Texan here, working for a school district where these types of laws have already been implemented: I’m pretty sure it’s about controlling narratives, not improving education.
Kids use their phones to fact-check teachers, record teachers improperly addressing students, record fights, and verifiably report on very real issues within the school. I haven’t seen any educational benefits from banning cell phones, only that it’s been easier to sweep stories under the rug and to refute concerning complaints from children in need.
Give em booze and ciggies then
Fuck that. If you can’t stop schools from getting shot up, banning phones is the wrong move.
Agreed - no cell phones in school, for anyone. If someone needs to contact me while I’m teaching they can go through our admin team!
There’s ample evidence that social media and smartphone addiction affects developing brains significantly worse than it affects fully-developed brains.
Banning cell phone use in school is a good thing.
Critics don’t want to hear that young people whose brains aren’t fully developed yet have poorer impulse control than adults…
But young people whose brains aren’t fully developed yet have poorer impulse control than adults.
We don’t want to lose our rights because of shoddy neuroscience being misinterpreted for political gain
It’s all made up to justify control
No, it isn’t.
Make friends with a few schoolteachers and listen to their stories.
On the “different rules for adults and students” thing… if the adults model responsible cell phone use, i.e. never in the classrooms or hallways during school hours, never “ducking out” to their car or the teachers’ lounge just for B.S. doom scrolling or un-necessary calls, IMO that would be much stronger than just banning phones on-prem for kids and adults alike.
The real key: you should control your cell phone, it should not control you - same thing as so many other addiction problems. And, there will be addicts who genuinely are incapable of controlling it, and cold turkey tee-total zero usage has been shown to be the most effective answer for them - just like alcoholism, not drinking is nothing to be ashamed of, having a problem and drinking anyway is much much worse.
There’s ample evidence that drugs addiction affects developing brains significantly worse than it affects fully-developed brains.
Banning drugs use in school is a good thing.
Banning drugs use in school is a good thing.
You’re right. Nothing that isn’t perfect is worth doing.
I guess we should just wait to act until every student can’t focus on something for more than 30 seconds instead of 60. Definitely a better idea because, after all, just ignoring the problem always works.
Oh right cause the war on drugs totally worked. My point is that addressing the consequences won’t solve the problem, like those children’s won’t go home and be glued to their phones.
like those children’s won’t go home and be glued to their phones.
if they can put them down for 6 hours a day, that’s huge progress over saturating in it every waking hour.
It’s not about enforcing behavior. Not primarily. It’s about setting a precedent of what is important.
There’s a huge difference between “They didn’t let me drink underage but I did it anyway and became an alcoholic.” and “They explicitly let me drink and I became an alcoholic.”
The former AUTOMATICALLY comes with increased caution from even the people who break the rules. And more importantly, it completely removes the “I didn’t know” from the equation. Personal acceptance of the consequences of one’s actions is the first step to fixing it later, but with no rules, it’s easy to get bogged down in “Nobody stopped me. It’s THEIR fault.”
We took away all their other options, then complain they’re always on their phones. It’s cruel
I understand your point.
And it’s absurd, as I illustrated.
don’t forget - schools are there to make moldable employees. not solid adult humans. banning cell phones seems to align with the working industry’s rules, too.
If someone can’t have their mobile device on hand because of stupid employer rules then they need to find a new job.
I get that you don’t want your team distracted by mobile phone use during work hours, but saying you can’t have one is idiotic. Fuck those employers.
OTOH kids need to learn that putting the device away to focus is a thing, if they can’t figure it out on their own I’m not against removing the opportunity while they mature.
As a survivor of the education system, I can concur. I don’t want my kids to go through the same system I did.
Yeah! Kids shouldn’t have different rules than adults! Same rules for all ages!
Sincerely,
The Pedophiles
The pedophiles are the ones making these rules. (Source: the Epstein files) isolation enables abuse, and these policies aren’t being made in a vacuum but as part of a comprehensive attack on access to information and connection
Yeah wtf? TONS of things have a set of rules for adults and kids, that’s literally what being a minor means… how is this a bad thing? Adults aren’t kids, kids aren’t adults… why should they be treated the same?
And the tobacco industry. And the gamling industry.
And the mining industry
Remember these laws are about censorship, not education quality
Let’s just ban smartphones all together, if you want to send a tweet use T9 like the ancients.
8933338 8933338 22444822244
#555 666 555 0 #66 666 55 444 2
There’s nothing new about children and adults being treated differently.
Their brains are literally not fully developed. Some facets of life they’re literally ill-equipped to handle and policies should reflect that.
If you’re a teenager reading this, consider.
There are a few adults who are saying that teens should have unrestricted access to the internet.
Look and you’ll see that most of them are getting money from you being on the net.
There are a few adults who are saying that teens should have unrestricted access to the internet.
I am. It saved my life
I’m sorry, is there a massive problem of adult teachers and staff at school being constantly glued to and distracted by their phones such that it prevents them from teaching and doing what they are otherwise there to do?
No?
… Maybe the critics can ask ChatGPT what a false equivalence is.
We had early smart phones back I was in high school.
We also had this rule.
Its fine.
