I mean it kind of needs to be both. But it’s hard to find a compelling reason why kids need their smartphones fully accessible during class.
Schools should just be one huge faraday cage. Kids have to learn to focus and pay attention.
And they need to learn the curriculum
I mean I’m not that extreme lmao that’s also a safety issue. Kids will be kids, they will not sit quietly all school day and be total lesson sponges lol
How much of a safety issue would it really be? Cell phones didn't really become a thing for my age range until high school. If there was an emergency, there was a landline in the classrooms.
Right? Somehow schools survived until at least the 2010s without every kid having a cellphone in them at all times.
Schools should be a battle royale, leave them on an island to battle and the last kid standing gets to go home.
Well, you can quickly search up some information. I don't remember what it was, but I remember that once in middle school teacher said something I wasn't quite sure about, but also I wouldn't ask if I wasn't more sure. So I looked it up, seeing that I was right, I asked if it rather wasn't meant to be that other thing, he checked too and indeed he was wrong.
Also, my mind often wanders off. And it may happen that I suddenly can't remember something. Could just be some word I could look up on my phone in less than a minute. Option B: Keep thinking about it till the rest of the class. I can't stop thinking about that until I either remember or find it.
Next, spine. I am currently in high school. Phones are allowed here. Any time. So, I utilized my scanner and digitized one 500 or so page book I couldn't find on the internet, and then used it as PDF instead of a physical book. It is less likely that I would forget my phone. I wish schools would have options for e-ink tablets instead of having to carry many heavy physical books. That used to be problem mostly in elementary school and middle school. Same goes for note taking.
Obviously, the last example can be easily solved by modernization.
Fast talking teachers. I can't write that fast. I mean, I can, but then I can't decipher my handwriting, which is already hard anyway. Voice recorder is a quick solution. Obviously, it is easier to look through notes than audio, but IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE A REPLACEMENT FOR NOTES, just a help.
But do take that with a pinch of salt. Especially in elementary school, I used to be one of those weird kids who greatly preferred being liked by the teacher over having friends. So even though I had a phone at the time, I never used it during classes because teachers disliked it.
But at least during breaks it should be allowed. Otherwise kids will find much more dangerous ways to entertain themselves.
... yes, my phoneless childhood was super dangerous. it's amazing i survived a couple of decades without one!
One thing I miss about reddit is that I could just filter out r/teenagers
We've been so busy fighting extremists and gross fetish porn that we forgot to quarantine the annoying children.
Where can I fight this gross fetish porn? I need to, uh, join the fight, too...
OP take a look back at this in about 5-10 years and realize how monumentally ignorant it is.
What would you prefer the school do?
How could they motivate you to actually pay attention in class instead of playing with your phone? Honestly ask yourself if this "addressing motivation" would make geometry more interesting than tiktok.
Well said. Social media is designed specifically to hold attention and encourage addictive behavior. There's no way to compete.
My school solved it by existing before smartphones did
not treat students like indentured servants? productively encourage them to pay attention instead of imposing austere zero tolerance policies? do you really think that people in ancient greece paid attention to every second of lecture because there weren't any phones?
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to go through school again? to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
school didn't have to suck as much as it did.
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood or freedom just a few years from being born?
The fuck you think everyone has to go through in their lives prior to being an adult.
Edit: though
This opinion is wild bud. Firstly, I disagree with the every hour of every weekday; once you take into account breaks, lunches, the much shorter working day, sports, and the way classes should usually be front-loaded with information then flipped for engagement, you’re maybe spending 10-15 hours a week “learning” and the rest practicing/applying. In my career I’ve generally had to spend much more than that each week learning.
Secondly you aren’t slaves, you have the option to down tools and just remain poorly educated without ramifications that endanger you immediate life/safety. That you don’t is as much to do with knowing it’s a shit idea, as it is societal pressure.
Thirdly, the people of Ancient Greece didn’t pay attention every second, but when their mind wandered they were at least able to move back to the topic at hand, tbh, if you miss enough context scrolling reels, you won’t be able to catch back up, and so many will just give up and stay on their phones.
Lastly, society around you pays for your education, it’s part of the social contract we live in. The resourcing of schools is already woefully low, please define how stretching those resources to accommodate completely preventable delinquency, is at all worthwhile. By draining time you aren’t only robbing the school, you’re taking from the students next to you who don’t want to spend their time acting like entitled children.
Sounds like everyday work life
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
Bruh, you’re arguing with people who have already gone through school.
