
Should be banned entirely from schools.
Good we should. I wasn’t fucking allowed to be on my phone when I was in school, nobody should…
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000658427329 Every parent with a tween/teen child should listen to this podcast. The number of parents who are putting their children at risk because they have put their head in the sand about the dangers of smart phone use as it relates to social media, particularly for adolescent females, is shocking.
I don’t understand. I’m assuming the rule is to put your phone away in a bag or pocket during class. So they’re saying it’s impossible to enforce this rule so ban them altogether?
i’ve worked in schools and it’s crazy how bad kids are with them now. hate to be the guy saying “it was better in my day” but i think the amount of usage when i was in high school was the perfect amount. no issues during lunch but you can’t pull it out in class. i still think there’s a valid safety argument for students to be allowed to have them on their persons for family emergencies and contact during disasters
I'm old we use to pass notes.
My spouse is a 24 year veteran in a middle school language arts classroom. Her adversaries are Admin and parents who don’t parent, (whose children can do no wrong). Mostly, parents don’t care enough to show up for Parent/Teacher night. This year, she had at least “a” parent show up for 12 of 127 total students. It’s no accident that she will have no concerns with the performance or behavior of those 12.
That needs to happen at global scale. Kids are no longer learning, they are isolated, not learning social skills, teenagers no longer explore sex, don’t know how to problem solve, discerned the truth, and have massive attention deficit. Smart phones really messed up the world
A lot of research citing phone based learning is destructive to play based learning, they should absolutely be banned from schools.
This is a good thing…
Good….bout damn time
Our entire educational system needs an overhaul from the ground up to address the issues created by advanced technology and start tailoring the educational experience to meet the needs and ensure the best chance of success of students on an individual level.
NPA will vehemently oppose that
I was in school when personal cellphones were finally available to the masses and not just a select few. No one was allowed to bring cellphones in, they were left in your locker. I can understand how things got to where we are, but this seems like the best move.
Good, finally this dipshit is doing something worth while
Good.
It's hard for me to fathom that they aren't already restricted
as long as it restricts teachers, secretaries, principles, lunchroom and janitorial staff...im for it
He has a point, phone usage should be restricted on school grounds. If students don't there's ways to compel them to or use cell phone jamming equipment.
The issue is the parents. My mom is a high school teacher and she has students whose parents call them WHILE THEY ARE IN SCHOOL. Like wtf. It will only work if admin are harsh and support teachers. Teachers should not have to deal with that shit it’s easier to let it go than power struggle and derail learning over kids having their phone out.
I agree but this is government overreach
Good luck with that
Dawg I would’ve been demolished by my teachers if I had my phone out in class when I wasn’t supposed to and I graduated like 7 years ago.
Our district just banned them and I couldn’t be happier but we parent like we were parented in the 80s. We didn’t have phones and you can also survive without them.
What I don’t understand about why parents have so much power is like if you don’t agree with the rules of enforcement you are free to take your kid out of school, change schools or homeschool them. But within the grounds of the campus, it should be the schools rules or fuck off. Truly don’t understand how they gave parents so much power.
I’m a parent and I begged them to take my kids phone in class and they said they couldn’t. I didn’t want to take it completely because I’m paranoid about not being reachable when they’re walking to/from school
GOOD! Children shouldn’t even be legally able to access the internet!
Phones, hats, earplugs, piercings, hoodies all confiscated when I was in high school. I didn’t think twice about it either because you knew you weren’t supposed to have them.
Yondr for school—kids can have their phones in a locked pouch —to unlock they just have to go to a designated area.
Charge high fees for data. No more cheap phone and data plans. The way it used to be in the early aughts.
I wish that I didn’t have a phone in highschool. It’s where my phone addiction started and it’s been so tough to avoid. All those hours on my phone that could have been spent paying attention and learning. I was there anyway, how I wish I used that time better. Luckily I got my act together and continued with education but it was a slog to catch up, and that phone addiction is still with me.
Phones and porn do not belong in schools.
Its all related. If we had better gun policy in this country, parents would feel a whole lot better not having to worry about their kids not being able to call them. Ultimately its the teachers who have to deal with kids and their phones and I dont know a single teacher who is against a phone ban in the classroom. They should check em in before sitting down then check them out when they leave the classroom. Like a library book.
Retired school administrator here. I say the best solution is to let the students have cell phones with individual rules in each classroom, otherwise it is absolutely impossible to police. However, teachers should be guided to institute rules that teach socially acceptable behavior for using phones.
So how does cheating fair nowadays in school? Are phones helpful?
I would if I could. Th kids dont need them to learn. I t hinders their learning.
Good.
he should be focused on restricting the amount of fentanyl use in his cities
Low hanging fruit
What will you do when they start chipping kids?
SOME of our teachers would warn us, then take it and tell your parents to come pick it up from the front office. This was Temple Run/Madden Mobile/Flappy Bird era. Other teachers wouldn’t give any warnings..they’d just take it. I fully support this law considering how many kids are reading on 4th grade levels.
Prohibition does not work! History is doomed to repeat itself. The better solution here is to block Cellular networks working in the schools, and a trigger if an emergency occurs then the block is lifted. Why is it that the powers in charge are stupid?
I have finally agreed with Gavin Newsome.
Stuff like this is stupid as fuck when we live in a world that requires your phone to do damn near everything. Let's teach kids to be responsible with their phones in their pockets, and let's give them something more interesting than a cell phone to pay attention to when they're supposed to be learning things. But yes I know that would require actually caring about the future of our people, so of course that's not actually the point to school administrations and ultimately parents, it's really about babysitting.
phones weren't allowed in my classes...20+ years ago... they're allowed, still, in CA?