If its not fine, you have an addiction problem, and should seek help.
I’m sorry, is there a massive problem of adult teachers and staff at school being constantly glued to and distracted by their phones such that it prevents them from teaching and doing what they are otherwise there to do?
Um… while I wish it weren’t so, it does happen quite a bit, and should be taken more seriously than it is.
False “addiction” accusations are used to imply that the thing you want to control in people is a problem of lack of self control requiring external intervention
Oh I’m not implying, I’m directly stating it.
If you cannot go 24 hrs, 48 hrs, a week, without using a phone for anything other than making actual phone calls on it, you have a problem and need, at bare minimum, a hobby.
I’d suggest reading whole books.
There is so much literature on how massive (especially shortform) social media use destroys your ability to concentrate, lessens your attention span, causes addiction, and is intentionally designed to cause addiction.
Its literally come out in court, fairly recently.
If you can’t hit pause on this on your own, yeah, you need help.
At this point, I don’t know where that help is going to or should come from, but I know an addict when I see one.
Because I am one.
I’m addicted to nictoine, I start getting real pissy around the 24 hr cold turkey mark.
I certainly would count myself amongst those who would need actual help to actually quit.
Difference here being, my nicotine habit isn’t and wasn’t tolerated or accepted in public school, I did that shit to myself, a decade afterward, as a legally/socially self responsible adult.
I agree with you that adults having smart phones is a different problem than children having smart phones.
Here’s where you lose me. The critique isn’t that adults are distracted. The critique is that being a role model means modeling the same behavior and showing by doing. That is the argument I see disengenuously misrepresented in this comment section again and again. That is a separate argument from adults have a problem with using their phones at inappropriate times during the work day/adults are addicted to their phones.
I can also unilaterally state that smart phones are also addictive for adults and are also bad for our mental health and well being.
The fact is, adults absolutely do have problems with staying on task and avoiding their phones during the work day. I see this in the field I work in and in other fields. This is so prevalent there are whole industries where its common to see “no mobile devices allowed in vehicles” stickers and decals on work trucks.
Oh, well, most adults being paid to pefrom their role, their tasks and duties, at a job, most of them are essentially de facto capable of role modelling proper phone usage, otherwise they’d be fired.
You just don’t use it while you’re actively working, you know, actively engaged in the act of teaching a lesson, overseeing a lab day, etc.
If a teacher was constantly on their phone, while they’re supposed to be teaching, they’d get reported and reprimanded and eventually fired.
This isn’t disingenuous, to hold this assumption… this is how things have worked for a long time.
Yeah, yeah a construction or transport crew should also have restrictions on distracted driving or otherwise operating a multi ton vehicle, yes, same as a forklift operator.
They should be fired if they egregiously violate safety protocols.
Systems exist and have existed to do this.
The problem that is going on in schools is that a combination of over-exhausted and underpaid teachers, combined with incompetent/corrupt admins have just looked the other way on this for so long that its become a problem not only in schools, but also all the places those kids who went to those schools go after they’ve graduated.
The solution is not to equivocate, the solution is having higher standards.
And just to be clear: addictive behaviors and patterns start in adolescence, and then progress and worsen and broaden when they are not identified and addressed.
This is … very widely the consensus of all kinds of studies into all kinds of addiction.
So having teachers model proper usage of the useful but potentially very addictive device… is arguably the most important area of society to do this with.
If you want a society that isn’t constantly distracted by their rectangles… you should exemplify to them how to properly use the rectangles from a young age.
I took the headline to mean the critics of the law were saying they don’t want teachers to be allowed to have cell phones on the job. I wonder if a lot of the commenters here took it the exact opposite way (teachers and students should be allowed to have cell phones, rather than teachers and students should both be banned from having cell phones in schools).
I think that may be where the crisscross is.
Sure, we give the kids alcohol, let them drive, let them vote- wait we don’t!? What do you mean there’s always been these kinds of differences!?
Using these as an excuse for arbritary additional restrictions doesn’t make your arguement stronger, it makes those restrictions morally suspect. This arguement means we need clearer frameworks on what is and isn’t a reasonable restriction on account of age to avoid the drinking age being a justification for erosion of rights
I wonder if some of those critics are by an odd coincidence funded by phone related entities.
I suspect it would be more likely social media companies.
BTW a bit unrelated (unless it is social media companies behind it), in the comments I saw somebody against the ban mentioning school shootings and worrying about not having contact with their child. I think banning smart phones and allowing “dumb” ones would be a good compromise for that specific issue.
Sounds good, we should let kids drink and smoke pot then right. You can drive a car at any age, any age person can buy cigarettes. No more age restrictions on games and movies…
Staff at schools are adults, many of which are responsible for the lives of other living humans. The critics must all have the maturity of school children.
we should let kids drink and smoke pot then right
In a lot of cases, showing them how to drink and smoke pot in moderation would be healthier than the outright bans which they circumvent and then go binge when they can get away with it.
The fact that anything can, with enough baseless and politically motivated fear mongering, be added To that list with no consideration for civil liberties is a massive problem.
Not sure if you realize this but its well established in the US that kids in schools don’t have those.
