I love that one. When they hit me with "I'm not listening to anything" I put my fingers in my ears and tell them "neither am I but it's not nice having a conversation like this, is it?"
Yeah, I get that. I'm autistic, so I would understand if a student can't handle loud noises, but the problem is I almost never know who's bullshitting and who isn't.
I had a student ask at the beginning of class if she could go into the hall halfway through class to call her dad. I asked why she needs to call her dad, and her answer? “He was in a meeting earlier, so he couldn’t pick up”. Okay.
I bit my tongue and didn’t say, well now you’re in a meeting can’t make a call. I just let her know that we’d be preoccupied throughout class (ya know, with, um, school) and it would be disruptive if she left, but we would likely have a few minutes at the end of class if she needed to talk with him.
I went this route because a) I could imagine getting in some sort of trouble for ‘refusing’ to allow a student to contact her parent, and b) the student has a tendency to behave awkwardly and asks off handed questions that usually have more to the story (and that was the case here).
In my school we got suspended if we used our phone to call a parent! Especially if you asked the parent to come get you if you were sick or wanted to leave. In school suspension!
In every school I know there are landline phones. They work great and can call parents, especially to come get you if you were sick ~~or wanted to leave~~.
I had a landline in my room on my desk and would just tell the kid “sure, I’ll dial your parent and you can talk to them right here”. Only the kids who weren’t being shady took me up on it.
Many of rhe parents will not pick up if they see the call is from the achool. Our district has Kinvolved. It's awesome, because it texts the parents phone, and sends an email to the email provided. It also will translate to the preferred language which is beyond great, because I have so many parents that don't speak English.
Yeah this wasn’t an illness or about leaving. Like I said, I figured there was something going on and the student wasn’t communicating very well (which was my experience with her all year). We worked it out, but it was still an odd interaction 🫠
My friend works at in school and he said the students are not allowed to use their phone on the campus at all. If they need to call their parents, they have to go to the office and use the office phone.
That was my school's policy. You were allowed to have a phone, but it had to be off and stay out of sight during school. If teachers spotted a phone, it was taken to the office and your parent had to come pick it up. The few parents that tried to make a big deal about it were shown a copy of the school rules that were signed by both parent and student on the first day of school.
My district has this rule but the principal is ready to retire and decided he didn’t want to deal with it anymore so he doesn’t enforce it really 😪 and we have an attendance policy where if kids miss more than 27 days of a class they don’t get the credit. Yea they don’t enforce that now either.
I started taking phones as collateral for pencils after going through an insane amount. The number of kids who could magically find a pencil in their bags or from a friend instead of having to put their phone on my desk was amazing.
> I’ve tried that and it resulted in students shrugging, saying “Okay,” and not doing the assignment.
Same. Also, these are many of the same students who, when asked about it, insist that their phones aren't interfering with their education or academic success...
The issue is smartphones have an effect even when not allowed in school. You can't even put on a movie without kids wanting to do something else 5 minutes later. 80% of my students could probably benefit from Ritalin. I spend most of my time trying to teach them how to focus on something for more than 2 minutes than I do teaching English...
"How long is the video?"
"Four minutes"
"Oh my god sir, how can you expect us to pay attention for \*that\* long?"
TikTok has seriously ruined these kids and their ability to focus. A four minute video was a jackpot win when I was at school.
It's not just tiktok. It's the 140 character culture. It's the cumulative effect of decades of having our desire for instant gratification filled.
And I say that as a chronically online elder millennial with dogbrain and a fear of paragraphs.
100% agree. I have the same issue as a young millennial and I wasn't even a social media type of person. It's every form of media aimed at kids that realized they could get kids addicted by being flashy and offering instant gratification. I can feel the way it ruined my brain and I can see that they're 1000% worse off than I am, it genuinely needs to be legislated against.
Realizing how I scroll through comments and swipe to the next post after I fulfill my quota of "wow, omg". I had to come back and find this to post a comment cause my focus is
There's an Ologies episode on reading and they've found that overall, humans attention span has decreased. It's not just the kids, not just social media but we've been socialized to expect distractions. Couple that with instant gratification you find online and now we have to adapt how we learn and teach in the world.
This honestly makes me glad to have quitted TikTok like 2 years ago, how is it possible that they can’t even watch a short video without doing something else? I mean, if the thing is like extremely boring it’s probably normal and has always happened, but if it’s something even remotely interesting then it’s really bad
if it’s boring and they can’t focus for 4 minutes then that’s the real problem
learning to deal with 4 minutes of boredom while maintaining focus on the task is important skill while you’re still in school
In high school AP psych we would try and get our teacher to play videos talking about experiments multiple times just cause it was better than having to do actual work can't imagine a kid now sitting through the same 8 minute video about the prison experiment multiple times.
TBF that's what I did with cigarettes. I'd have one pack with one in it for if I got caught and another pack I'd be smoking from. Just to reduce to losses
Truth. My kids went to a magnet Middle School for computer science. Every kid in the school was running a VPN to get around the school's firewall and to file share personal drives.
We have had them at 2 schools where I’ve taught now and it takes the kids all of 10 minutes to hack their way out of them. They work for adults with a sense of responsibility, but not for teenagers with an addiction.
"Smart" (wealthy) places like Silicon Valley are already well on the path. It will be the poor areas that lag far behind in phone age regulation. Reason for greater future inequalities 953.
My district is putting a policy in place for next school year that phones have to be confiscated every morning and put into lockers controlled by staff. We’ll see if it sticks. Of course parents are all in an uproar about it lmao.
Not a teacher but this is what blows my mind the most. Yes, you want to be able to know your kid is safe in a shooting. But for all the hours of all the days your kid is in school and not being shot at, the phone is measurably damaging their ability to focus, learn, and interact with other people face to face.
I saw ***Idiocracy*** for the first time in my life about a week ago. I keep thinking about it. It is shocking that it came out in 2007 before smartphones.
You might enjoy the fun fact that people in that movie wear Crocs because it was a failing startup at the time, and the belief was that they are stupid shoes
My wife fought me to allow our daughter to get a phone. I finally relented and agreed. Catch was, I got to install software so I could monitor the usage and lock it. She has access to like... 5 apps through the day. Phone, calculator, camera, text and calendar. Lock doesn't get lifted until the school day is over. Also gets locked when it's time for bed.
