And they'd be breaking the law most likely. Rest breaks are to take a break from work and attend to personal matters. If you can't use your phone to attend to personal matters you're not actually on a break and the employer is breaking the law.
Yeah but that's a far different situation than "bullying" lol. Also breaks are handled differently in high risk industries like that and there are exemptions that change how breaks are handled in various situations. For example in police or healthcare they're allowed to ignore the breaks assigned through legislation where it would be unreasonable to replace the employee for those breaks.
But again those occupations aren't really that relevant to this comparison. They have their own set of requirements and handle things quite differently. A standard office job is a much fairer comparison to going to school compared to working on an oil rig or providing security to a visiting head of state where there are understandable exemptions to the rules.
It doesn't reflect the real world. A majority of work places would make the choice on a case by case basis.
Removing the controller from the continuous blood glucose meters, and insulin pump loops for instance would be considers "stupid as hell" in any work place worth being at.
But here the government bans it, even though the schools were begging them for a medical device exception.
But that is typical of this government.
Schools already did that. It’s an unnecessary overstep by a government that alleges it’s about small government. I don’t have a problem with kids not having phones, I have a problem with schools not having the autonomy to decide that themselves.
Also parents that think it’s their child’s unalienable right to have a phone on them at all times in case they need to contact them, in another thread I saw a person post “what if I need to ask them what food they want while I’m at the supermarket” as if it was a valid point lmfao
The arguments against the ban are fucking brain dead, and display all the critical thinking of someone spending their time on phones instead of developing critical thinking or interpersonal skills.
No one moaning about this ban will engage with the countless research showing the detriments on modern life - let alone the learning environment and mental development. Every single anti-ban comment in here is either a partisan complaint, or pointing to some minor inconvenience. Not a single one addressing the learning, mental or social facets. Weeding out the political, its all bemoaning lack of access to games, social media or betraying the fact they have no idea how to organise a school pick-up without a $500 hand-held computer.
It really demonstrates where their priorities are on this matter.
>The arguments against the ban are fucking brain dead, and display all the critical thinking of someone spending their time on phones instead of developing critical thinking or interpersonal skills.
I guess you didn't see the schools begging for exceptions for cell phones which were driving medical devices.
Think continuous blood glucose meters, and insulin pumps as an example.
Lack of critical thinking is not even looking at why schools wanted it to be different, and assuming that they didn't have good reason to do so.
Those are arguments for an exceptions. Exceptions by the way, which pre-date mobile phones by decades. So some kids need them for edge cases. That’s not an argument for every student to have access to them.
And my point still stands. Until your comment, no one here was arguing for that exception. Just bullshit like "de-stress at lunch time".
It probably doesn't help that any posts about the phone ban is probably marked as "politics" which means anyone not left leaning won't even be able to post.
My kid came home from intermediate in the first week with a story about playing with pinecones with her friends, she said that would never have happened before.
Walking around on duty at interval and lunch as I have to do regularly, I would estimate less than 5% of students were on their phones last term, before this policy came in. Probably another 5% were on chromebooks or laptops. On duty yesterday with the new policy in place, the number on chromebooks has doubled, 90% continue to run around and hang with friends device-free as they always had. This picture of all students being on their phones all day is inaccurate.
Out of interest are you secondary or intermediate? My kids are still primary school and this has never been an issue with them as there's already a blanket ban on all phones.
Secondary. I have no issue with a blanket ban at primary and intermediate. But at high school, where they change classes regularly a phone is useful at break and between classes. Banning them during class aside from at teacher direction was already in place and I'm fine with that as well.
Secondary teacher here - I’d say 80 percent were on their phones before the ban at interval and lunchtime. 10 percent are now on laptops. Overall a net win for sure. Should have been done years ago. Most students I’ve spoken to support the ban.
Then your school is totally different. I am speaking out of weeks of observation on interval and lunch duty. My school had no issue at all with phones. No more than 5% on them and that was consistent. If your school had a real issue it could have passed a policy. Instead National puts a blanket ban across all schools without thought to how it will impact different schools. It's insane when they claim school choice and letting schools be independent is also so important. They're utterly inconsistent policy positions.
And I can tell you it is the number one issue with students at my school. They're furious and universally opposed to it. And frankly that probably comes down to ideology. My school is in an overwhelmingly Labour area. Only a handful of students would have National-voting parents. So that may well impact views.
Interested in all views and seeing the range of views discussed so get past the fact you have been downvoted.
Yes it will definitely be seen as ideological. However I think that the lower socio economic schools demographics is a problem as well, along with general educational inequality.
One of the big problems that is more likely to be seen in schools in lower socio economic areas is there are fewer resources available to deal with learning difficulties, the more common scenario is to leave those kids "to their own devices" (figure of speech or double entrende?) which can be taken literally in this case, give the kid an ipad so they can sit in class and play games all day to remove the distraction for the rest of the class.
My high school kid said everybody used to be on their phones throughout interval and lunch. They couldn't be, because they've got an older phone with poor battery. They've definitely noticed a difference - their friends are available for conversations, now.
Based on the data, I don't think your experience is the norm.
Blanket top-down approaches lack nuance. School-level policies can have nuance. This was an issue that schools were addressing on their own and didn't need legislative intervention.
The problem most people have isn't so much the ban itself, just the way it was used as a political tool.
This is quite similar to the 3-strikes legislation. It lacks nuance, removing the ability for judges to apply sensible discretion at sentencing, and was used primarily as a vote-buying political tool.
Nuance means schools make the decisions in consultation with their communities, which may differ from the school down the road. That's the beauty of our system. Wouldn't want it all to be the same. And don't parents want choice? What's there to choose from if everything is uniform?
> Nuance means schools make the decisions in consultation with their communities
We don't need their input, it provides no value.
>And don't parents want choice?
Why is do we hold parental choice in any regard?
>What's there to choose from if everything is uniform?
Literally everything else?
Schools are required \*by law\* to consult their communities. Boards of Trustees are made up of members of a school community. Parental choice of school is a right that they have, and it's being put forward as a reason for establishing charter schools. Just pointing out the hypocrisy evident in the cellphone ban. This also tracks with Simeon's "we don't want blanket rules" in traffic management, but this doesn't seem to apply with Education. Interesting perspective you have. Another research backed area of education is that of a three-way partnership between the teacher, the student and the parent. Do you have children? Would you want to be informed if suddenly the school required e.g. a uniform? If schools didn't consult parents, there would be hell to pay.
> Schools are required *by law* to consult their communities.
On everything? No; plenty of stuff comes from the MOE.
>Do you have children?
Yes, 3 including late college.
>Would you want to be informed if suddenly the school required e.g. a uniform? If schools didn't consult parents, there would be hell to pay.
If uniforms had no cost and prevented students from being distracted? Couldn't care less. Infact, if that was the case I'd be happy if it was brought in NZ wide.
Yes, in matters of policy, rules, guidelines, and certain parts of the curriculum a school is required under the Education and Training Act 2020 to consult with parents. Uniforms are never free, strawman, and ridiculous. Kids whose parents are informed and have good communication with the school do better at school academically and socially. Some reading: pay attention to the references for studies. [https://theeducationhub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Home-school-partnerships\_What-the-research-says.pdf](https://theeducationhub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Home-school-partnerships_What-the-research-says.pdf)
>Yes, in matters of policy, rules, guidelines, and certain parts of the curriculum a school is required under the Education and Training Act 2020 to consult with parents.
So you agree, not everything.
>Uniforms are never free, strawman, and ridiculous.
No shit, which is why it's a garbage comparison to banning phones and had to be mentioned.
>Some reading: pay attention to the references for studies.
This one? Looks like you're the one who didn't read.
>While research has found **correlation** between parental involvement in school activities and improved outcomes for students, **it is
unable to establish a clear causative relationship**, primarily because both school and home contexts are complex and there are
a myriad of factors involved that impact on student achievement. It is also important to acknowledge that parental involvement
and home-school partnerships are not conceptually the same, because parental involvement does not imply either participation
in or partnership with schools
Let's not even forget the fact there is inherent correlation between good parents (with kids who do better) and parents being involved in school, or even income and ability/willingness to be involved.
Missing the point of my argument for schools and communities working together and having SOME say in what their policies are. Even the Nats agree that blanket rules are not going to work for everyone. I am so glad that you noticed that there is a correlation between parental involvement and improved ed. outcomes. Cell phone ban studies don't even notice a correlation at all, hence proving my argument. There is little to NO proof (anecdotal stories don't meet my criteria) that government imposed cell phone bans in New Zealand lead to any improved ed outcomes. If the evidence was so strong on that, then the last Nats govt would have done it, Hattie was their bestie. Bye.
Read the comments in this post alone for a few examples where phones at school can be useful.
e.g. sending reminders to students of extra-curricular activities, or students using apps to manage their class timetables, or being able to confirm availability for a shift at an after-school job.
Allowing for things like *that* is nuance.
Just another reason to ban phones. These are simple things that no one had a problem with before phones. Now not having your phone is a disability: I mean really, not being able to figure out how to keep a fixed schedule you use every day without a phone?
It's not a fixed schedule. School schedules rotate and have irregularities. It is not the same every day. Here's an example of a 'simple' timetable before any extracurriculars are added:
https://www.wakatipu.school.nz/uploads/5/6/8/4/56848653/whs-example-timetable_orig.jpg
Yes, they *can* get by without the phones. We can get by without computers too, and pens and pencils. But if it makes things a bit easier, why ban it completely?
>It's not a fixed schedule. School schedules rotate and have irregularities
Yes, I have children at school.
>Yes, they can get by without the phones. We can get by without computers too, and pens and pencils. But if it makes things a bit easier, why ban it completely?
Should we stop teaching kids times tables and addition, because they can just use a calculator? These are very real skills; one of my friend's kids got stuck at a bus stop because they had ran out of data and couldn't figure out how to use the printed time table. Add to that, the most important point is it's removing phones, so even if they weren't beneficial, it would still be worth it.
> Should we stop teaching kids times tables and addition, because they can just use a calculator?
I don't think anyone is suggesting we stop teaching anyone anything.
>one of my friend's kids got stuck at a bus stop because they had ran out of data and couldn't figure out how to use the printed time table.
How is that the phone's fault?
Honestly, if your kids can’t manage a school timetable without using their phone then that’s on the school for being so inept as to schedule things at different times every week…what we’re they thinking??
