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.
If you do that as a teacher, not only will you be getting pushback from that student and others, but also said student’s parents.
When I was a kid, you respected teachers and if you didn’t, you got punished at school AND at home. These days parents are rude assholes too, and god forbid you try and correct their precious snowflake’s shitty behaviour.
And bans only really work if the school management has your back and make it a schoolwide ban. Otherwise it’s simply not worth the fight.
“When you were a kid…” No they fucking did not. Some kids have always been little shits and some “parents” only qualifications were functional gonads. It’s always been that way and always will.
Your memory is fading so you don’t remember.
https://news.ucsb.edu/2019/019669/kids-these-days
Just like many other distractions before them, phones take kids attention away from school activities. Kids have always looked to avoid classwork. Pre-cell phones, teachers were collecting comic books, different popular toys, friendship bracelets etc… it’s just the lastest issue on constant battle: Teachers try to get kids to learn, kids do everything they can to avoid it.
Most schools around here have implemented a no phone policy during class. If the phone is out, it’s sent to the office for them to collect at the end of the day.
Because of this policy, in my kids middle school some very talented kids are creatively bypassing school controls on their Chromebooks to play games. It’s an ongoing battle between a loosely organized group of 50 kids and the schools IT department. By my count the IT has squashed 9 different versions each more sophisticated than the last. The kids are hands down winning right now with a truly elegant and devious solution.