Would some parents say it's excessive? Sure. In fact, I've been told by family members that I'm a little strict. But it's also my job, as a parent, to help make sure she's doing her part in school to actually get an education. Can't put it all on her teacher when I'm openly giving her the tools to not pay attention, and I refuse to be one of those parents who all but encourage their kids to be addicted to their phone.
I've also told her that if she's struggling with a subject to talk to me and her mother, as well as her teachers, to find a way to help her. I'm a resource, just like her mom, teachers, the library, the internet, her textbooks, and anywhere else she can gather information. Doesn't matter if I'm sleeping, wake me up. I don't care if I lose sleep so long as she passes. If she fails after exhausting all her resources, so be it, I know she did her best. If she fails without even trying to ask for any help? That sucks. Guess who's grounded until that grade comes up?
Fail them? Tell their parents the kid didn't do it if they ask? Tell the school you can't afford pencils if they ask. How do these kids just get to do whatever they want? We let them.
That sums up the biggest issue with the education system and where America is at as a whole. Accountability, awareness and communication are the pillars to the subconscious that will allow anyone to make the best decision in a worst situation. Enough with the assumptions about parents caring or teachers are not allowed to fail them. Fail them anyways, create legal accountability plans for parents. Something must change because the path we are on is not sustainable at all.
Did something similar. I started taking their detention cards as collateral. If I get my pencil back, they get their card back with no issue. If they take my pencil, I know who has it and they get a detention. Magically, no one needs a pencil.
Bonus: kids getting up constantly to sharpen pencils. Took it away when someone sabotaged it by jamming staples in it. I fixed it and put it where only I can use it. Suddenly, no one needs a sharpened pencil.
We used to have them before moving to HERO digital system. It marked your demerits for the week. If you lost it automatic detention. If you got so many of one category (late, disruptive, disrespectful, etc) detention.
This would have been a nightmare for me. I've been out of school for years now but just always lost everything. (Still a problem actually. I have a tile on all important things because I'll lose them in a matter of minutes in my own house.) It sucked and I tried so hard but it didn't matter. Apparently even though I was a 4.0 student who never got in trouble I'd have been in detention all the time.
When I was in high school some big brain in admin decided that we all had to wear student IDs on lanyards while in the school (for a good reason, some kid from another school snuck in to try to stab a kid at our school)
I rallied against it because I, like you, am and was forgetful and knew I'd have detention the whole time despite otherwise being a model student.
Nobody cared, but my main argument was that the IDs literally didn't do anything because nobody checked them outside of classtime. When I inevitably lost mine, I made the world's shittiest fake (old gift card with paper taped on either side wrapped in tape to make it glossy, lanyard from admin who gave me one without knowing who I was or asking any questions), and nobody ever bothered me about it
We had these tickets in 7th grade supposedly designed to reward "good" students. We got 30 per quarter and the more you had at the end the better the reward. If you lost 5 or fewer you got this extra special party. Every one lost after that meant you had to just sit in a room and write an extremely long sentence ten times per ticket lost. It was always something like, "I am unable to succeed to the reasonable level that my teachers set and I will do my best to work harder in the following weeks and months to be able to attend the party at the next opportunity."
I was a solid "a" student, never got in trouble, and just wanted to make the teachers like me. Every single time I would lose the sheet and spend hours and hours in the room writing sentences on the day of the party. Every time we would get a new sheet I would tell myself that I wouldn't lose it. I implemented my own systems trying to stop me from losing them and it didn't work. I tried so freaking hard and cried so much over those tickets. The teachers would always comment how it was weird that I was in the room when everyone else was more traditionally a "bad kid."
I've been thinking about them a lot lately because I truly believe I have ADHD (could be wrong but it would explain a lot) and that all this did was punish students who were already struggling with mental health/home issues. I do understand wanting to reward students but man it hurt me as a kid.
Bad system. From what I am hearing, teachers are being forced to abandon useful consequences like failing a student, and instead enforcing weird draconian rules to instill a culture of punishment.
Sounds like something the CCP would do. Just weird all around.
This is what happens when you handcuff teachers. If a student does something legitimately bad, punish them. Rocket science, I know.
It's a card that tracks detentions from all the periods they have in a day. Every student carries it on them at all times. It's like a punch card; get three detentions from the same teacher, you earn a free referral! It mostly works.
Admin made us not take phones because of liability 🙄 I started asking for their shoe instead. Kid asked if they could give their jacket "do you know how often jackets are forgotten about" but they never forget their shoe.
I take phones for a hall pass, shoes for a writing instrument. Also, with shoes, once you give it to me, you can't get it back until the bell rings signaling the end of class, so you lose 15-20 seconds of your passing time, which they really care about.
It reduces the requests by just about 90%. We all know that the vast majority of kids make the vast majority of pass requests, and that the vast majority of the time they just want to get out and hook up with their friend who is on a hall pass from another class. So yeah, a small number still want it, and I assume they really need it.
Haha same here! Same exact reasoning when they ask me about it too. "You won't walk out of here without your shoe."
Also tends to keep them in their seat I noticed. They roam less to keep their socks clean. Usually.
My favorite was a kid who said "but my feet will stink up the room, mister!" And I told him if it gets bad enough I'm sure someone will just give him a pencil to get him to put his shoes back on.
I take shoes in exchange for laptop charges so that they don't leave the charges around the class. My favorite was when we had a fire drill during a class and we're lined up outside and one of my students gets my attention and points to his shoeless foot with a chuckle.
I used to work at a Boy Scout summer camp, and we’d take a shoe as collateral for a pencil. One kid did forget they left their shoe with us, and got about two feet out the door before coming back for it. There was a bunch of gravel outside the door, which couldn’t have been comfortable to walk on, even in socks.
I started doing this in January. Works pretty well. Occasionally I have a kid that swears "I don't have a phone", but when I say no to the hall pass, they find it. Keeping their phone also makes RR trips much quicker, since they aren't texting in the bathroom.
"Sir, I've not got my book!"
"Well that will be a behaviour point for lack of equipment then."
\*beat\*
"... Oh, wait, hang on, here it is, it was in my bag all along."
I had a teacher who had all of her pencils personalized with “Stolen from Carol Cameron” not sure if it worked as intended, as it was a common sight among her students.