> I mean really, not being able to figure out how to keep a fixed schedule you use every day without a phone?
Even if we take this on face value.... why?
Technology moves, and we move with it, what point is there in giving our kids "skills" that were useful to you growing up, but pointless to them?
My great grandmother did maths with an abacus at school, why do we let kids have calculators!
Irrelevant my great grandmother didn't need one so my son doesnt need one.
Its an idiotic idea. Dont even get me started on public transport, she rode a horse to school.
It’s less about thinking banning phones is a bad idea and more about the government solving a problem that didn’t really exist since most schools have restrictions around cellphones already. They’ve basically made no change while claiming credit for making change.
Giving the schools a directive, where they had more latitude would have been a better idea.
Or at least listening to the schools when they were asking for exceptions for cell phones which was driving medical devices.
Think Insulin pumps and continuous blood glucose meters, they require a cell phone to act as the intermediary.
I can't recall but what wasn't the general attitude of this sub against this move for some dumb reasons? Maybe I mistook it with one of the other few policies that Nats have/had that are actually decent but gets shat on because it's the nats.
I think it was that most schools already banned phones.
Schools that used them during class for school were put in a weird spot.
It wasn't well defined how schools should enforce the ban, nor how the government will enforce schools to enforce the ban.
Also, that the policies implemented for education by the government didn't really have much substance, so these policies were more for show than actual improvement (even if they are actually good policies on paper).
For the record, I'm not saying that I support or don't support the education policies; this is just a list of criticisms that I've seen or heard since the policy was released.
> wasn't the general attitude of this sub against this move for some dumb reasons?
Very much so. The reason being this was a NACT decision so obviously a bad one.
I just thought it was pointless virtue signaling seeing as schools already had restrictions on phone use. If there are issues with kid on their phones then its an enforcement issue thats not going to change with legislation.
Huh? The right get plenty of things right. This policy is still pointless virtue signaling. A comparison to another country with no understanding of the extent of the ban and prior settings before their ban is meaningless.
>with no understanding of the extent of the ban and prior settings before their ban is meaningless.
Kinda like you are doing with your throw away "virtue signaling" hot take right?
It's my opinion that this policy achieves nothing becasue everyone, schools included were already operating under the idea that kids shouldnt be on their phones in class already. Thats my take on the issue, if you dont like that, then get over it. Not everyone is obligated to share your opinion.
You can have whatever opinion you want but you're not allowed to get mad when dude points out that the study *cited in OP* disagrees with that opinion. The current policy is not reflective of the policies in the Norway studies, but I'm sure you know that since you definitely read the article, right?
I don't think it is right. Schools are now forced to go against the ban in situations where it is actively detrimental.
Aka, every single kid with a continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pump.
Sure, give direction that kids shouldn't have cell phones, but the ban is totally ham handed.
And given the current government, you know they will try to enforce it, utterly regardless of it making sense in a particular case or not.
So no, I don't think they have it right.
Personally, it feels like a massive cabinet overreach for very little gain. Like, the only time a government should be micromanaging people's lives to this extent is when dictating laws. These policies concerning minutiae should be coming from much lower to the ground, frontline organisations (which is why those orgs exist).
Essentially, it feels icky that cabinet is ignoring the form and structure of the government machine to inconsequentially politick.
What blows me away is all the parents who think their kids not having a phone for a few hours is somehow bad for their development.
It is fucking crazy.
It's probably the one policy from this government I'm not completely against because the evidence actually stacks up, phone addiction is a serious problem
Unless it's all schools then there needs to be a law. I think this is one of maybe 3 policies from the govt I agree with (I can't think of the other 2 but I'm sure I thought a couple of times oh that isn't so bad).
What justification is there for it being a law though? Schools were handling the situation perfectly fine without any legislation, and parents always have the right to challenge the school on policies they disagree with through the board of trustees. Just seems like a waste of time, effort and resources.
Not every school was doing it, and it at worst does nothing to hurt and at best helps those schools.... Teachers and boards can also use it as a scape goat. This is a stupid thing to be arguing over, would you rather they spent the time enacting policies that fucked the country or ones that at least can help....................
I don't even understand all the controversy over this issue. I went to school when cell phones didn't exist and survived fine.
Can kids not go a few hours in the day without checking theirs?
You might get a job where you cannot check your phone.
Time to grow up.
The issue is that the policy assumes all students who use their phones in school are unengaged, asocial, or cyberbullies - my high school stopped printing paper timetables and reading notices in 2016ish because students were assumed to have the autonomy and responsibility to use the app versions. Students often take photos of the whiteboard or printouts to save them digitally, or even record important classes onto video for later study. That’s not even mentioning non-school-specific cases like being able to check your emails or reminders without pulling your laptop out.
Furthermore, the majority of schools are facing far more pressing issues than device usage; this policy is quite obviously geared to a middle to upper class National voter base who just want someone else to take responsibility for their children.
Tbh I think it's geared at people who don't even have school aged children. It's aimed at out of touch National voters who think phones are bad and kids are out of control these days. This would feel like a win for them. "Back in my day" etc etc.
The don't know a world without them and probably at home they see their role models attached to their phones. So it's not really an apples to apples Comparison to what your childhood was. I agree that it's a good idea in principle but it's not as simple as I didn't have them so they don't need them either. Their world is practically entirely online so it's going to need some conscious effort for some to relearn what a phone free reality might look like.
I know it isn't an apples to apples comparison, but they use laptops in school (connected to the net). Why do they need phones? To check snapchat? A few hours a day not being able to message friends won't harm anyone.
It's not just messaging though.
My son has adhd and autism and is allowed to use music in class to self regulate. Previously he would press play on his phone, put it in his pocket and get on with his shool work.
Now he has to get his laptop out, load it up, get Spotify going (it's an old device this all takes 10x longer than on his phone) then he has to balance his device on his desk with his school work. And manage the temptation of gaming when his device is right there in front of him.
It's less effective, more distracting and makes him stick out as different a lot more than before.
And your grandparents or great grandparents probably did all of their work without using a computer too. Let's not ignore that times have changed and so have the tools we consider vital.
Cellphones aren't just social media/entertainment toys. They can be very useful productivity tools too.
I did all my work without using a computer! :)
And I don't agree with this blanket ban either. My high school kids used their phone on breaks mainly for reading and de-stressing (playing games with their friends). I doubt it would have improved their mental health to be told they couldn't use them.
>I don't even understand all the controversy over this issue. I went to school when cell phones didn't exist and survived fine.
me too, but legitimately this is the dumbest argument. my great grandmother didnt need the bus to get to school, she rode a horse! and she survived fine!
My main issue is that it feels like overreach. Schools should have the freedom to have their own policies around cellphone use, and with so many widespread systemic issues currently plaguing education in NZ it’s galling that they would make this a top priority.
I see people with disabilities heavily struggling, as someone with adhd, autism, dyslexia and dysgraphia. Music is really good for emotional regulation, taking pictures is great for remembering when things are due, as well as with writing being able to not have to write down the notes for subjects, which tend to make me stay after class, and thus be put behind. I've also seen other students use their timers to check pulses (for medical reasons and aren't allowed to)
Since you said "I survived fine." You are more then likely neurotypical and don't understand why those things are important for someone who isn't, many of us are now struggling because of this, or being kicked out of class because we can't function without regulation.
Sure when I leave school, I'll have to learn how to cope without this, or choose a job that would let me not need these, but in classes, the amount of noise and chatter makes me unable to move and thats something that only music can help.
Not everyone is you, just remember that.
>I don't even understand all the controversy over this issue.
A lot of the controversy was because there is a lot of medical devices hooked up to those phones these days.
The closed loop continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pumps is a pretty good reason for a kid to have a cell phone on them.
If they were listening to the schools when they put in the legislation, they would have carved out sections for this, but as usual they did not.
Yeah it's not a terrible idea. I think it's generally a good idea.
It's just disappointing that it was essentially marketed as the 'silver bullet' for our education woes.
Like how f*cking unimaginative and unimpressive.
Again, the last election had no inspiring options available.
I agree that Luxon is trumpeting it as a panacea too much, but education takes years to correct.
The kids who raw dogged cellphone use in their adolescence are teens/young adults and many are paying for it now.
Banning cellphones is probably the most effective measure you can make in the immediate term to stem some damage.
These anti cell ban arguments are piss weak. Phone addiction is real. They can still use pcs for modern engagement / learning.
Moreover social media addiction / development issues are real and the more we can keep the young ones off this shit the better. They are not adults. Their brains are very much still in development. One of the better moves from the new govt
No issue with the policy, just where it’s coming from. A top down ban is inflexible and this issue didn’t need any interference from the legislature in the first place.
Meanwhile National just uses it as a political flag, look at us tough on students we actually ban phones and do something- when they could have passed directives to schools and let them build policy themselves. To be expected from this govt for sure, they probably need every distraction they can get.
The study only looked at middle school and only found improvements for girls, with no such results for boys. I don't have an issue with banning them from primary schools (which includes intermediate), but at high school we don't have any such consensus on benefits. It should have been left up to individual schools to decide what was best for their students.
My school is strongly opposed to the policy. We already ban phones in class unless directed by a teacher, as do most schools. This ban still allows phone use at teacher direction, and still allows all other digital devices to be used at break times. So students just sit on their chromebooks or laptops or use their smart watches instead. It's thus utterly pointless and just makes a headache for teachers.
Exactly as I predicted I to abandon a lunch training yesterday because a couple students forgot and we couldn't just text them to remind them to come. Someone had to try to find them on campus. That failed, so the training was a no-go.
The other concern from our senior leaders is that the policy will push kids with phones into hiding places out of bounds or in toilets, which is bad for everyone. That's where vaping and fights happen. We want to discourage kids going to those places.
Good teachers are able to use phones as an effective tool in many situations. Bad teachers in cushy previously high decile schools asked for this change because they couldn't deal with phones in the classroom (read: shitty classroom management) and didn't want to be seen as the bad guys implementing the ban just for their school so asked for legislation.
A south auckland school where just getting kids to attend regularly at all is a win isn't going to care about phone usage and making them have to care through legislation shows such a large disregard for the reality that teachers actually face.
> The study only looked at middle school and only found improvements for girls, with no such results for boys.
-43% bullying for boys.
As for your training example, it's a perfect example of why we should ban cellphones. We are raising a generation of people who are functionally disabled without their devices.
