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While the students are supposed to be concentrating, some are fidgeting on their phones. Understandably, this makes the instructor a little annoyed.
But this is a faculty meeting, not a classroom full of students glued to their smartphones and devices.
Yes, some teachers, including myself, who ban cell phones during class, are sneaking a peek at their students’ phones, probably within an hour of lecturing them about taking them out or yelling, “Put your damn phones away!”
When looking for solutions to problems in schools, there is an unfortunate tendency to think that blaming and addressing specific villains is the silver bullet. (Paul Buckowski/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
Some adults like to speak disparagingly about “those kids and their phones,” but put a few of them in a large room for a meeting and you’ll get the same result.
State lawmakers push for cell phone ban in schools
Banning cell phones is an idea that’s currently being talked about among politicians, educators, and education advocates. California Governor Gavin Newsom, for example, has promised to sign a smartphone ban into law this summer, and the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Commissioners has voted to ban cell phones starting in January.
LAUSD will prohibit students from using cell phones during school hours, including lunch and lunch breaks. Each school will determine how to enforce the cell phone ban.
The reasons for the ban are clear: mobile phones are an absolute distraction in the classroom, and social media causes conflict between students.
Virginia Governor Youngkin to Restrict Cell Phone Use in Public Schools
As one of the deans at our school recently mediated another fight, he shook his head and said, “Most of these nasty things start with social media posts.” Two girls are fighting on social media, and each boyfriend, out of some fierce mix of chivalry and stupidity, protects his girl, and the fight ends up happening.
Other conflicts arise from traditional bullying, but now are broadcast to a much wider audience.
But most school districts already block social media sites like Instagram and TikTok, as well as a variety of other websites, and with or without a ban, the social media wars can and will continue to take place outside of school hours.
Surgeon General’s recommendations on social media and youth mental health come amid ‘real-time experiment’
Parents are already speaking out against the cell phone ban, because they use cell phones to coordinate pick-up and schedules and contact their children in emergencies.
Parents are used to being able to message their kids whenever they want. If cell phones are taken away, schools will have to deal with a flood of calls from parents, at least until parents get used to the ban. Teachers will have to endure students being dragged out of classrooms to answer phone calls and lessons being interrupted by messages handed to them by the school office.
The bigger problem is how to enforce the ban. Some students consider taking away their cell phones to be a cruel act of stubborn resistance. It is not uncommon for students to come into classrooms in the sixth period shouting about the commotion that erupted when a teacher tried to take away a student’s cell phone in the fifth period. It is also not uncommon for teachers to get into physical altercations with students over cell phones.
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Moreover, students are already shifting their mobile activities and distractions to the Apple Watch to get around classroom rules restricting cell phones, and a ban would accelerate this trend. From a teacher’s perspective, watches are harder to police than phones.
To take away cell phones would be to reverse technological progress, especially when it comes to the convenience we all value, including teachers, and such attempts usually fail.
When looking for solutions to problems in schools, there is an unfortunate tendency to blame specific villains – video games, smartphones, social media, or whatever else we lament about “today’s kids” – and think that addressing these is the silver bullet.
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If implementing the ban wasn’t a constant battle, a never-ending game of cat and mouse, or extra work for already-busy teachers, I certainly wouldn’t miss not having to deal with cell phones during class, but even if we could get rid of them, things wouldn’t be much different.
I hope I’m wrong, but I would guess that banning cell phones would be more trouble than it’s worth.
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