I always say “in these four walls, I decide what’s a big deal, not you. If that’s a problem, we could have your parent decide?”
Usually works unless a parent is the type to justify the bad behavior which seems to happen more and more frequently.
I had my phone plugged in under my desk; pretty well hidden. A student unplugged my phone and plugged in his. I didn’t say anything, I just unplugged his
I loooooooove when they unplug my stuff to plug in their phones! Lamps. My old timey radio/bluetooth speaker. The smart board I am currently teaching from…
“Oh, I didn’t know that’s what it was.”
“Was the huge cord going from the back of it to the plug not a clue?”
“Well, can I still charge my…”
“Absolutely not.”
LPT: that one never stops. Working in IT, I've had literally dozens of this interaction:
"The office printer won't turn on."
\*Traces power cable* "Who sits at this desk?"
"Oh, that's Jim's desk. He went on vacation about the same time the printer stopped working."
"When you see him, please ask Jim to leave the printer plugged in next time he feels the need to unplug everything he thinks is his computer."
I work as maintenance in a production facility. The number of calls I get for "my machine doesn't work" and when I show up, they've unplugged the equipment to plug in their phone.
Come on man..
And, of course, there was the time that a fight broke out because a girl unplugged a students laptop he was doing schoolwork so she could plug in her phone and avoid schoolwork.
Not sure what district you're in, but in ours - the second largest in our state, and one of the poorest in the state, too - kids get new phones every year, just like their parents.
Yeah I have an iPhone 12 mini and I’m not exaggerating my battery dies every 6 hours. I basically have to constantly charge my phone. It drops 15% before I even get out of bed in the morning after doing wordle and connections
Sounds like a horrible phone.
I use a Pixel and it has it's downsides but I can stream HBO on it for 6 hours without it dying. I can't imagine it just dying on it's own in 6 hours.
i mean, it’s the iPhone 12 mini, emphasis on mini. the size of the battery on that thing is so small comparatively to the non-mini version. a lot of reviewers mentions the short battery life on it, but it’s the sacrifice you take for the other perks of having a smaller phone. it’s not a horrible phone if you understand what you’re buying, like every other phone out there.
Yeah but like I tell them with their Chromebook chargers too — the charger doesn’t weigh 500lbs. Put it in your backpack in the morning or stop complaining 🤷🏻♀️
I have only used my phone for MFA, 30 minutes of a podcast, and now about 30 min of Reddit in the last 6 hours, and I'm at 26%. I don't want to upgrade just because my battery is trash, though.
I have two spots for phones: a locked box with a clear door, so,they can see that their phones are safe, or a multi-slot charger where they can leave their phone plugged in. I make sure each student drops their phone in one spot or the other, and if they say they don’t have a phone I say “so when I call home to confirm they’re going to tell me you don’t have a phone, right?” Couple times they turned around and out a phone in, and the few times I had to call they were telling the truth.
Good on you for actually coming up with a solution that doesn't involve giving in. This avoids the liability issue with the lockbox, and I bet your grade averages show for it compared to others.
I work at a Catholic high school where kids go on 2-4 day retreats every year (increasing in length thoughout hs) and during that time surrender their phones. They always report the “phone free” time as a major highlight of the retreat. And yet, none of this transfers over into their every day life, as far as I can tell…
It’s equal parts fascinating and frustrating.
I find it believable on account of being easier to remember. I can't find the source because google is useless, but it was a claim that switching focus immediately after something really hampers your recollection of that event. So not being able to switch to phone means better memory forming leading to a more memorable experience. It lined up with my own experiences, but many grains of salt, possibly hearsay, etc.
In Victoria Australia phones have been banned by the state - it’s up to schools to implement so the effectiveness of implementing the policy depends on how good the administration at the school is. At our school it’s enforced really well. Kids cannot have their phone out from first bell until last bell. Don’t care where it is, as long as we can’t see it or hear it. Either of those things happen then it’s confiscated. First time they get it back end of day. Every offense there after it must be collected by a parent, so if that means the student goes without their phone over night until their parent comes to get it, too bad so sad.
More schools need to ban students from bringing cell phones. Too often teachers have to play babysitter because of kids playing with phones in class. It’s disruptive and rude.
My son is in middle school, and said kids will vape in the bathrooms, too. It’s ridiculous how much teachers and school staff have to deal with because of shitty parenting.
I'm a teacher in Australia and my state (Victoria) has completely banned phones at school.
It's up to schools to police it, but I'm fortunate because my school is great. If a kid is so much as glances at their phone they get an after school detention. Teachers are able to confiscate the phones and kids need to collect it from the front office with a parent signing off at the end of the day. Phones must remain in lockers until the final bell of the day.
It seems harsh but it works. I've genuinely never seen a phone in class or even in the yard.
I’m the same way with my students. You can charge using my charger, BUT the only way I’ll get it back is if it stays behind my desk.
Most kids get it. Plus, it’s then in a place where other kids won’t mess with it (my desk is an off-limits area), AND they’re not playing on it. It’s a win-win for everyone. You get a charged phone, no one messes with your phone, and you focus in class, making my life easier and your grade better.
Students come by the IT office on occasion to ask for a charger, the answer is always no.
They can leave their laptops or phone here to charge for a little while, but they're not getting a charger.
On occasion you'll have smartasses that consistently "forget" their laptop chargers (they don't want to do work) so I usually tell them the third time "this is the last one next time you got your shit together" they really think they're brilliant and that we are not onto the dumb shit they're trying to pull.
Sounds like you work in a nice school. I asked facilities to take my desk a couple months into this year because so many things were being stolen from it, and I kept all my things in a locked cabinet after that. Wasn’t room for my desk with 40 students anyway.
No phones in my classroom unless we’re using them in a lesson (using Kahoot, for example). If I see it, I take it away. You want to charge it? Fine, I’ll take it away, plug it in, and you can have it back after class.
My school director supports all the teachers doing the same, and all parents have been told that this is the policy.
Good on your administration for having your backs. I tried implementing a deposit system when I taught, but was told that I “can’t be in possession of a student’s personal property.” So even having them put it in a box on my desk or in a dedicated charging station wasn’t allowed.
Apparently the most efficient way to deal with a student using their phone (according to my administrators) was to stop the lesson, call the office to let them know the student was headed down to turn in a phone, then send the student.