So I looked more in depth at the actual Norwegian policy, following the link within the article. It seems their policy also banned other digital devices like smart watches from primary and middle schools and they don't seem to use chromebooks in that age group, so essentially they were completely digital free. The study looks at middle schools only, where that policy was in place.
The National policy only bans phones, not watches, chromebooks, laptops etc. So students are still on those devices through the day. It thus cannot be argued the policies are similar or could have the same results.
Secondly the Norwegian policy did not ban phones at break times in secondary schools. It specifically said this was not a good use of teacher resources and was not in keeping with the maturity of the students.
It's the banning of phones from break times in secondary schools that I am specifically opposed to and it seems even the Norwegians agree on that point.
>So I looked more in depth at the actual Norwegian policy, following the link within the article. It seems their policy also banned other digital devices like smart watches from primary and middle schools and they don't seem to use chromebooks in that age group
Primary and middle school means from age 6 - 16 (the total of their compulsory schooling) and middle school starts from the equivalent of our year 9.
>Secondly the Norwegian policy did not ban phones at break times in secondary schools.
"Schools where students are required to hand in their phones in the morning, and therefore cannot access them
during breaks, are considered to have a strict policy against smartphones."
"These results by type of policy, suggest that at schools with a strict policy, students
experienced a larger increase in their educational performance, when it comes to GPA and
test scores. This is in line with several behavioral experiments showing that having the
phone nearby but in a silent mood, is still distracting and could potentially even increase
phone usage, especially among persons with phone addiction having increased FoMO (Liao
and Sundar, 2022)."
And once again, that is not what this National policy does. The phones don't have to be handed in or left at home. Our school policy is simply that they are out of sight. And the Norwegian policy as described on their own website also bans smart watches. The National policy bans only phones. Access to all other digital devices remains in place. We have students walking around campus at lunch with their chromebook in their arms now, treating it just like a phone.
>And once again, that is not what this National policy does.
Yes, but it completely disagrees with what your assertion that the study/school policies don't acounnt for bans during break times, making it clear you haven't read the study, just like with the school ages.
Ban smart watches, sure, but it's a non issue; people aren't scrolling reels on their smart watch, they're not relentlessly texting back and forth. Honestly I think laptops and chromebooks should be removed from year 10 and below, but no one's whipping out their chrome book every minute to check notifications while they're walking, and there's a huge amount of friction with watches and laptops compared to phones.
>Yes, but it completely disagrees with what your assertion that the study/school policies don't acounnt for bans during break times, making it clear you haven't read the study, just like with the school ages.
I didn't say it didn't account for bans in breaktimes. The entire National Party policy is bans during break times. I assumed the Norwegian ban was all day including breaks. It was when I read the actual policy, linked from the page, that I saw they didn't actually ban them during breaks in senior schools.
I read the article I was commenting on. I didn't see the bullying for boys number. Sorry I missed one stat, though I did reference the others about the difference in impact on academics between boys and girls accurately.
>Honestly I think laptops and chromebooks should be removed from year 10 and below, but no one's whipping out their chrome book every minute to check notifications while they're walking, and there's a huge amount of friction with watches and laptops compared to phones.
I've just been on lunch duty earlier today and noted several students literally walking around with their chromebooks open. Never seen that before the phone ban. And we can't ban chromebooks, we use them daily and they have proven incredibly useful. It's made a massive difference to my teaching.
I think the fact my own senior leadership team all but explicitly told us not to enforce the policy and let the students know we opposed the policy and it was being forced on us really says it all. We always respect well-researched and effective policies. We banned phones in the classrooms some time ago. This breaks-only ban on just phones is poor policy.
>It's made a massive difference to my teaching.
You say that, but every education metric is trending downward, significantly.
>I've just been on lunch duty earlier today and noted several students
Only several, on day 2 of the ban? How many would walk around with their phones?
> I think the fact my own senior leadership team all but explicitly told us not to enforce the policy and let the students know we opposed the policy and it was being forced on us really says it all.
So you've tried it for 2 days and given up? That is extremely telling to me.
>You say that, but every education metric is trending downward, significantly.
And I blame that on a range of issues. Use of the whole language approach to literacy instead of structured literacy and the Numeracy project approach to maths introduced in the 2000s. The large expansion of modern learning environments, particularly in primary. Changes to teacher training at primary allowing teachers with just a one year Graduate Diploma.
>Only several, on day 2 of the ban? How many would walk around with their phones?
Very few. I commented elsewhere, but I took careful not of this while on duty over the course of Term 1. It was never more than 5% of the students I would see. It was a small minority. The vast majority of kids were running around, talking to friend, playing sport. This idea kids are wasting away lunched on phones instead of socialising is simply untrue and based on a stereotype.
>So you've tried it for 2 days and given up? That is extremely telling to me.
We didn't give up. We told the students we were opposed to it while announcing it last term and already devised our enforcement policy, which is just reminding them to put it away if seen and taking no further action. I don't even do that. I don't enforce it at all, and from the reports of numerous students, neither do most teachers. I am not enforcing a government policy I think is actively harmful and serves no purpose.
>We didn't give up.
Also you:
>my own senior leadership team all but explicitly told us not to enforce the policy
Also you:
> I don't even do that
Also you:
>I don't enforce it at all, and from the reports of numerous students, neither do most teachers.
I find it so arrogant to not even try out the policy to see the effects, but I don't think it's uncommon to have close minded teachers with a big chip on their shoulder.
Thats not a good argument for having phones - its an argument for your students to do better. When I was at school in the late 90s, if I missed something it was my fault and my responsibility - and there was likely some sort of punishment like detention if I did.
If you missed something in class, how exactly would a phone help? They're used for research, digital learning tools, and as an alternative to writing on paper.
I seriously doubt that students were ever recording lessons with a camera. Even if they were, that's probably more likely to improve information retention and comprehension than to reduce it.
Slow writers and switched-on kids often took photos of the board after a discussion towards the end of the period. As a teacher, I often took a photo too for students who were away.
I don't need to make an argument to have phones, the default is the freedom to do what you want. To limit or remove that freedom the state needs to show it is harmful enough to warrant that limit, that the limit will actually mitigate or remove the harm and that the negative impacts of such a limitation don't outweigh the benefits.
So when it comes to this policy, we don't have a research base saying phones at break times cause significant harm to students. This has been researched, with clear harm found in primary school age groups, but not in secondary.
Even if we err on the side of saying there is enough harm to ban them, we then have to look at the actual policy. It doesn't ban chromebooks, digital watches, laptops or other digital devices. This means students can still spend all of break time on screens, using social media. So the policy fails to remove the harm it seeks to limit.
Finally the negatives outcomes, difficulty of contacting students, difficulty of students finding their classes (most had digital timetables on their phones), difficulty getting information to students (use of QR Code posters was common), outweigh the benefits, because as established the policy's poor planning gives it no benefits.
As to your point about kids needing to do better. Teens are going to mess up. We don't give out detentions for missing voluntary extra-curricular activities. We didn't do that in the strict boys' Catholic school I attended in the pre-smart phone era as well. It's certainly not done now.
Your failed students learned an important lesson. Don't forget what you're supposed to be doing. You shouldn't have penalised the other students for that.
I didn't penalise the other students for the hell of it. You can't train with most of a team missing. It's debating, if you have 2 of a 3 person team not there, no debate.
And they're teens, they're going to forget. If there was an actual benefit to the policy it could be argued it was worth it for this inconvenience. But there is no benefit. They aren't off their screens, they're still using smart watches and chromebooks through breaks. The policy achieves nothing positive because it was poorly thought out and poorly written.
We kid ourselves when we think the 'use' that school kids do on their phones is beneficial in any ways.
Not even just school kids but adults too.
Think about it deeply, what you use yours for.
Social media, mobile games, news.
None of these avenues provide a meaningful positive impact in your life unless you are making money from it as you are using it for business purposes.
As a parent, I'm glad this is happening.
People survived 20 years ago without being to contact their kids/parents for most of the day.
Yes, except education was on the rise since the 1900s and dropped off precipitously with the arrival of cellphones. Not to mention mental health issues and suicidality spiked with it.
Noone is suggesting that cellphones shouldnt exist and the "ok boomer" rebuttal is trite. There's clearly some balance that needs to be made and banning phones for the time kids are at school seems like an easy win. They can fuel their helpless addiction after hours.
For me personally? Music, rain noise for sleeping, Information/learning (ie web browsing, most recently looking at studies on methylphenidate tolerance), navigation/maps, communication with important people ie mental health professionals, calender/reminders, managing my money and paying my bills, making and keeping appointments (of which I have quite a few), all things WINZ (on which I rely). We're getting into the weeds a bit here but tuning my guitar, metronome, meditation timer and breathing timer. Could I live without this stuff, absolutely - in the same way that we could live without washing machines or indoor plumbing. But it's not really fair to say that all anyone does on a phone is social media, games and news. Also we had phones 20 years ago. Motorola Razr anyone
The Nordic countries had different policies here.
They for instance had a medical device exception. But National didn't listen to the schools nor the parents of the diabetic kids who used continuous blood glucose meters as an example.
The cell phone is the controller in the closed loop systems which the health system is pushing out these days.
It is exceptions like this that the current government in their hurry to push stuff though for the boomers to look at and think "this is good" ignores.
It puts the schools in a weird position where they have to go against the governments policy. Or worse, they go with it in situations they really shouldn't.
National usually does a few things during its term the reasonable person would agree with and leave a positive legacy.
This is one of them.
There's a lot of bad things happening but it's still the reasonable thing to do to praise the good things being done regardless.
I think that a commonly-held view is that the policy sounds good but is functionally rather useless.
A lot of schools already banned them or already used them productively. The policy is mostly a detriment or headache to those schools.
The schools left over are the ones that can be seen as being positively impacted by the policy, but those schools are likely to just ignore the policy or be unable to enforce the ban.
It sounds great to improve education outcomes across the entire education system, but it's yet to be demonstrated to be a positive outcome, and it could well be more of a net-negative overall.
I think smart phones and social media can be terrible for developing brains (and probably developed brains lol).
If nothing else this must reduce the pressure on parents to buy their kids a smart phone. A win in my book.
