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.
What I love is how kids scream that they need their phones in case of emergencies, but are actually using them to text and watch Netflix. OK here comes the “when I was a kid this is how things were” speech - but when I was a kid, we got by just fine knowing if we needed a phone there was an office nearby. Of course that was in the stone ages before cell phones and hula hoops and frisbees and all these other modern doodads.
When I was a kid, Columbine made national headlines for years. Now we have a school shooting almost every day.
When I was a kid, textbook rental at my public school in my senior year of high school cost more than any given semester of college tuition for either of my parents.
It’s easy to look back and think you’ve seen this all before, but you never step foot in the same river twice and this one’s a lot deeper and wider than the one you used to wade in.
You had me at textbook rental in in a public high school. Wtf is that a thing now?
If it was the kids screaming they would be totally ignored. It’s the parents that get pissed off when their kids aren’t instantly texting them back.
When I was a kid school shootings were just becoming a thing and we didn’t have cell phones. I think parents will prefer to have them as long as the shooting situation continues. It’s the only way you would have direct contact with your kid in that situation. If we had it back in my day my parents would have sent me with a phone. When I got to highschool phones became more available and they got me one.
Yeah I’m not against kids having phones for emergencies, I’m just against them having them on to text or sext or other stuff during school time. It’s a different age. When I was in school, I don’t think there had been a recorded school shooting yet (I mean this was the 60s and 70s) so, it wasn’t even a thing we had to worry about.