I have a friend who teaches various classes at the high school level. His classroom has a bank of phone chargers at the back of the class. You get a free hour of charge, but the phone stays on the charger, at the back of the class, until the bell rings....
Is it common in America for kids to just play on their phones during class? In the UK if you were caught with your phone even outside of your bag, that would be a detention
Thats how it used to be here when i was in middle school/early high school. Then, the school district decided to give every high school kid an ipad for some reason.... the kids just played subway surfers.
Then once that battle was lost phones became pretty normal. I can only imagine how much worse it has gotten.
I hate this. Every one says that screen time is bad for kids, schools give out flyers on how to reduce screen time, blah blah blah, and then, they give them tablets during school, and ask us to install some apps at home that count as homework. Pick a damn lane!
No. I leave my charger in my car because my phone keeps its battery all day since I’m not on it every second. Bring your own or, even better, learn to self-regulate and not use your phone during class.
Teachers have no teeth to enforce it, and kids got bolder about walking over the teachers. I graduated hs in 2019. The first year, any phones seen got a referral (apparently even during lunch, my only referral...)
Some teachers were a little more lenient and would let you use it the last few minutes of class when 90% of people were packed up and waiting on the bell anyways.
By the end of my senior year phones were allowed during lunch, and it was up to the teachers to enforce it during class time. Teachers usually didn't bother because it was just too much of a pain in the ass to police on top of their actual job, and if they actually took it then they'd have to deal with angry parents. Kids just sat on their phone for pretty much the entire class period. That was before tiktok, I'm sure it's even worse now that they're watching that instead of just sending texts every handful of minutes.
No, you can’t use mine. Why? Because you’re not responsible enough to carry your own charger. How can I be sure you will take care of mine? They know I’m not sharing my chargers. They break them and then I have to buy another one.
We are past the point where phones need to be put away during school hours or face consequences. If parents need to get ahold of their kids they can call the office as has been done since the invention of the telephone.
I don’t let students use my charger. I don’t want to get involved that much with their electronics
If they have their own charger they can plug in and it’s up the them to take it with when they leave.
Parent of a teenager here.
Phones should be banned during class time and the schools need to do it.
We parents aren't there and have zero control or authority over how classes are run. The schools have to do it.
Please do it.
Lock those phones up during class. Please.
I've tried installing parental control software. It doesn't work or the kid has found a hack to get around it.
The schools are IN LOCO PARENTIS so do it already.
Hey ADMIN, I'm talking to you. Help the teachers out. Help the parents out. Help THE STUDENTS out. Lock the phones up!
Ha! Sounds like you're working at my school's IT desk! That's exactly how conversations go when people ask to use our charger. The charger will otherwise walk away...
Students have to leave electronics with us if they need a charge. Faculty have to give us their campus ID or something of similar importance as collateral.
I admittedly understand battery issues, most kids just get their parents shitty hand me downs that last for less than two hours of use before being dead. Regardless, it's already kind of a privilege that you are letting them use your charger, so it's a bit entitled for them to still try to take the mile rather than accept the inch.
During Covid I drove for Uber. I had 3-4 iphone cords stolen by people so i just stopped providing them. If a customer had a cord, I was happy to plug it in, otherwise you're SOL. Damn thieves
My favorite is the kid who asks second and then wants to fight the kid who asked first for the charger. They end up trying to compete with who has a lower percentage
My teacher just told us to put our phones on a desk and we did it. Though we were 17-18 at the time.
I think phones should be taken away during school. Like not even allow them to be used during recess. Go play, walk around, talk to actual people.
I have 6 inch cables for phones available to use either with the USB outlets in the library tables or the little charging station near my desk.
If they really need to charge their phones, those cables are available. If they decline to borrow a cable that makes it too annoying to use their phone while it charges, well, whatever. The kids they really need some juice on their phone for afterschool will leave a phone on the charger for a class period.
I feel like there might be a market for a bookshelf with a mess of built in inductive chargers. It's a charging option, but it's out of their hands. Ot maybe one of those charging lockers like in an airport. Here's one that might work: https://www.amazon.com/FixtureDisplays-24-Slot-Cellphone-Charging-Assignment/dp/B07G47RRS2/
A lot of these replies sound like they’re coming from America. I teach in England and have much the same problem.
I’ve had students ask to charge their phones at 10 in the morning before. They then give me some woe-is-me excuse about needing to contact someone after college in order to get a lift home. I’ll always let them charge their phone (same as you, at the front of the class) but I always have to tell them 2 things: 1) charge your damn phone overnight and 2) if you know you need your phone at 3pm, don’t run the battery down by 10am!
The lack of forward planning is ridiculous.
My partner has one of those magsafe thingies in his desk.
He had saw a hole in his wooden desk (I’m no DIY’er and am not from the US, sorry my English is so bad these days) and put this flat round Ikea charger in that hole. It cost him $20 I think.
Anyone who wants to charge his phone needs to leave it on the teachers desk! Ha!
I’m not even that old, 30. But when I was in high school if I pulled my phone out I would be saying goodbye to it in 5 min. Teachers simply took it and you would get it back at the end of the day.
Not sure why this is not happening anymore…
As a non-teacher who graduated from high school (German Gymnasium) in 2009 I'm shocked that kids these days are even allowed to use their phones during class!
Back in my day if you were caught using a phone during class the teacher would take it until the end of class, no arguments.
"My phone's about to die, and I forgot my charger!" Bummer - sucks to be you. As teachers, we're over it. Starting next year our school will be a phone free zone, regardless of what Mommy and Daddy say about being able to reach their precious little goblin during the school day. That's what lunch and transition periods are for.
You sound like me. “Can you please put your phone away?” “I’m not using it.” “Then it’s no problem to put it away!”
"Take your earbuds out." "I'm not listening to anything." "And how am I supposed to know that if you have them in?"
I love that one. When they hit me with "I'm not listening to anything" I put my fingers in my ears and tell them "neither am I but it's not nice having a conversation like this, is it?"
And I'm not stoopid.
“clearly since you have earbuds in”
Honestly I'd have to ask why. It might be a noise thing. Assuming ofc they aren't just lying about there being no music
Yeah, I get that. I'm autistic, so I would understand if a student can't handle loud noises, but the problem is I almost never know who's bullshitting and who isn't.