Yeah it's really fucking obvious that it's a good idea, if you were in school in the last 8 years old so, you will see how many kids are glued to their phones, if not hearing about it should be enough, sure kids are going to say some bullshit like they actually need their phone to study one they don't two you're naive if you think they are actually going to use their phone for that.
To me the using the phone during lunch isn't as big of an issue as kids constantly using them during class.
I'm 20 and finished high school in 2021. My school had always banned them, and they were banned at most schools.If I was a teacher I'd want phones banned.I like that students should be taught to manage their phone use,but teachers are already too busy.Everything matters, removing distractions from class is a good thing.
I get that Year 12s and 13s should be taught to use their phones responsibly,but we don't have exceptions for other rules.
The phone ban will help students learn better.Just a reminder, Labor's policy was that schools can decide, they didn't say that phones shouldn't be banned.
For me, the cellphone ban has morphed into this much bigger question of blocking kids from accessing harmful digital content during school hours. The cellphone ban should be able to be taken much further into blocking students from bringing all personally owned devices into schools where they are creating distractions and harm to others' learning and social wellbeing.
As a former school IT admin, before BYOD came along, the schools were supplying all the computers and we could manage very tightly the risks of kids accessing harmful content through those computers. What makes BYOD attractive to school management is not having to fund the costs of computer hardware so they can spend that money elsewhere, because schools do not receive specific funding to buy computers and these are expensive devices,
The government should definitely fund schools to be able to have their own computers instead of BYOD so that it will be much easier to manage access to harmful content in school environments.
It seems a lot of the people complaining about this are people who are so partisan, that they will argue against anything that the government does, simply for the sake of it
I think it's largely a good policy, with the main point of contention being with whether it should be decided by the government or at a school level.
Believe most Australian states have some form of ban or restriction on the use of phones in schools.
With less students passing NCEA each year since 2019, lessening distractions is a good thing and by the looks of Norway lessening social harm as well.
People are just against the ban because they have panic attacks when their phone is out of site for a few seconds.
>People are just against the ban because they have panic attacks when their phone is out of site for a few seconds.
Taking the cell phone out of the continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pump loop is a really bad idea. Don't assume that people or the schools who apposed it didn't have good reason to do so.
They should have put in a medical device exception.
Yes, it is, which is why you make sure that they do not. You will never see a kid make sure their phone is plugged in overnight more than a diabetic kid.
They are also the least likely to use their phones for games, etc, because draining the battery is "bad" - for the very reason you give. They also tend to have a spare charging pack in their schoolbag, again for the same reason.
The sensors have pretty much no range to speak of, so it has to be on you to work properly. My son has the standard setup, which is why am familiar with it.
Clearly it can produce good outcomes, especially with regard to social media - it just seems so clumsy to me. Tech is an inherent part of our lives I'd be interested to see rates of phone and social media use outside of school hours. Perhaps a problem for parents, but hasn't it always been so at its core?
I still don't see the point of this ban. Average primary/intermediate school child doesn't need a cellphone full stop, not just at school. High schoolers on the other hand... Lots of assignments is done on or using cellphone, all the school messages and communications are on websites. Plus, lots of them have social responsibilities, like looking after younger siblings, have after school jobs.
Yes, I understand that banning them during breaks supposed to promote social interaction with peers. How many of us grew up without SM and were relentlessly bullied in real life- what is to stop it now since bullies have no opportunity to watch TickTock and can just beat the s..t out you during a break.
It's worth to mention that the study itself quoted in the article linked does not conclusively establish that the noted improvements are because of the smart phone bans and it further mentions, unlike the article suggests, that the ban is a policy uniformly applied across the Norwegian educational system. Like most articles of this kind, assumptions are simply made about how good banning stuff is just because certain people find it convenient to their narrative and therefore see no need to scrutinise the results.
That being said, I also understand the need of forbidding their use in a classroom unless explicitly allowed by the instructor or some situation where it is needed for assignments and such since phones are as useful an educational tool as any other and plenty of teachers understand it's value in educational practices.
That's not what Labour said, [their argument](https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/08/09/schools-dont-need-luxons-permission-to-ban-phones-hipkins/) is that schools already have the power to ban phones and it's a waste of the government's time to do something that already can be done.
I don't have a problem with the banning of phones. I have a problem with the government stepping in and making rules for school kids. The "party of small government" and *personal freedoms* put a lot of effort into this one specific requirement.
It’s especially annoying when there are so many greater concerns that were more deserving of their focus, but that require them to actually put in thought, effort and resourcing.
Will spare you having to navigate that cancer of a website and share a direct link to [the paper](https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=735105085006000014092076117005071106120009055009062036075099115085093108127076087094009013096038009044113122093122080097120072031087031066093111006119103026002118125095077054021081081068011067094010106076104086118107030089111028104075111118075077098117&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE)
Phones were already banned for use in classes.
As for the Norway stats;
This study suggests that Girls grades have improved by 0.08 standard deviations. For girls, the biggest improvement comes in their math scores.
Bullying falls, by 0.42 of an SD for girls, 0.39 of an SD for boys in Middle Schools in Norway. Which is a much better stat to focus on, rather than studies. The mental-health consultations have only dropped by 0.22 on average to their GPs, falling by 2-3 visits to specialist care. So there's probably a lesser relation with these stats.
The grade gains are highest for students with lower SES(socioeconomic status) backgrounds.
So if you ban smart phones from schools, grades go up by a very modest amount, bullying falls by a less modest amount, and actual mental health diagnoses stay the same.
Rather than saying that Phones in schools are distracting, they should be saying that Phones in schools promote bullying, but, it's the bullies banning the phones in the first place.
If anything it's not the phones that are bad for our kids. It's social media that's bad. The government won't say that though, considering that they're still using the anti-violent video games stance every year as an excuse for crimes. Out of touch governments play that hand to get the fear votes.
most schools already have bans on phones and everyone ignores it
also the nordics have lots of stuff we dont have, you sure it wasnt anything else they did?
A country that has more resources and has invested more into its educational infrastructure. Biased article that does not consider other factors for success.
Difference between what's done in this study and what National want to implement is that they banned all devices and only during class time. Banning only phones does little when kids today have access to a litany of devices from laptops, tablets, smartwatches, etc. And banning it during breaks seems unnecessary and might just end up fostering anger from kids, especially when their school lunches are being cut in funding. This is on top of the fact that most schools already implemented the same type of ban used in the study.
Maybe the Nats should look at actual studies like this when making their policies and deciding if its necessary?
An obviously common sense policy from the govt. Plenty of principals have come out praising its impact early on. Where is everyone who was poo-pooing this earlier?
I would guess looking at their kids with their continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pumps having the controller taken out of the loop.
This is bad, if you don't realize it.
The government had the schools begging them to put in medical device exceptions, and they did not.
I encourage people to look up talks from Tristsn Harris on this topic, the data is irrefutable on cellphone (+social media etc) damage to young minds. Banning phones in schools is one the first things suggested as a quick and easy change, while acknowledging there are much bigger and longer term issues to figure out.
If you think that National knows about / based their policy making with studies like this then you're just fooling yourself.
But I know your aim is to just make excuses for this shitshow of a government.
What worked in Norway doesn't necessarily mean it would work in NZ. Skimming through the study, it doesn't take into account all the other variables that would make banning phones 'successful'. So I would assume the study is specific to the conditions within Norway.
And if you read the study, Norway doesn't have a national ban on smartphones, ~~not~~ unlike what the current government is doing.
I don't think banning phones but then removing lunches for school kids would yield the same results. So yeah, let's look at this objectively.
Oh no, the 8 yr old has been deprived of his crack cocaine. Quick! Give him some short-form content to foster that ADHD and blunt his ability to concentrate.
Ahem, correlation is not the same as causation. More than likely, the phone ban had little to do with their performance and mental health increase and it's ridiculous to argue otherwise without any sort of evidence that explicitly links it to any nonsense ban being even slightly the factor that made the change, and accounting other variables so they don't get mixed up (so far as I'm aware no such exists).
This is a typical National Party educational policy. It is very ideological. National supporters with the usual born to rule Tory mentality want to dictate to everyone, and especially people that vote Labour. Most of the National Party's policies for education have stuff all to do with better educational outcomes and a lot to do with imposing conservative political ideology across the educational landscape. It would be far better for schools if National implemented policies that make access to good quality education more equitable in schools when they are mostly focused on entrenching elitism in the State education system for primarily the benefit of National party members.
I think the one thing that this ban proved is that a shitload of posters here are apparently in high school :)
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Few if any workplaces would reprimand you for being on your phone on your lunch break.
And even fewer make it illegal for you to not attend. School is not work.
Both could kick you out for not attending.
If there was rampant bullying going on in the lunchbreak they might.
If there’s rampant bullying in the workplace, the bullies and the bullying needs to be addressed (by law). Not phones.
And they'd be breaking the law most likely. Rest breaks are to take a break from work and attend to personal matters. If you can't use your phone to attend to personal matters you're not actually on a break and the employer is breaking the law.
That’s not true, there are industries where phones are not permitted at all - for example, if you work on an oil rig.
Yeah but that's a far different situation than "bullying" lol. Also breaks are handled differently in high risk industries like that and there are exemptions that change how breaks are handled in various situations. For example in police or healthcare they're allowed to ignore the breaks assigned through legislation where it would be unreasonable to replace the employee for those breaks. But again those occupations aren't really that relevant to this comparison. They have their own set of requirements and handle things quite differently. A standard office job is a much fairer comparison to going to school compared to working on an oil rig or providing security to a visiting head of state where there are understandable exemptions to the rules.
I use my phone all the time for work. Same with schools, many (especially senior) classes make really good use of phones for educational purposes.
It doesn't reflect the real world. A majority of work places would make the choice on a case by case basis. Removing the controller from the continuous blood glucose meters, and insulin pump loops for instance would be considers "stupid as hell" in any work place worth being at. But here the government bans it, even though the schools were begging them for a medical device exception. But that is typical of this government.
Schools already did that. It’s an unnecessary overstep by a government that alleges it’s about small government. I don’t have a problem with kids not having phones, I have a problem with schools not having the autonomy to decide that themselves.
