In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning.
The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes.
I don’t have kids, and when I was in school no one had phones, so I’m way out of the loop, but there were various electronic devices that could be a distraction. Portable music players, handheld games, even a graphing calculator in a non-math or science class, any one of these would have been confiscated if used during class.
I can not think of a single reason a student should have access to a phone during class that can’t be solved another way.
I don’t think the issue is that teachers don’t want to take away the distractions, it’s more that they aren’t given the needed authority any more.
Students have notably less respect for their teachers and will often simply refuse to obey, and physically forcing them is obviously out of the question. Not to mention the absolute shitstorm that breaks over any teacher when one of the students complains at home and so invokes the fury of a helicopter parent.
We used to sneak Tiger electronic handheld games into class. Just put it in your lap and pretend you were reading the textbook.
I mean yeah, we got caught sometimes. But not often enough to stop doing it.
The scourge in my grade school was Rubik’s Cubes.
would have been stolen*