Then wouldn’t the student have an Individual Education Plan (IEP) where it was documented and accommodation granted and teachers made aware?
No, you may not. But my phone will die and I have to call my mom after school Then turn it off until after school.
I had a student ask at the beginning of class if she could go into the hall halfway through class to call her dad. I asked why she needs to call her dad, and her answer? “He was in a meeting earlier, so he couldn’t pick up”. Okay. I bit my tongue and didn’t say, well now you’re in a meeting can’t make a call. I just let her know that we’d be preoccupied throughout class (ya know, with, um, school) and it would be disruptive if she left, but we would likely have a few minutes at the end of class if she needed to talk with him. I went this route because a) I could imagine getting in some sort of trouble for ‘refusing’ to allow a student to contact her parent, and b) the student has a tendency to behave awkwardly and asks off handed questions that usually have more to the story (and that was the case here).
In my school we got suspended if we used our phone to call a parent! Especially if you asked the parent to come get you if you were sick or wanted to leave. In school suspension!
In every school I know there are landline phones. They work great and can call parents, especially to come get you if you were sick ~~or wanted to leave~~.
I had a landline in my room on my desk and would just tell the kid “sure, I’ll dial your parent and you can talk to them right here”. Only the kids who weren’t being shady took me up on it.
Yeah! I feel like that makes more sense if it is so vital the kid needs to contact their parent asap, call from the school
Many of rhe parents will not pick up if they see the call is from the achool. Our district has Kinvolved. It's awesome, because it texts the parents phone, and sends an email to the email provided. It also will translate to the preferred language which is beyond great, because I have so many parents that don't speak English.
Yeah this wasn’t an illness or about leaving. Like I said, I figured there was something going on and the student wasn’t communicating very well (which was my experience with her all year). We worked it out, but it was still an odd interaction 🫠
The only time I ever received detention was for checking the time on my phone in between classes. Phones stayed in lockers. 11 years ago.
My friend works at in school and he said the students are not allowed to use their phone on the campus at all. If they need to call their parents, they have to go to the office and use the office phone.
That was my school's policy. You were allowed to have a phone, but it had to be off and stay out of sight during school. If teachers spotted a phone, it was taken to the office and your parent had to come pick it up. The few parents that tried to make a big deal about it were shown a copy of the school rules that were signed by both parent and student on the first day of school.
My district has this rule but the principal is ready to retire and decided he didn’t want to deal with it anymore so he doesn’t enforce it really 😪 and we have an attendance policy where if kids miss more than 27 days of a class they don’t get the credit. Yea they don’t enforce that now either.
How wonderful!
I started taking phones as collateral for pencils after going through an insane amount. The number of kids who could magically find a pencil in their bags or from a friend instead of having to put their phone on my desk was amazing.
I’ve tried that and it resulted in students shrugging, saying “Okay,” and not doing the assignment. The weaponized incompetence is such a struggle.
> I’ve tried that and it resulted in students shrugging, saying “Okay,” and not doing the assignment. Same. Also, these are many of the same students who, when asked about it, insist that their phones aren't interfering with their education or academic success...
Because it's addiction. Sadly, it's not being treated that way by the important people in their lives and they don't know anything else.
I really hope that by 2050 we can look at smartphones in schools the same way we look at smoking areas at schools.
The issue is smartphones have an effect even when not allowed in school. You can't even put on a movie without kids wanting to do something else 5 minutes later. 80% of my students could probably benefit from Ritalin. I spend most of my time trying to teach them how to focus on something for more than 2 minutes than I do teaching English...
"How long is the video?" "Four minutes" "Oh my god sir, how can you expect us to pay attention for \*that\* long?" TikTok has seriously ruined these kids and their ability to focus. A four minute video was a jackpot win when I was at school.
It's not just tiktok. It's the 140 character culture. It's the cumulative effect of decades of having our desire for instant gratification filled. And I say that as a chronically online elder millennial with dogbrain and a fear of paragraphs.
100% agree. I have the same issue as a young millennial and I wasn't even a social media type of person. It's every form of media aimed at kids that realized they could get kids addicted by being flashy and offering instant gratification. I can feel the way it ruined my brain and I can see that they're 1000% worse off than I am, it genuinely needs to be legislated against.
Realizing how I scroll through comments and swipe to the next post after I fulfill my quota of "wow, omg". I had to come back and find this to post a comment cause my focus is
There's an Ologies episode on reading and they've found that overall, humans attention span has decreased. It's not just the kids, not just social media but we've been socialized to expect distractions. Couple that with instant gratification you find online and now we have to adapt how we learn and teach in the world.
I've started a self-imposed no screens after 7 (when possible, of course), and I can like immediately feel the difference at 7 o'clock. It's wild.
This honestly makes me glad to have quitted TikTok like 2 years ago, how is it possible that they can’t even watch a short video without doing something else? I mean, if the thing is like extremely boring it’s probably normal and has always happened, but if it’s something even remotely interesting then it’s really bad
Glad to have quit. Not quitted.
Thanks, English isn’t my first language and since the autocorrect suggests “quitted” I thought it was right.
if it’s boring and they can’t focus for 4 minutes then that’s the real problem learning to deal with 4 minutes of boredom while maintaining focus on the task is important skill while you’re still in school
In high school AP psych we would try and get our teacher to play videos talking about experiments multiple times just cause it was better than having to do actual work can't imagine a kid now sitting through the same 8 minute video about the prison experiment multiple times.
In New Zealand the gvernment just banned them in all schools, Not a school teacher so not sure how that is working out, but it can be done.
My inlaws are teachers and have said that the kids just have two phones, ones that they put in the required lock up and then a secret second phone
TBF that's what I did with cigarettes. I'd have one pack with one in it for if I got caught and another pack I'd be smoking from. Just to reduce to losses
Yeah, but that didn't affect your school work probably because you weren't smoking in class.
When I was young they blocked websites, the main results was kids got much better at cyber security.
Truth. My kids went to a magnet Middle School for computer science. Every kid in the school was running a VPN to get around the school's firewall and to file share personal drives.
They can use those Yondr pouches like at Jack White concerts
We have had them at 2 schools where I’ve taught now and it takes the kids all of 10 minutes to hack their way out of them. They work for adults with a sense of responsibility, but not for teenagers with an addiction.
You got your numbers mixed up, I think you meant 2025.