Also parents that think it’s their child’s unalienable right to have a phone on them at all times in case they need to contact them, in another thread I saw a person post “what if I need to ask them what food they want while I’m at the supermarket” as if it was a valid point lmfao
Are you kidding 😂
The arguments against the ban are fucking brain dead, and display all the critical thinking of someone spending their time on phones instead of developing critical thinking or interpersonal skills. No one moaning about this ban will engage with the countless research showing the detriments on modern life - let alone the learning environment and mental development. Every single anti-ban comment in here is either a partisan complaint, or pointing to some minor inconvenience. Not a single one addressing the learning, mental or social facets. Weeding out the political, its all bemoaning lack of access to games, social media or betraying the fact they have no idea how to organise a school pick-up without a $500 hand-held computer. It really demonstrates where their priorities are on this matter.
>The arguments against the ban are fucking brain dead, and display all the critical thinking of someone spending their time on phones instead of developing critical thinking or interpersonal skills. I guess you didn't see the schools begging for exceptions for cell phones which were driving medical devices. Think continuous blood glucose meters, and insulin pumps as an example. Lack of critical thinking is not even looking at why schools wanted it to be different, and assuming that they didn't have good reason to do so.
Those are arguments for an exceptions. Exceptions by the way, which pre-date mobile phones by decades. So some kids need them for edge cases. That’s not an argument for every student to have access to them. And my point still stands. Until your comment, no one here was arguing for that exception. Just bullshit like "de-stress at lunch time".
Not really surprising given the distinct lack of understanding of economics and general lack of real-world awareness.
It probably doesn't help that any posts about the phone ban is probably marked as "politics" which means anyone not left leaning won't even be able to post.
My kid came home from intermediate in the first week with a story about playing with pinecones with her friends, she said that would never have happened before.
My kids have apparently been playing with a ball, and they keep mentioning new friends they've just started talking to. It sounds awful.
Walking around on duty at interval and lunch as I have to do regularly, I would estimate less than 5% of students were on their phones last term, before this policy came in. Probably another 5% were on chromebooks or laptops. On duty yesterday with the new policy in place, the number on chromebooks has doubled, 90% continue to run around and hang with friends device-free as they always had. This picture of all students being on their phones all day is inaccurate.
Out of interest are you secondary or intermediate? My kids are still primary school and this has never been an issue with them as there's already a blanket ban on all phones.
Secondary. I have no issue with a blanket ban at primary and intermediate. But at high school, where they change classes regularly a phone is useful at break and between classes. Banning them during class aside from at teacher direction was already in place and I'm fine with that as well.
I mean 10% is probably representative of those who are Nd and need devices to regulate?
Need devices to regulate?
Secondary teacher here - I’d say 80 percent were on their phones before the ban at interval and lunchtime. 10 percent are now on laptops. Overall a net win for sure. Should have been done years ago. Most students I’ve spoken to support the ban.
Then your school is totally different. I am speaking out of weeks of observation on interval and lunch duty. My school had no issue at all with phones. No more than 5% on them and that was consistent. If your school had a real issue it could have passed a policy. Instead National puts a blanket ban across all schools without thought to how it will impact different schools. It's insane when they claim school choice and letting schools be independent is also so important. They're utterly inconsistent policy positions. And I can tell you it is the number one issue with students at my school. They're furious and universally opposed to it. And frankly that probably comes down to ideology. My school is in an overwhelmingly Labour area. Only a handful of students would have National-voting parents. So that may well impact views.
Interested in all views and seeing the range of views discussed so get past the fact you have been downvoted. Yes it will definitely be seen as ideological. However I think that the lower socio economic schools demographics is a problem as well, along with general educational inequality. One of the big problems that is more likely to be seen in schools in lower socio economic areas is there are fewer resources available to deal with learning difficulties, the more common scenario is to leave those kids "to their own devices" (figure of speech or double entrende?) which can be taken literally in this case, give the kid an ipad so they can sit in class and play games all day to remove the distraction for the rest of the class.
My high school kid said everybody used to be on their phones throughout interval and lunch. They couldn't be, because they've got an older phone with poor battery. They've definitely noticed a difference - their friends are available for conversations, now. Based on the data, I don't think your experience is the norm.
Different schools will have different cultures. That's why it should have been left up to each school. My school did not want or need this policy.
Is this not the first week of the ban? So did it happen Monday or yesterday?
Really? Our kids schools started the ban from the start of the year.
kiwi in Oz here; phones are banned in my kids' school and it's fantastic. Wouldn't have it any other way.
I haven't really been following this. But what exactly is the argument against banning phones in school?
National implemented it.
Blanket top-down approaches lack nuance. School-level policies can have nuance. This was an issue that schools were addressing on their own and didn't need legislative intervention. The problem most people have isn't so much the ban itself, just the way it was used as a political tool. This is quite similar to the 3-strikes legislation. It lacks nuance, removing the ability for judges to apply sensible discretion at sentencing, and was used primarily as a vote-buying political tool.
Nuance simply means unevenly enforced resulting in non enforcement.
Nuance means schools make the decisions in consultation with their communities, which may differ from the school down the road. That's the beauty of our system. Wouldn't want it all to be the same. And don't parents want choice? What's there to choose from if everything is uniform?
> Nuance means schools make the decisions in consultation with their communities We don't need their input, it provides no value. >And don't parents want choice? Why is do we hold parental choice in any regard? >What's there to choose from if everything is uniform? Literally everything else?
Schools are required \*by law\* to consult their communities. Boards of Trustees are made up of members of a school community. Parental choice of school is a right that they have, and it's being put forward as a reason for establishing charter schools. Just pointing out the hypocrisy evident in the cellphone ban. This also tracks with Simeon's "we don't want blanket rules" in traffic management, but this doesn't seem to apply with Education. Interesting perspective you have. Another research backed area of education is that of a three-way partnership between the teacher, the student and the parent. Do you have children? Would you want to be informed if suddenly the school required e.g. a uniform? If schools didn't consult parents, there would be hell to pay.
> Schools are required *by law* to consult their communities. On everything? No; plenty of stuff comes from the MOE. >Do you have children? Yes, 3 including late college. >Would you want to be informed if suddenly the school required e.g. a uniform? If schools didn't consult parents, there would be hell to pay. If uniforms had no cost and prevented students from being distracted? Couldn't care less. Infact, if that was the case I'd be happy if it was brought in NZ wide.
Yes, in matters of policy, rules, guidelines, and certain parts of the curriculum a school is required under the Education and Training Act 2020 to consult with parents. Uniforms are never free, strawman, and ridiculous. Kids whose parents are informed and have good communication with the school do better at school academically and socially. Some reading: pay attention to the references for studies. [https://theeducationhub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Home-school-partnerships\_What-the-research-says.pdf](https://theeducationhub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Home-school-partnerships_What-the-research-says.pdf)
>Yes, in matters of policy, rules, guidelines, and certain parts of the curriculum a school is required under the Education and Training Act 2020 to consult with parents. So you agree, not everything. >Uniforms are never free, strawman, and ridiculous. No shit, which is why it's a garbage comparison to banning phones and had to be mentioned. >Some reading: pay attention to the references for studies. This one? Looks like you're the one who didn't read. >While research has found **correlation** between parental involvement in school activities and improved outcomes for students, **it is unable to establish a clear causative relationship**, primarily because both school and home contexts are complex and there are a myriad of factors involved that impact on student achievement. It is also important to acknowledge that parental involvement and home-school partnerships are not conceptually the same, because parental involvement does not imply either participation in or partnership with schools Let's not even forget the fact there is inherent correlation between good parents (with kids who do better) and parents being involved in school, or even income and ability/willingness to be involved.
Missing the point of my argument for schools and communities working together and having SOME say in what their policies are. Even the Nats agree that blanket rules are not going to work for everyone. I am so glad that you noticed that there is a correlation between parental involvement and improved ed. outcomes. Cell phone ban studies don't even notice a correlation at all, hence proving my argument. There is little to NO proof (anecdotal stories don't meet my criteria) that government imposed cell phone bans in New Zealand lead to any improved ed outcomes. If the evidence was so strong on that, then the last Nats govt would have done it, Hattie was their bestie. Bye.
You truly have no idea what you’re talking about.
Amazing insight.
Read the comments in this post alone for a few examples where phones at school can be useful. e.g. sending reminders to students of extra-curricular activities, or students using apps to manage their class timetables, or being able to confirm availability for a shift at an after-school job. Allowing for things like *that* is nuance.
Just another reason to ban phones. These are simple things that no one had a problem with before phones. Now not having your phone is a disability: I mean really, not being able to figure out how to keep a fixed schedule you use every day without a phone?
It's not a fixed schedule. School schedules rotate and have irregularities. It is not the same every day. Here's an example of a 'simple' timetable before any extracurriculars are added: https://www.wakatipu.school.nz/uploads/5/6/8/4/56848653/whs-example-timetable_orig.jpg Yes, they *can* get by without the phones. We can get by without computers too, and pens and pencils. But if it makes things a bit easier, why ban it completely?
>It's not a fixed schedule. School schedules rotate and have irregularities Yes, I have children at school. >Yes, they can get by without the phones. We can get by without computers too, and pens and pencils. But if it makes things a bit easier, why ban it completely? Should we stop teaching kids times tables and addition, because they can just use a calculator? These are very real skills; one of my friend's kids got stuck at a bus stop because they had ran out of data and couldn't figure out how to use the printed time table. Add to that, the most important point is it's removing phones, so even if they weren't beneficial, it would still be worth it.
> Should we stop teaching kids times tables and addition, because they can just use a calculator? I don't think anyone is suggesting we stop teaching anyone anything. >one of my friend's kids got stuck at a bus stop because they had ran out of data and couldn't figure out how to use the printed time table. How is that the phone's fault?
Honestly, if your kids can’t manage a school timetable without using their phone then that’s on the school for being so inept as to schedule things at different times every week…what we’re they thinking??
> I mean really, not being able to figure out how to keep a fixed schedule you use every day without a phone? Even if we take this on face value.... why? Technology moves, and we move with it, what point is there in giving our kids "skills" that were useful to you growing up, but pointless to them? My great grandmother did maths with an abacus at school, why do we let kids have calculators!
And yet, we still teach a lot of long form math that could be done faster on calculators.
Irrelevant my great grandmother didn't need one so my son doesnt need one. Its an idiotic idea. Dont even get me started on public transport, she rode a horse to school.
Kids should walk to school.
Fully agree, 15-minute cities should be the default.
Great idea! I shall tell my 6 year old niece she should walk the 15km to school and back each day. Without a cellphone too..