I said this before: I know schools that do not have cell phone bans yet the students simply don’t use them. Its called engagement and respect, and teaching kids appropriate use.
I think considering laws like this says more about a broken education system (or lack of parenting) than a cell phone problem.
Well, we have to fill our prisons somehow.
What better way than a new felony Use of Instagram law. School Resource Officers may even get to use their tasers on children more often, resulting in free training at no taxpayer expense!
Schools are now places where children are legall required to go and have no rights while they’re there. Gross abuses of children can be done with nothing more than the most vague and unproven suggestion that it’s for “safety” or “education”
Don’t be silly, we simply need to ban phones for adults and we’d solve a BUNCH of other problems too…
Like being dissidents aginst the government, for example
I actually would argue this is a fair comparison though. Phones are for contact with others unlike the other things you mentioned they can also be very helpful in an emergency. A teacher will want to contact their family to let them know they are safe just the same as a student would. I think that’s where the real issue is. We have so many school shootings and parents want to be able to connect with their children in those situations. It may be distracting for learning but at the end of the day as a parent the school shootings are alarming and no one is doing anything about it and this makes it seem scarier from that perspective. No one is even addressing that part of it
As a parent I’d rather have my child not districted by a phone in an emergency. My child will be safest in those situations if the staff contact the authorities and the kids are focused on following their instructions. In both situations, phone or no phone, there’s nothing I can do until the situation is over.
Edit: and using the threat of school shootings yo ruin school for most children when so few schools will ever be in that situation is absurd. Those parents should put more of their energy into gun control and thr availability and affordability of mental health treatment.
Yeah the authorities in texas showed how great of a job they do right?
It’s not the threat of a shooting that’s ruining it it’s the actual shootings dude
Yeah you’re right, kids with cell phones in class would have solved all of that.
I never said it would solve it but until it’s solved I would rather not also give up access to communication with my child in an emergency.
Dude, we’re talkin’ Texas - kids with AR-15s in class would solve the shooter problem Texas style.
You sound like you think people have significant ‘control’ over ‘kids’ buying and consuming cannabis, alcohol, and cigarettes, etc. … Kids already consume cannabis and alcohol and cigarettes etc. even though you pretend you ‘don’t let them’ (threaten them) and harrass them. Prohibition from alcohol to cannabis, for example, has not reduced consumption, but rather reduced supply, increased prices, and decreased quality. Repression tells consumers you hide value on the other side of your unilateral decree. On the other hand, instead of a facsist authoritarian totalitarian approach of repression, in comparison, an approach with education, legalization and decriminalization has reduced prevalence of consumption of drugs, including amongst kids; for example, Portugal has decriminalized all drugs (in ~2001); they offer drug consumers education and treatment instead of incarceration and difficult to verify products from difficult to verify producers and sellers in dark places. But the big billionaire homicidal dealers (Merck, Pfizer, United Health Care, etc.) have a lot of monetary incentive of polluting media messaging with muddy murky moral panics like the ones you just put your discursive hands in today. That being said, kids should indeed get education on things like the importance of paying attention in lectures, doing their homework on schedule, secure use of technology, blockading attempts of the feudalist advertising industry of manipulating their opinions, blockading big tech from literally spying on them and selling their opinions and bodies left and right, etc. Fun fact: that problem (cell phone use in course rooms where course work (e.g. lectures and note writing) should occur) has also been having widespread occurence among ‘adult’ students in university courses.
When a school principal sits across a meeting table with me and starts spouting “we have absolute zero tolerance for _______ here, that just does not happen on MY campus.” I know that further logical, reasoned, evidence based conversation is pointless, at this point it’s about bargaining and threats - what do they want from me, what unpleasantness can convince them that I can do to them? Anything “for the kids” is just a lie, and a joke to them.
It’s not about role modeling. It’s about learning and attention spans.
Yeah, but explain that to the children, especially young ones.
I do teaching, and when I set rules about not using phones during class - I put mine to the pile too. You can present the most compelling argument ever, but there’s a much higher chance it’s gonna reach fifth graders if you actually practice what you preach, and show the example of self-discipline, otherwise it will feel dishonest or unfair to kids, because they’re kids.
With that in mind, take them from the adults too lol. I know some adults who are chronically online
The adults already have a job. They’re fine.
The students can’t even read anymore because they’re dumb as rocks.
STFU old man. You don’t even know any young people.
Are you one of those dumb as rocks young people I mentioned earlier?
Put your phone away! Listen to your elders!
Same with adults. lol
Hopefully only smart phones. I don’t care what the school says, my kid will have a flip phone or something so they can contact me and take pics and video. Like everyday a new grooming case comes out and they want less surveillance?
Now you see why they want bans. Phone cameras filming abuses of power is one of the most powerful civil rights advances ever. These phone bans are designed to harm children
If this is the reason you want a cell phone, your efforts are misplaced. Most of these sort of sex offenders are parents, relatives, or friends of the family. Those are the people your kid would need to record.
You would be more likely to protect your child by making him wear a helmet along with his seatbelt or feeding him food that doesn’t suck.
Teachers fall into the same category, you doof.