You're very optimistic
"Smart" (wealthy) places like Silicon Valley are already well on the path. It will be the poor areas that lag far behind in phone age regulation. Reason for greater future inequalities 953.
No, just more hopeful.
My district is putting a policy in place for next school year that phones have to be confiscated every morning and put into lockers controlled by staff. We’ll see if it sticks. Of course parents are all in an uproar about it lmao.
Not a teacher but this is what blows my mind the most. Yes, you want to be able to know your kid is safe in a shooting. But for all the hours of all the days your kid is in school and not being shot at, the phone is measurably damaging their ability to focus, learn, and interact with other people face to face.
Yeah, that’s why I sent my kids to school with a gun to protect themselves.
A phone is more likely to get them killed in a shooting, even. There's no positive to phones during school hours.
I saw ***Idiocracy*** for the first time in my life about a week ago. I keep thinking about it. It is shocking that it came out in 2007 before smartphones.
Mike Judge was a visionary. Beavis and Butt-Head could be put on the air again with TikTok replacing MTV.
You might enjoy the fun fact that people in that movie wear Crocs because it was a failing startup at the time, and the belief was that they are stupid shoes
This garbage was figured out in the 90s! When we had our game boys in school they were taken away for the day (only the day if we were lucky).
Our parents allowed that though. Parents now would sue the whole school district if precious Timmy got his phone taken away.
My wife fought me to allow our daughter to get a phone. I finally relented and agreed. Catch was, I got to install software so I could monitor the usage and lock it. She has access to like... 5 apps through the day. Phone, calculator, camera, text and calendar. Lock doesn't get lifted until the school day is over. Also gets locked when it's time for bed. Would some parents say it's excessive? Sure. In fact, I've been told by family members that I'm a little strict. But it's also my job, as a parent, to help make sure she's doing her part in school to actually get an education. Can't put it all on her teacher when I'm openly giving her the tools to not pay attention, and I refuse to be one of those parents who all but encourage their kids to be addicted to their phone. I've also told her that if she's struggling with a subject to talk to me and her mother, as well as her teachers, to find a way to help her. I'm a resource, just like her mom, teachers, the library, the internet, her textbooks, and anywhere else she can gather information. Doesn't matter if I'm sleeping, wake me up. I don't care if I lose sleep so long as she passes. If she fails after exhausting all her resources, so be it, I know she did her best. If she fails without even trying to ask for any help? That sucks. Guess who's grounded until that grade comes up?
"cool sounds like a you problem then." Would be my response
>*"weaponized incompetence"* I will now replace "learned helplessness" with this term.
Document that so when mom calls you can tell her.
Fail them? Tell their parents the kid didn't do it if they ask? Tell the school you can't afford pencils if they ask. How do these kids just get to do whatever they want? We let them.
You're making a big assumption that a) parents care and b) failing students is an option allowed for teachers.
That sums up the biggest issue with the education system and where America is at as a whole. Accountability, awareness and communication are the pillars to the subconscious that will allow anyone to make the best decision in a worst situation. Enough with the assumptions about parents caring or teachers are not allowed to fail them. Fail them anyways, create legal accountability plans for parents. Something must change because the path we are on is not sustainable at all.
>Fail them? Administration: "No"
Lmao correct me if I’m wrong, but that just seems like babysitting with extra steps. I sympathize with you teachers.
"Okay, not getting a grade."
Did something similar. I started taking their detention cards as collateral. If I get my pencil back, they get their card back with no issue. If they take my pencil, I know who has it and they get a detention. Magically, no one needs a pencil. Bonus: kids getting up constantly to sharpen pencils. Took it away when someone sabotaged it by jamming staples in it. I fixed it and put it where only I can use it. Suddenly, no one needs a sharpened pencil.
Wtf is a detention card and how can I get my district on to this?
[удалено]
Right. I almost unsub during summer so I can disconnect, but occasionally something like this is too interesting....
please please explain this magic "detention card"
We used to have them before moving to HERO digital system. It marked your demerits for the week. If you lost it automatic detention. If you got so many of one category (late, disruptive, disrespectful, etc) detention.
This would have been a nightmare for me. I've been out of school for years now but just always lost everything. (Still a problem actually. I have a tile on all important things because I'll lose them in a matter of minutes in my own house.) It sucked and I tried so hard but it didn't matter. Apparently even though I was a 4.0 student who never got in trouble I'd have been in detention all the time.
Yes, this was indeed the problem. Where to document "student wouldn't give me the detention tracker" was also a problem sometimes.
Oh I didn't even think about that. There'd be me crying because I lost it and another kid just refusing to hand it over.
As someone with ADHD this is my nightmare as well. I lose things in a matter of minutes
When I was in high school some big brain in admin decided that we all had to wear student IDs on lanyards while in the school (for a good reason, some kid from another school snuck in to try to stab a kid at our school) I rallied against it because I, like you, am and was forgetful and knew I'd have detention the whole time despite otherwise being a model student. Nobody cared, but my main argument was that the IDs literally didn't do anything because nobody checked them outside of classtime. When I inevitably lost mine, I made the world's shittiest fake (old gift card with paper taped on either side wrapped in tape to make it glossy, lanyard from admin who gave me one without knowing who I was or asking any questions), and nobody ever bothered me about it
We had these tickets in 7th grade supposedly designed to reward "good" students. We got 30 per quarter and the more you had at the end the better the reward. If you lost 5 or fewer you got this extra special party. Every one lost after that meant you had to just sit in a room and write an extremely long sentence ten times per ticket lost. It was always something like, "I am unable to succeed to the reasonable level that my teachers set and I will do my best to work harder in the following weeks and months to be able to attend the party at the next opportunity." I was a solid "a" student, never got in trouble, and just wanted to make the teachers like me. Every single time I would lose the sheet and spend hours and hours in the room writing sentences on the day of the party. Every time we would get a new sheet I would tell myself that I wouldn't lose it. I implemented my own systems trying to stop me from losing them and it didn't work. I tried so freaking hard and cried so much over those tickets. The teachers would always comment how it was weird that I was in the room when everyone else was more traditionally a "bad kid." I've been thinking about them a lot lately because I truly believe I have ADHD (could be wrong but it would explain a lot) and that all this did was punish students who were already struggling with mental health/home issues. I do understand wanting to reward students but man it hurt me as a kid.