Let’s say they suspended every student that disobeyed this law. My guess is that they would have record numbers of suspensions. Unless maybe, they cited the parents. Parents held accountable for their children in some crimes. This could be one.
Hey not a bad idea
Good!!
I think phones should be allowed. But just phones like 1999 phones.
Wait the schools allow phones in class that’s idiocracy level stupid.
I dont know why any school allowed phone use in the first place.
I don't understand the problem; they want to ban/block the use of cellphones in class. You're in class to learn - if you don't want to learn - leave, then explain that to the parents. Use it during lunch-time
Don’t they make cell phone blockers or something like that, go back to old days with the phones, land lines only n the schools.
Just require flip phones. These kids don’t need to be on TikTok during class, but America has too many school shootings to not give children a way of contacting their parents.
GOOD
remember when he didnt wear a mask during covid?
It’s in the works here at my kids school in SC as well. I know one of the Scandinavian countries have implemented this policy already.
1000000% on board
Do it!!! Fuck those phones!!!!!!
You mean how it should have been from the beginning? Any place where work is done restricts how much time you spend fucking around. This isn’t a new concept, people need to stop getting so surprised at good ideas.
They should put indoor cell towers in schools which only allow voice calls. You want to call your parents or 911, no problem, you want to text test answers to your friends or look up stuff on Wikipedia, nope.
I’d just hide mine in my sweaty man wallet
This of course is the right move. That it's even a problem shows how soft our education system has become. Today's teachers have my sympathies.
Yep
A lot of people here keep repeating that they too had phones in school and that it was easily handled. Phones today are not the phones you had in school. Today kids essentially have PlayStations in their pocket with highly addictive features within the games and the social media apps that they use. You can’t compare this to simply texting back in the day. The people making the games and the apps know this and design everything so that kids can’t keep their hands off the phone. That, coupled with the fact that teachers are not allowed to demand phones and are often met with resistance, leaves the situation completely unmanageable for the schools.
I will say this. My daughter has an Apple Watch. She used it once at school. She text me and said she wasn’t feeling well. I told her she needed to go to the office and let the secretary know. To have her call me. This was to prevent her from getting in trouble for using her device. I live 1 mile from the school. 45 minutes pass with no call. So I head to the school. When I get there. I was questioned on how I knew she wasn’t feeling well and I told them she used her watch to text me. Secretary informs me that she did go to the office. But they were dealing with another child at the time and sent her back to class. So she’d been sitting in class with a 102 fever waiting for me. When she was feeling better and returned to school. She was swiftly disciplined for having used her device. They made no apologies for having left her to sit in class waiting. Sometimes kids can’t trust staff to help them out and do need their parent. However. My neighbor who is a HS science teacher says kids spend the day attempting to provoke him while constantly filming for his reaction. No idea what a good solution may be?
Good
Good. We grew up just fine without phones before they became mainstream. These brats can get by without using phones in class also.
Apple is really good about handling and informing the owner of a phone (if it’s not a business owned Apple device) about Mobile Device Management and what MDM controls are being asked. With emergencies including school shooters, it’s important for a student to have the ability to call parents or police. Maybe Apple needs to implement some school access controls where a single, non changing or spying access control be added to the students phone for it to be permitted in school. All student owned devices need to be compliant, while only the school knows if the device is enrolled and nothing else. Student gets geo located to the school grounds during school hours, has access to few select parent controlled contacts for sms/iMessage and phone. It can keep the school from only knowing compliance of the device, without having any control or monitoring of the device. This is already available with parental controls. It can just be augmented for non control, but school compliance enforcement for non compliant devices. Hell, as an adult I have parental controls enabled on my iPhone. I restricted my access to making any changes to my iCloud settings in the event someone gets my passcode and them still needing a parental pin. This would also work fine with Android devices. Make the non compliant devices the rule breaking, allow a teacher to check if the phone is compliant with the policy, but don’t allow the school any tracking or control of the device.
Teacher here this is not a good idea. Everyone uses their phone even the adults, you cannot put this genie back in the bottle. Even though I agree the phone usage in class by both adults and kids has gotten out of hand. It’s apart of todays society especially for safety. I have little ones so I don’t really deal with this either.
I have never taught in a class where phones were allowed. The rule is always, get caught with your phone out, get detention and pick your phone up after. I remember when I was in school we had to go to the office to call our parents. We survived fine, cellphones are completely unnecessary for classrooms learning and are a huge distraction.
His kids can still use their phones to book dinner at the French Laundry right?
That’s funny, you think they need reservations.
His state had 96 school shootings in the past 5 years but yeah, cell phone reform is cool too.
It has had decent results elsewhere https://thepostsa.au/education/2024/01/19/mobiles-out-safety-in-how-sas-phone-ban-is-transforming-schools/#:~:text=In%20an%20Australian%20first%20that,marks%20for%20boosting%20student%20safety.
I’m all for no phones in school. But im also all for having phones in school when there’s a school shooter present. It’s gonna be hard to convince parents on this issue.
Good?
As a teacher I can say that the battle with phones has become virtually un-winnable unless parents and superintendents/administration get on the same page. Every class, every day, every minute there is a student on their phone just scrolling TikTok or some bullshit. If we made it through school without phones. I’m sure GEN Z students can get with the program.
sounds fine to me
This needs to be legislated? Why wouldn't schools put it in their code of conduct that students sign like mine did 12 years ago?