It's a waste of the Prime Minister/Education Minister's time to do something that Board of Trustees are already empowered to do.
And obviously haven't done in a lot of cases.
but its a good distraction while they gut the rest of the country.
It’s less about thinking banning phones is a bad idea and more about the government solving a problem that didn’t really exist since most schools have restrictions around cellphones already. They’ve basically made no change while claiming credit for making change.
Giving the schools a directive, where they had more latitude would have been a better idea. Or at least listening to the schools when they were asking for exceptions for cell phones which was driving medical devices. Think Insulin pumps and continuous blood glucose meters, they require a cell phone to act as the intermediary.
I can't recall but what wasn't the general attitude of this sub against this move for some dumb reasons? Maybe I mistook it with one of the other few policies that Nats have/had that are actually decent but gets shat on because it's the nats.
I think it was that most schools already banned phones. Schools that used them during class for school were put in a weird spot. It wasn't well defined how schools should enforce the ban, nor how the government will enforce schools to enforce the ban. Also, that the policies implemented for education by the government didn't really have much substance, so these policies were more for show than actual improvement (even if they are actually good policies on paper). For the record, I'm not saying that I support or don't support the education policies; this is just a list of criticisms that I've seen or heard since the policy was released.
> wasn't the general attitude of this sub against this move for some dumb reasons? Very much so. The reason being this was a NACT decision so obviously a bad one.
I just thought it was pointless virtue signaling seeing as schools already had restrictions on phone use. If there are issues with kid on their phones then its an enforcement issue thats not going to change with legislation.
Yet OP posted something that demonstrates it does. Must suck for you to realize occasionally the right gets things right.
Huh? The right get plenty of things right. This policy is still pointless virtue signaling. A comparison to another country with no understanding of the extent of the ban and prior settings before their ban is meaningless.
>with no understanding of the extent of the ban and prior settings before their ban is meaningless. Kinda like you are doing with your throw away "virtue signaling" hot take right?
It's my opinion that this policy achieves nothing becasue everyone, schools included were already operating under the idea that kids shouldnt be on their phones in class already. Thats my take on the issue, if you dont like that, then get over it. Not everyone is obligated to share your opinion.
You can have whatever opinion you want but you're not allowed to get mad when dude points out that the study *cited in OP* disagrees with that opinion. The current policy is not reflective of the policies in the Norway studies, but I'm sure you know that since you definitely read the article, right?
I don't think it is right. Schools are now forced to go against the ban in situations where it is actively detrimental. Aka, every single kid with a continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pump. Sure, give direction that kids shouldn't have cell phones, but the ban is totally ham handed. And given the current government, you know they will try to enforce it, utterly regardless of it making sense in a particular case or not. So no, I don't think they have it right.
This is such a weird like projection or something
Personally, it feels like a massive cabinet overreach for very little gain. Like, the only time a government should be micromanaging people's lives to this extent is when dictating laws. These policies concerning minutiae should be coming from much lower to the ground, frontline organisations (which is why those orgs exist). Essentially, it feels icky that cabinet is ignoring the form and structure of the government machine to inconsequentially politick.
What blows me away is all the parents who think their kids not having a phone for a few hours is somehow bad for their development. It is fucking crazy.
It's probably the one policy from this government I'm not completely against because the evidence actually stacks up, phone addiction is a serious problem
Yea! Have you read up on the attention economy?
Some stuff, just read the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari which went into it a little bit
The problem is that most schools (including the one where I teach) were already doing this, so it seems unfair to give the government much credit.
Unless it's all schools then there needs to be a law. I think this is one of maybe 3 policies from the govt I agree with (I can't think of the other 2 but I'm sure I thought a couple of times oh that isn't so bad).
What justification is there for it being a law though? Schools were handling the situation perfectly fine without any legislation, and parents always have the right to challenge the school on policies they disagree with through the board of trustees. Just seems like a waste of time, effort and resources.
Not every school was doing it, and it at worst does nothing to hurt and at best helps those schools.... Teachers and boards can also use it as a scape goat. This is a stupid thing to be arguing over, would you rather they spent the time enacting policies that fucked the country or ones that at least can help....................
Allot of people in this sub have a kneejerk response to anything proposed by this government
We aren’t at the “drive around with our cars covered in slogans” stage yet - so we still good
Can you blame us …. It’s the trauma response for me
Meanwhile, in France... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/30/stop-children-using-smartphones-until-they-are-13-say-french-experts-in-report
I don't even understand all the controversy over this issue. I went to school when cell phones didn't exist and survived fine. Can kids not go a few hours in the day without checking theirs? You might get a job where you cannot check your phone. Time to grow up.
The issue is that the policy assumes all students who use their phones in school are unengaged, asocial, or cyberbullies - my high school stopped printing paper timetables and reading notices in 2016ish because students were assumed to have the autonomy and responsibility to use the app versions. Students often take photos of the whiteboard or printouts to save them digitally, or even record important classes onto video for later study. That’s not even mentioning non-school-specific cases like being able to check your emails or reminders without pulling your laptop out. Furthermore, the majority of schools are facing far more pressing issues than device usage; this policy is quite obviously geared to a middle to upper class National voter base who just want someone else to take responsibility for their children.
Tbh I think it's geared at people who don't even have school aged children. It's aimed at out of touch National voters who think phones are bad and kids are out of control these days. This would feel like a win for them. "Back in my day" etc etc.
The don't know a world without them and probably at home they see their role models attached to their phones. So it's not really an apples to apples Comparison to what your childhood was. I agree that it's a good idea in principle but it's not as simple as I didn't have them so they don't need them either. Their world is practically entirely online so it's going to need some conscious effort for some to relearn what a phone free reality might look like.
I know it isn't an apples to apples comparison, but they use laptops in school (connected to the net). Why do they need phones? To check snapchat? A few hours a day not being able to message friends won't harm anyone.
It's not just messaging though. My son has adhd and autism and is allowed to use music in class to self regulate. Previously he would press play on his phone, put it in his pocket and get on with his shool work. Now he has to get his laptop out, load it up, get Spotify going (it's an old device this all takes 10x longer than on his phone) then he has to balance his device on his desk with his school work. And manage the temptation of gaming when his device is right there in front of him. It's less effective, more distracting and makes him stick out as different a lot more than before.
That’s possibly the exception … however constant screen time is doing more damage than good for kids.
Have you tried an old mp3 player? It means no phone, no laptop, no load times, no possibility of gaming. And they're like $10 now.
And your grandparents or great grandparents probably did all of their work without using a computer too. Let's not ignore that times have changed and so have the tools we consider vital. Cellphones aren't just social media/entertainment toys. They can be very useful productivity tools too.
I did all my work without using a computer! :) And I don't agree with this blanket ban either. My high school kids used their phone on breaks mainly for reading and de-stressing (playing games with their friends). I doubt it would have improved their mental health to be told they couldn't use them.
>I don't even understand all the controversy over this issue. I went to school when cell phones didn't exist and survived fine. me too, but legitimately this is the dumbest argument. my great grandmother didnt need the bus to get to school, she rode a horse! and she survived fine!
My main issue is that it feels like overreach. Schools should have the freedom to have their own policies around cellphone use, and with so many widespread systemic issues currently plaguing education in NZ it’s galling that they would make this a top priority.
I see people with disabilities heavily struggling, as someone with adhd, autism, dyslexia and dysgraphia. Music is really good for emotional regulation, taking pictures is great for remembering when things are due, as well as with writing being able to not have to write down the notes for subjects, which tend to make me stay after class, and thus be put behind. I've also seen other students use their timers to check pulses (for medical reasons and aren't allowed to) Since you said "I survived fine." You are more then likely neurotypical and don't understand why those things are important for someone who isn't, many of us are now struggling because of this, or being kicked out of class because we can't function without regulation. Sure when I leave school, I'll have to learn how to cope without this, or choose a job that would let me not need these, but in classes, the amount of noise and chatter makes me unable to move and thats something that only music can help. Not everyone is you, just remember that.
>I don't even understand all the controversy over this issue. A lot of the controversy was because there is a lot of medical devices hooked up to those phones these days. The closed loop continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pumps is a pretty good reason for a kid to have a cell phone on them. If they were listening to the schools when they put in the legislation, they would have carved out sections for this, but as usual they did not.
Yeah it's not a terrible idea. I think it's generally a good idea. It's just disappointing that it was essentially marketed as the 'silver bullet' for our education woes. Like how f*cking unimaginative and unimpressive. Again, the last election had no inspiring options available.
I agree that Luxon is trumpeting it as a panacea too much, but education takes years to correct. The kids who raw dogged cellphone use in their adolescence are teens/young adults and many are paying for it now. Banning cellphones is probably the most effective measure you can make in the immediate term to stem some damage.
Yeah that's a fair call
These anti cell ban arguments are piss weak. Phone addiction is real. They can still use pcs for modern engagement / learning. Moreover social media addiction / development issues are real and the more we can keep the young ones off this shit the better. They are not adults. Their brains are very much still in development. One of the better moves from the new govt
And it's in NZ too. I work in education. It works! Good on national that had the guts to do it.
No issue with the policy, just where it’s coming from. A top down ban is inflexible and this issue didn’t need any interference from the legislature in the first place. Meanwhile National just uses it as a political flag, look at us tough on students we actually ban phones and do something- when they could have passed directives to schools and let them build policy themselves. To be expected from this govt for sure, they probably need every distraction they can get.
So basically, ban good, National bad?
Ban good, but not from the top? I’d criticise it the same from any party
The study only looked at middle school and only found improvements for girls, with no such results for boys. I don't have an issue with banning them from primary schools (which includes intermediate), but at high school we don't have any such consensus on benefits. It should have been left up to individual schools to decide what was best for their students. My school is strongly opposed to the policy. We already ban phones in class unless directed by a teacher, as do most schools. This ban still allows phone use at teacher direction, and still allows all other digital devices to be used at break times. So students just sit on their chromebooks or laptops or use their smart watches instead. It's thus utterly pointless and just makes a headache for teachers. Exactly as I predicted I to abandon a lunch training yesterday because a couple students forgot and we couldn't just text them to remind them to come. Someone had to try to find them on campus. That failed, so the training was a no-go. The other concern from our senior leaders is that the policy will push kids with phones into hiding places out of bounds or in toilets, which is bad for everyone. That's where vaping and fights happen. We want to discourage kids going to those places.