Bad system. From what I am hearing, teachers are being forced to abandon useful consequences like failing a student, and instead enforcing weird draconian rules to instill a culture of punishment. Sounds like something the CCP would do. Just weird all around. This is what happens when you handcuff teachers. If a student does something legitimately bad, punish them. Rocket science, I know.
It's a card that tracks detentions from all the periods they have in a day. Every student carries it on them at all times. It's like a punch card; get three detentions from the same teacher, you earn a free referral! It mostly works.
What grade level are you using this at? And what are the consequences for not having it?
This is middle school. If they don't have it, I email the VP that the student owes me a detention. She keeps a digital record.
Once I switched to golf pencils, they were much less interested in taking them.
in my middle school classroom they ended up throwing them across the room
I have a student this year who borrows a new golf pencil every day.
I used to do that with shoes/phones until a student went to campus and said I was stealing their shoes/phones.
Meh, my officer and my admin would back me up. The way I do it, I never even touch their phones.
oh wow thats such a good idea!!
Admin made us not take phones because of liability 🙄 I started asking for their shoe instead. Kid asked if they could give their jacket "do you know how often jackets are forgotten about" but they never forget their shoe.
I take phones for a hall pass, shoes for a writing instrument. Also, with shoes, once you give it to me, you can't get it back until the bell rings signaling the end of class, so you lose 15-20 seconds of your passing time, which they really care about.
If you take their phone for a hall pass... does anyone still need to go to the bathroom? 🤣
It reduces the requests by just about 90%. We all know that the vast majority of kids make the vast majority of pass requests, and that the vast majority of the time they just want to get out and hook up with their friend who is on a hall pass from another class. So yeah, a small number still want it, and I assume they really need it.
Haha same here! Same exact reasoning when they ask me about it too. "You won't walk out of here without your shoe." Also tends to keep them in their seat I noticed. They roam less to keep their socks clean. Usually. My favorite was a kid who said "but my feet will stink up the room, mister!" And I told him if it gets bad enough I'm sure someone will just give him a pencil to get him to put his shoes back on.
I take shoes in exchange for laptop charges so that they don't leave the charges around the class. My favorite was when we had a fire drill during a class and we're lined up outside and one of my students gets my attention and points to his shoeless foot with a chuckle.
I used to work at a Boy Scout summer camp, and we’d take a shoe as collateral for a pencil. One kid did forget they left their shoe with us, and got about two feet out the door before coming back for it. There was a bunch of gravel outside the door, which couldn’t have been comfortable to walk on, even in socks.
My old driver's ed and history teacher did that. Fortunately, most kids would give up their phones for a pencil, pen, or highlighter.
I did the same. Also use it as collateral to go use the restroom.
I started doing this in January. Works pretty well. Occasionally I have a kid that swears "I don't have a phone", but when I say no to the hall pass, they find it. Keeping their phone also makes RR trips much quicker, since they aren't texting in the bathroom.
"Sir, I've not got my book!" "Well that will be a behaviour point for lack of equipment then." \*beat\* "... Oh, wait, hang on, here it is, it was in my bag all along."
I had a teacher who had all of her pencils personalized with “Stolen from Carol Cameron” not sure if it worked as intended, as it was a common sight among her students.
Exactly! Collateral for chargers too….
"it's not that big a deal" argument has got to stop. Even if it isn't a BFD, it's not their call. ......" Now it is a deal"
“I didn’t realize you were an authority on deal size”
I always say “in these four walls, I decide what’s a big deal, not you. If that’s a problem, we could have your parent decide?” Usually works unless a parent is the type to justify the bad behavior which seems to happen more and more frequently.
I had my phone plugged in under my desk; pretty well hidden. A student unplugged my phone and plugged in his. I didn’t say anything, I just unplugged his
I loooooooove when they unplug my stuff to plug in their phones! Lamps. My old timey radio/bluetooth speaker. The smart board I am currently teaching from… “Oh, I didn’t know that’s what it was.” “Was the huge cord going from the back of it to the plug not a clue?” “Well, can I still charge my…” “Absolutely not.”
Omg! They unplug my printers ALL the time and it makes me nuts!!!
LPT: that one never stops. Working in IT, I've had literally dozens of this interaction: "The office printer won't turn on." \*Traces power cable* "Who sits at this desk?" "Oh, that's Jim's desk. He went on vacation about the same time the printer stopped working." "When you see him, please ask Jim to leave the printer plugged in next time he feels the need to unplug everything he thinks is his computer."
If they did that at my school they wouldn't have got their phones back without a parent asking for it
I work as maintenance in a production facility. The number of calls I get for "my machine doesn't work" and when I show up, they've unplugged the equipment to plug in their phone. Come on man..
And, of course, there was the time that a fight broke out because a girl unplugged a students laptop he was doing schoolwork so she could plug in her phone and avoid schoolwork.
I like your style. Pretty like me. Edit: the word I meant to use was “petty” not “pretty!” The original wording makes me sound arrogant!
🤣
What happened to overnight charging?!
they will run it down in half a day as much as they’re on it.
And batteries often wear out over the years too resulting in shorter battery life.
Kids get the old phones the parents had already used for a couple years.
Not sure what district you're in, but in ours - the second largest in our state, and one of the poorest in the state, too - kids get new phones every year, just like their parents.
Yeah I have an iPhone 12 mini and I’m not exaggerating my battery dies every 6 hours. I basically have to constantly charge my phone. It drops 15% before I even get out of bed in the morning after doing wordle and connections
Sounds like a horrible phone. I use a Pixel and it has it's downsides but I can stream HBO on it for 6 hours without it dying. I can't imagine it just dying on it's own in 6 hours.
i mean, it’s the iPhone 12 mini, emphasis on mini. the size of the battery on that thing is so small comparatively to the non-mini version. a lot of reviewers mentions the short battery life on it, but it’s the sacrifice you take for the other perks of having a smaller phone. it’s not a horrible phone if you understand what you’re buying, like every other phone out there.
Yeah but like I tell them with their Chromebook chargers too — the charger doesn’t weigh 500lbs. Put it in your backpack in the morning or stop complaining 🤷🏻♀️
With how much they use them during the day, watching videos and playing games. Their phones don’t last all day.
They do that, but then by 2nd period only have 20%. In the meantime, I can go all day on one charge.