Yeah it sucks sometimes, we all know. We did it. The exact thing you’re bitching about and acting like no one else knows how bad you have it? We did it.
When adults tell teenagers that they understand, they aren’t just saying that because they want the teenagers to listen. They’re saying it because they remember when everything seemed so profoundly unfair. We really do understand…but you’re still wrong.
School sometimes sucks, but what you gain from it is remarkable. Take advantage of it, because work load only increases from here. You are at a time of your life where your major duty is to learn stuff and then prove you learned it. You may very well someday look back on this and go, “Damn, wish I’d appreciated it more.”
I can try to make the material interesting and be engaging but if you're watching Overwatch on your phone all of that is a moot point.
Wrong. Get off the phone.
Says the neurotypical teacher to the kid who can't concentrate without music during study time.
How you going to hear what the teacher is saying when listening to music?
Technology is clinically known to suppress emotions. It has a correlation to a-motivation. So banning technology use in school is actually good. It's just that most schools think that will fix all the motivation problems, which it will not.
If schools only focused on what students were motivated to learn, I'm not sure schools would really be accomplishing much. Not to say that schools shouldn't foster motivation in students. Just that technology, especially social media, is very effective at distracting people.
I agree that the school environment should be more motivating, but there's no way to compete with apps and games designed to be addictive, even adults have trouble avoiding their phones at work.
It's always rude to not listen. So phones should not be allowed during class.
However, It's rude not to allow breaks, growth, emergencies, and the fact that they are in fact, kids. They should be allowed to socialize, enjoy youth, and understand hierarchy/respect. So to earn respect, you must respect first.
Let the kids have their phones/computers as that is the modern world we live in. They will have technology. Don't discourage it just because some people learned "you won't always have a calculator in your pocket". Well, now you do, so rather than ban it, teach them to USE IT!!! Just... properly.
Adapt the teaching, not the class.
I would still disagree about phone usage.
Even when in school, phone helped me quite a bit with education. Having a way to do a quick fact-check is invaluable.
Now as I'm finishing getting my degree such devices became an inseparable part of the process.
Yes, you may not always listen to what's being said whilst using them, but lets be frank, you wouldn't be listening to those parts either way.
School education in a lot of places is fundamentally flawed. It's extremely difficult to learn when you're expected to absorb information just by listening and writing.
I'd agree with OPs sentiment here, off-topic smartphone usage isn't the cause for worse education, but instead is a result of poor engagement in the first place. Should people be more engaged in the topic then suddenly smartphones start being used as a studying tool and not for entertainment. There are many ways of achieving that, but that's a whole different story.
I think the biggest issue isn't letting kids use a tool, it's getting kids to do the work.
I recently worked with a bunch of kids in college, all stem majors, who couldn't Google effectively or do basic math in their heads. It's not a matter of "don't let them use a resource" it's that many people won't try.
Limiting technology isn't cruelty, it's vital for learning many skills. Number sense can't be taught by a taking a picture and writing an answer.
School will never be as interesting as a phone. Your teacher will never be as entertaining as an influencer. Your textbooks will never be as entertaining as your feed. What families and teenagers have to understand is that education is a choice. If you want to learn, you’ll probably have to put your phone down for long periods of time to actively listen and learn. It’s difficult. It tires you out. It’ll frustrate you. But you will eventually learn.
Then again - when I look at home prices and inflation, I understand young people’s feelings of futility.
Good luck young people. I’m really rooting for you to figure this out.
The amount of times I told my students they can use their phone for certain exercises, then 90% of them just went on Tiktok or played Clash Of Clans, is why is started not allowing phones.
I get that to the 10% it was super helpful but it's just easier to not allow everyone.
How do I motivate my students? I'll need to know by 7:30 am PST tomorrow.
Thanks!
Not only kids struggle with this, adults too. I've seen restaurant visits where everyone puts their phone on a pile on the table, first one to ring pays the bill. Otherwise Billy couldn't stop texting his controlling partner all night.
There is more research to be done, but so far this might be a good thing: https://www.verywellmind.com/how-do-smartphones-affect-the-brain-2794892
Multiple studies have shown that smartphone decrease concentration, and have negative impact on emotional well being in adolescents.
The mere presence of a smartphone reduces basal attentional performance https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36256-4
Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/691462
Attention or Distraction? The Impact of Mobile Phone on Users' Psychological Well-Being https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8093572/
Mobile phone use, behavioural problems and concentration capacity in adolescents: A prospective study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1438463916300645