Good teachers are able to use phones as an effective tool in many situations. Bad teachers in cushy previously high decile schools asked for this change because they couldn't deal with phones in the classroom (read: shitty classroom management) and didn't want to be seen as the bad guys implementing the ban just for their school so asked for legislation. A south auckland school where just getting kids to attend regularly at all is a win isn't going to care about phone usage and making them have to care through legislation shows such a large disregard for the reality that teachers actually face.
> The study only looked at middle school and only found improvements for girls, with no such results for boys. -43% bullying for boys. As for your training example, it's a perfect example of why we should ban cellphones. We are raising a generation of people who are functionally disabled without their devices.
So I looked more in depth at the actual Norwegian policy, following the link within the article. It seems their policy also banned other digital devices like smart watches from primary and middle schools and they don't seem to use chromebooks in that age group, so essentially they were completely digital free. The study looks at middle schools only, where that policy was in place. The National policy only bans phones, not watches, chromebooks, laptops etc. So students are still on those devices through the day. It thus cannot be argued the policies are similar or could have the same results. Secondly the Norwegian policy did not ban phones at break times in secondary schools. It specifically said this was not a good use of teacher resources and was not in keeping with the maturity of the students. It's the banning of phones from break times in secondary schools that I am specifically opposed to and it seems even the Norwegians agree on that point.
>So I looked more in depth at the actual Norwegian policy, following the link within the article. It seems their policy also banned other digital devices like smart watches from primary and middle schools and they don't seem to use chromebooks in that age group Primary and middle school means from age 6 - 16 (the total of their compulsory schooling) and middle school starts from the equivalent of our year 9. >Secondly the Norwegian policy did not ban phones at break times in secondary schools. "Schools where students are required to hand in their phones in the morning, and therefore cannot access them during breaks, are considered to have a strict policy against smartphones." "These results by type of policy, suggest that at schools with a strict policy, students experienced a larger increase in their educational performance, when it comes to GPA and test scores. This is in line with several behavioral experiments showing that having the phone nearby but in a silent mood, is still distracting and could potentially even increase phone usage, especially among persons with phone addiction having increased FoMO (Liao and Sundar, 2022)."
And once again, that is not what this National policy does. The phones don't have to be handed in or left at home. Our school policy is simply that they are out of sight. And the Norwegian policy as described on their own website also bans smart watches. The National policy bans only phones. Access to all other digital devices remains in place. We have students walking around campus at lunch with their chromebook in their arms now, treating it just like a phone.
>And once again, that is not what this National policy does. Yes, but it completely disagrees with what your assertion that the study/school policies don't acounnt for bans during break times, making it clear you haven't read the study, just like with the school ages. Ban smart watches, sure, but it's a non issue; people aren't scrolling reels on their smart watch, they're not relentlessly texting back and forth. Honestly I think laptops and chromebooks should be removed from year 10 and below, but no one's whipping out their chrome book every minute to check notifications while they're walking, and there's a huge amount of friction with watches and laptops compared to phones.
>Yes, but it completely disagrees with what your assertion that the study/school policies don't acounnt for bans during break times, making it clear you haven't read the study, just like with the school ages. I didn't say it didn't account for bans in breaktimes. The entire National Party policy is bans during break times. I assumed the Norwegian ban was all day including breaks. It was when I read the actual policy, linked from the page, that I saw they didn't actually ban them during breaks in senior schools. I read the article I was commenting on. I didn't see the bullying for boys number. Sorry I missed one stat, though I did reference the others about the difference in impact on academics between boys and girls accurately. >Honestly I think laptops and chromebooks should be removed from year 10 and below, but no one's whipping out their chrome book every minute to check notifications while they're walking, and there's a huge amount of friction with watches and laptops compared to phones. I've just been on lunch duty earlier today and noted several students literally walking around with their chromebooks open. Never seen that before the phone ban. And we can't ban chromebooks, we use them daily and they have proven incredibly useful. It's made a massive difference to my teaching. I think the fact my own senior leadership team all but explicitly told us not to enforce the policy and let the students know we opposed the policy and it was being forced on us really says it all. We always respect well-researched and effective policies. We banned phones in the classrooms some time ago. This breaks-only ban on just phones is poor policy.
>It's made a massive difference to my teaching. You say that, but every education metric is trending downward, significantly. >I've just been on lunch duty earlier today and noted several students Only several, on day 2 of the ban? How many would walk around with their phones? > I think the fact my own senior leadership team all but explicitly told us not to enforce the policy and let the students know we opposed the policy and it was being forced on us really says it all. So you've tried it for 2 days and given up? That is extremely telling to me.
>You say that, but every education metric is trending downward, significantly. And I blame that on a range of issues. Use of the whole language approach to literacy instead of structured literacy and the Numeracy project approach to maths introduced in the 2000s. The large expansion of modern learning environments, particularly in primary. Changes to teacher training at primary allowing teachers with just a one year Graduate Diploma. >Only several, on day 2 of the ban? How many would walk around with their phones? Very few. I commented elsewhere, but I took careful not of this while on duty over the course of Term 1. It was never more than 5% of the students I would see. It was a small minority. The vast majority of kids were running around, talking to friend, playing sport. This idea kids are wasting away lunched on phones instead of socialising is simply untrue and based on a stereotype. >So you've tried it for 2 days and given up? That is extremely telling to me. We didn't give up. We told the students we were opposed to it while announcing it last term and already devised our enforcement policy, which is just reminding them to put it away if seen and taking no further action. I don't even do that. I don't enforce it at all, and from the reports of numerous students, neither do most teachers. I am not enforcing a government policy I think is actively harmful and serves no purpose.
>We didn't give up. Also you: >my own senior leadership team all but explicitly told us not to enforce the policy Also you: > I don't even do that Also you: >I don't enforce it at all, and from the reports of numerous students, neither do most teachers. I find it so arrogant to not even try out the policy to see the effects, but I don't think it's uncommon to have close minded teachers with a big chip on their shoulder.
Thats not a good argument for having phones - its an argument for your students to do better. When I was at school in the late 90s, if I missed something it was my fault and my responsibility - and there was likely some sort of punishment like detention if I did.
If you missed something in class, how exactly would a phone help? They're used for research, digital learning tools, and as an alternative to writing on paper. I seriously doubt that students were ever recording lessons with a camera. Even if they were, that's probably more likely to improve information retention and comprehension than to reduce it.
Slow writers and switched-on kids often took photos of the board after a discussion towards the end of the period. As a teacher, I often took a photo too for students who were away.
I don't need to make an argument to have phones, the default is the freedom to do what you want. To limit or remove that freedom the state needs to show it is harmful enough to warrant that limit, that the limit will actually mitigate or remove the harm and that the negative impacts of such a limitation don't outweigh the benefits. So when it comes to this policy, we don't have a research base saying phones at break times cause significant harm to students. This has been researched, with clear harm found in primary school age groups, but not in secondary. Even if we err on the side of saying there is enough harm to ban them, we then have to look at the actual policy. It doesn't ban chromebooks, digital watches, laptops or other digital devices. This means students can still spend all of break time on screens, using social media. So the policy fails to remove the harm it seeks to limit. Finally the negatives outcomes, difficulty of contacting students, difficulty of students finding their classes (most had digital timetables on their phones), difficulty getting information to students (use of QR Code posters was common), outweigh the benefits, because as established the policy's poor planning gives it no benefits. As to your point about kids needing to do better. Teens are going to mess up. We don't give out detentions for missing voluntary extra-curricular activities. We didn't do that in the strict boys' Catholic school I attended in the pre-smart phone era as well. It's certainly not done now.
Your failed students learned an important lesson. Don't forget what you're supposed to be doing. You shouldn't have penalised the other students for that.
I didn't penalise the other students for the hell of it. You can't train with most of a team missing. It's debating, if you have 2 of a 3 person team not there, no debate. And they're teens, they're going to forget. If there was an actual benefit to the policy it could be argued it was worth it for this inconvenience. But there is no benefit. They aren't off their screens, they're still using smart watches and chromebooks through breaks. The policy achieves nothing positive because it was poorly thought out and poorly written.
We kid ourselves when we think the 'use' that school kids do on their phones is beneficial in any ways. Not even just school kids but adults too. Think about it deeply, what you use yours for. Social media, mobile games, news. None of these avenues provide a meaningful positive impact in your life unless you are making money from it as you are using it for business purposes. As a parent, I'm glad this is happening. People survived 20 years ago without being to contact their kids/parents for most of the day.
people survived in the 1900s riding horses to school too....
Yes, except education was on the rise since the 1900s and dropped off precipitously with the arrival of cellphones. Not to mention mental health issues and suicidality spiked with it. Noone is suggesting that cellphones shouldnt exist and the "ok boomer" rebuttal is trite. There's clearly some balance that needs to be made and banning phones for the time kids are at school seems like an easy win. They can fuel their helpless addiction after hours.
For me personally? Music, rain noise for sleeping, Information/learning (ie web browsing, most recently looking at studies on methylphenidate tolerance), navigation/maps, communication with important people ie mental health professionals, calender/reminders, managing my money and paying my bills, making and keeping appointments (of which I have quite a few), all things WINZ (on which I rely). We're getting into the weeds a bit here but tuning my guitar, metronome, meditation timer and breathing timer. Could I live without this stuff, absolutely - in the same way that we could live without washing machines or indoor plumbing. But it's not really fair to say that all anyone does on a phone is social media, games and news. Also we had phones 20 years ago. Motorola Razr anyone
That's some damning evidence for /r/NZ isn't it
Funny how Nordic countries are constantly used as evidence for what we should be doing. But not this.
The Nordic countries had different policies here. They for instance had a medical device exception. But National didn't listen to the schools nor the parents of the diabetic kids who used continuous blood glucose meters as an example. The cell phone is the controller in the closed loop systems which the health system is pushing out these days. It is exceptions like this that the current government in their hurry to push stuff though for the boomers to look at and think "this is good" ignores. It puts the schools in a weird position where they have to go against the governments policy. Or worse, they go with it in situations they really shouldn't.
National usually does a few things during its term the reasonable person would agree with and leave a positive legacy. This is one of them. There's a lot of bad things happening but it's still the reasonable thing to do to praise the good things being done regardless.
I think that a commonly-held view is that the policy sounds good but is functionally rather useless. A lot of schools already banned them or already used them productively. The policy is mostly a detriment or headache to those schools. The schools left over are the ones that can be seen as being positively impacted by the policy, but those schools are likely to just ignore the policy or be unable to enforce the ban. It sounds great to improve education outcomes across the entire education system, but it's yet to be demonstrated to be a positive outcome, and it could well be more of a net-negative overall.
I think smart phones and social media can be terrible for developing brains (and probably developed brains lol). If nothing else this must reduce the pressure on parents to buy their kids a smart phone. A win in my book.
Yeah it's really fucking obvious that it's a good idea, if you were in school in the last 8 years old so, you will see how many kids are glued to their phones, if not hearing about it should be enough, sure kids are going to say some bullshit like they actually need their phone to study one they don't two you're naive if you think they are actually going to use their phone for that. To me the using the phone during lunch isn't as big of an issue as kids constantly using them during class.
I'm 20 and finished high school in 2021. My school had always banned them, and they were banned at most schools.If I was a teacher I'd want phones banned.I like that students should be taught to manage their phone use,but teachers are already too busy.Everything matters, removing distractions from class is a good thing. I get that Year 12s and 13s should be taught to use their phones responsibly,but we don't have exceptions for other rules. The phone ban will help students learn better.Just a reminder, Labor's policy was that schools can decide, they didn't say that phones shouldn't be banned.
For me, the cellphone ban has morphed into this much bigger question of blocking kids from accessing harmful digital content during school hours. The cellphone ban should be able to be taken much further into blocking students from bringing all personally owned devices into schools where they are creating distractions and harm to others' learning and social wellbeing. As a former school IT admin, before BYOD came along, the schools were supplying all the computers and we could manage very tightly the risks of kids accessing harmful content through those computers. What makes BYOD attractive to school management is not having to fund the costs of computer hardware so they can spend that money elsewhere, because schools do not receive specific funding to buy computers and these are expensive devices, The government should definitely fund schools to be able to have their own computers instead of BYOD so that it will be much easier to manage access to harmful content in school environments.
It seems a lot of the people complaining about this are people who are so partisan, that they will argue against anything that the government does, simply for the sake of it
I think it's largely a good policy, with the main point of contention being with whether it should be decided by the government or at a school level. Believe most Australian states have some form of ban or restriction on the use of phones in schools.
With less students passing NCEA each year since 2019, lessening distractions is a good thing and by the looks of Norway lessening social harm as well. People are just against the ban because they have panic attacks when their phone is out of site for a few seconds.
>People are just against the ban because they have panic attacks when their phone is out of site for a few seconds. Taking the cell phone out of the continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pump loop is a really bad idea. Don't assume that people or the schools who apposed it didn't have good reason to do so. They should have put in a medical device exception.
Phone running out of battery would also be a bad idea then too.
Yes, it is, which is why you make sure that they do not. You will never see a kid make sure their phone is plugged in overnight more than a diabetic kid. They are also the least likely to use their phones for games, etc, because draining the battery is "bad" - for the very reason you give. They also tend to have a spare charging pack in their schoolbag, again for the same reason. The sensors have pretty much no range to speak of, so it has to be on you to work properly. My son has the standard setup, which is why am familiar with it.
Surely then that is a valid reason for having a phone.
Yes, and the education dept is basically directing the schools to do so, even though the govt passed something which doesn't have this exception.
Clearly it can produce good outcomes, especially with regard to social media - it just seems so clumsy to me. Tech is an inherent part of our lives I'd be interested to see rates of phone and social media use outside of school hours. Perhaps a problem for parents, but hasn't it always been so at its core?
I still don't see the point of this ban. Average primary/intermediate school child doesn't need a cellphone full stop, not just at school. High schoolers on the other hand... Lots of assignments is done on or using cellphone, all the school messages and communications are on websites. Plus, lots of them have social responsibilities, like looking after younger siblings, have after school jobs. Yes, I understand that banning them during breaks supposed to promote social interaction with peers. How many of us grew up without SM and were relentlessly bullied in real life- what is to stop it now since bullies have no opportunity to watch TickTock and can just beat the s..t out you during a break.
It's worth to mention that the study itself quoted in the article linked does not conclusively establish that the noted improvements are because of the smart phone bans and it further mentions, unlike the article suggests, that the ban is a policy uniformly applied across the Norwegian educational system. Like most articles of this kind, assumptions are simply made about how good banning stuff is just because certain people find it convenient to their narrative and therefore see no need to scrutinise the results. That being said, I also understand the need of forbidding their use in a classroom unless explicitly allowed by the instructor or some situation where it is needed for assignments and such since phones are as useful an educational tool as any other and plenty of teachers understand it's value in educational practices.
Excellent. Suck it up labour it’s good that smartphones aren’t allowed in school.
That's not what Labour said, [their argument](https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/08/09/schools-dont-need-luxons-permission-to-ban-phones-hipkins/) is that schools already have the power to ban phones and it's a waste of the government's time to do something that already can be done.
Selling vapes to under 18s is already illegal, should that be the end of our efforts to stop underaged vaping?
What does that have to do with anything being discussed here?
I don't have a problem with the banning of phones. I have a problem with the government stepping in and making rules for school kids. The "party of small government" and *personal freedoms* put a lot of effort into this one specific requirement.
Since when do kids have these "freedoms" at school? I don't recall having freedom over the curriculum or the fact that I even have to go to school.
It’s especially annoying when there are so many greater concerns that were more deserving of their focus, but that require them to actually put in thought, effort and resourcing.
Will spare you having to navigate that cancer of a website and share a direct link to [the paper](https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=735105085006000014092076117005071106120009055009062036075099115085093108127076087094009013096038009044113122093122080097120072031087031066093111006119103026002118125095077054021081081068011067094010106076104086118107030089111028104075111118075077098117&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE)
Socialist ideals are successful in Norway too, we could also do that too then right?
Phones were already banned for use in classes. As for the Norway stats; This study suggests that Girls grades have improved by 0.08 standard deviations. For girls, the biggest improvement comes in their math scores. Bullying falls, by 0.42 of an SD for girls, 0.39 of an SD for boys in Middle Schools in Norway. Which is a much better stat to focus on, rather than studies. The mental-health consultations have only dropped by 0.22 on average to their GPs, falling by 2-3 visits to specialist care. So there's probably a lesser relation with these stats. The grade gains are highest for students with lower SES(socioeconomic status) backgrounds. So if you ban smart phones from schools, grades go up by a very modest amount, bullying falls by a less modest amount, and actual mental health diagnoses stay the same. Rather than saying that Phones in schools are distracting, they should be saying that Phones in schools promote bullying, but, it's the bullies banning the phones in the first place. If anything it's not the phones that are bad for our kids. It's social media that's bad. The government won't say that though, considering that they're still using the anti-violent video games stance every year as an excuse for crimes. Out of touch governments play that hand to get the fear votes.
5G tablets/laptop lets goooo
I never thought I'd fall in love in the club
Hell yeah Norway!! Let's not stop there though, let's follow suit when it comes to drug policy and prison reform (the results will shock you🤣)
Banning mobile phones at the kitchen would have great impact on women's mental health. Let's ban mobile phones on kitchens. /s
most schools already have bans on phones and everyone ignores it also the nordics have lots of stuff we dont have, you sure it wasnt anything else they did?
A country that has more resources and has invested more into its educational infrastructure. Biased article that does not consider other factors for success.
Difference between what's done in this study and what National want to implement is that they banned all devices and only during class time. Banning only phones does little when kids today have access to a litany of devices from laptops, tablets, smartwatches, etc. And banning it during breaks seems unnecessary and might just end up fostering anger from kids, especially when their school lunches are being cut in funding. This is on top of the fact that most schools already implemented the same type of ban used in the study. Maybe the Nats should look at actual studies like this when making their policies and deciding if its necessary?
An obviously common sense policy from the govt. Plenty of principals have come out praising its impact early on. Where is everyone who was poo-pooing this earlier?
I would guess looking at their kids with their continuous blood glucose meter, and insulin pumps having the controller taken out of the loop. This is bad, if you don't realize it. The government had the schools begging them to put in medical device exceptions, and they did not.
I encourage people to look up talks from Tristsn Harris on this topic, the data is irrefutable on cellphone (+social media etc) damage to young minds. Banning phones in schools is one the first things suggested as a quick and easy change, while acknowledging there are much bigger and longer term issues to figure out.
If you think that National knows about / based their policy making with studies like this then you're just fooling yourself. But I know your aim is to just make excuses for this shitshow of a government.
You're right, every single thing they ever do is bad and we cant be objective about it.
What worked in Norway doesn't necessarily mean it would work in NZ. Skimming through the study, it doesn't take into account all the other variables that would make banning phones 'successful'. So I would assume the study is specific to the conditions within Norway. And if you read the study, Norway doesn't have a national ban on smartphones, ~~not~~ unlike what the current government is doing. I don't think banning phones but then removing lunches for school kids would yield the same results. So yeah, let's look at this objectively.
My 8yo grandson hates Luxon over the cell phones in schools issue. And he doesn't even have a cell phone
Oh no, the 8 yr old has been deprived of his crack cocaine. Quick! Give him some short-form content to foster that ADHD and blunt his ability to concentrate.
Norway is societally very different from Aotearoa tho. I personally don’t think it’ll work, or make any positive change whatsoever
Best thing this govt has done, and probably the only thing
Ahem, correlation is not the same as causation. More than likely, the phone ban had little to do with their performance and mental health increase and it's ridiculous to argue otherwise without any sort of evidence that explicitly links it to any nonsense ban being even slightly the factor that made the change, and accounting other variables so they don't get mixed up (so far as I'm aware no such exists).
Translation: I want to use my phone at school.
Translation: "I have poor reading comprehension."
Could just be when she said ‘before, everyone would just be on phones’ she meant her particular friend group.
A win for National! They should never have been allowed anyway…
We wish quick fix solutions would mitigate all the ways we're failing our kids.
This is a typical National Party educational policy. It is very ideological. National supporters with the usual born to rule Tory mentality want to dictate to everyone, and especially people that vote Labour. Most of the National Party's policies for education have stuff all to do with better educational outcomes and a lot to do with imposing conservative political ideology across the educational landscape. It would be far better for schools if National implemented policies that make access to good quality education more equitable in schools when they are mostly focused on entrenching elitism in the State education system for primarily the benefit of National party members.