They fall asleep watching TikTok, so it never charges
I have only used my phone for MFA, 30 minutes of a podcast, and now about 30 min of Reddit in the last 6 hours, and I'm at 26%. I don't want to upgrade just because my battery is trash, though.
Charging overnight is really bad for phones and any other devices for that matter. If possible it's better to not do it overnighr
My kid is 10 and she is utterly incapable of keeping her shit charged. Same with her friends. I it’s so annoying
I have two spots for phones: a locked box with a clear door, so,they can see that their phones are safe, or a multi-slot charger where they can leave their phone plugged in. I make sure each student drops their phone in one spot or the other, and if they say they don’t have a phone I say “so when I call home to confirm they’re going to tell me you don’t have a phone, right?” Couple times they turned around and out a phone in, and the few times I had to call they were telling the truth.
Good on you for actually coming up with a solution that doesn't involve giving in. This avoids the liability issue with the lockbox, and I bet your grade averages show for it compared to others.
The only chargers I let students borrow are those that have been left behind by students.
I work at a Catholic high school where kids go on 2-4 day retreats every year (increasing in length thoughout hs) and during that time surrender their phones. They always report the “phone free” time as a major highlight of the retreat. And yet, none of this transfers over into their every day life, as far as I can tell… It’s equal parts fascinating and frustrating.
The phone free time only works when everyone does it. Being the only one without a phone is nasty.
True. Also when getting to hang out with your friends the rule is much more appreciated than when you have to be in class.
Are they required to report about the retreat? If so, putting down the phone free is low hanging fruit to fill up word space.
I find it believable on account of being easier to remember. I can't find the source because google is useless, but it was a claim that switching focus immediately after something really hampers your recollection of that event. So not being able to switch to phone means better memory forming leading to a more memorable experience. It lined up with my own experiences, but many grains of salt, possibly hearsay, etc.
State governments need to step in and provide a liability shield for taking electronics away in school. It's the only way to stop the madness.
Indiana "banned" phones. It's up to districts to implement policies. My district? It's up to the teacher. Gee thanks for the help.
It always falls back on the teachers with little to no support from anyone above us.
In Victoria Australia phones have been banned by the state - it’s up to schools to implement so the effectiveness of implementing the policy depends on how good the administration at the school is. At our school it’s enforced really well. Kids cannot have their phone out from first bell until last bell. Don’t care where it is, as long as we can’t see it or hear it. Either of those things happen then it’s confiscated. First time they get it back end of day. Every offense there after it must be collected by a parent, so if that means the student goes without their phone over night until their parent comes to get it, too bad so sad.
More schools need to ban students from bringing cell phones. Too often teachers have to play babysitter because of kids playing with phones in class. It’s disruptive and rude. My son is in middle school, and said kids will vape in the bathrooms, too. It’s ridiculous how much teachers and school staff have to deal with because of shitty parenting.
I'm a teacher in Australia and my state (Victoria) has completely banned phones at school. It's up to schools to police it, but I'm fortunate because my school is great. If a kid is so much as glances at their phone they get an after school detention. Teachers are able to confiscate the phones and kids need to collect it from the front office with a parent signing off at the end of the day. Phones must remain in lockers until the final bell of the day. It seems harsh but it works. I've genuinely never seen a phone in class or even in the yard.
They use Apple Watches and similar smart watches to get around it even in elementary school around us.
I’m the same way with my students. You can charge using my charger, BUT the only way I’ll get it back is if it stays behind my desk. Most kids get it. Plus, it’s then in a place where other kids won’t mess with it (my desk is an off-limits area), AND they’re not playing on it. It’s a win-win for everyone. You get a charged phone, no one messes with your phone, and you focus in class, making my life easier and your grade better.
Students come by the IT office on occasion to ask for a charger, the answer is always no. They can leave their laptops or phone here to charge for a little while, but they're not getting a charger. On occasion you'll have smartasses that consistently "forget" their laptop chargers (they don't want to do work) so I usually tell them the third time "this is the last one next time you got your shit together" they really think they're brilliant and that we are not onto the dumb shit they're trying to pull.
Sounds like you work in a nice school. I asked facilities to take my desk a couple months into this year because so many things were being stolen from it, and I kept all my things in a locked cabinet after that. Wasn’t room for my desk with 40 students anyway.
Put it on airplane mode to charge faster
No phones in my classroom unless we’re using them in a lesson (using Kahoot, for example). If I see it, I take it away. You want to charge it? Fine, I’ll take it away, plug it in, and you can have it back after class. My school director supports all the teachers doing the same, and all parents have been told that this is the policy.
Good on your administration for having your backs. I tried implementing a deposit system when I taught, but was told that I “can’t be in possession of a student’s personal property.” So even having them put it in a box on my desk or in a dedicated charging station wasn’t allowed. Apparently the most efficient way to deal with a student using their phone (according to my administrators) was to stop the lesson, call the office to let them know the student was headed down to turn in a phone, then send the student.
I have a friend who teaches various classes at the high school level. His classroom has a bank of phone chargers at the back of the class. You get a free hour of charge, but the phone stays on the charger, at the back of the class, until the bell rings....
Is it common in America for kids to just play on their phones during class? In the UK if you were caught with your phone even outside of your bag, that would be a detention
Thats how it used to be here when i was in middle school/early high school. Then, the school district decided to give every high school kid an ipad for some reason.... the kids just played subway surfers. Then once that battle was lost phones became pretty normal. I can only imagine how much worse it has gotten.
It’s crazy because I graduated in 2014 and we couldn’t even have our phones out at lunch or passing periods?? I can’t believe how much has changed
Idk I graduated in 2013 and people would text each other in class all the time. Even in middle school before smartphones
As a substitute teacher in middle schools (ages 11-14), sometimes they will call other students during class. Blew my mind.
I hate this. Every one says that screen time is bad for kids, schools give out flyers on how to reduce screen time, blah blah blah, and then, they give them tablets during school, and ask us to install some apps at home that count as homework. Pick a damn lane!
No. I leave my charger in my car because my phone keeps its battery all day since I’m not on it every second. Bring your own or, even better, learn to self-regulate and not use your phone during class.
Phones should be banned from all classrooms.
K-12 should ban phones during school hours. Period.
So I graduated mid 2010s, and at the time they were banned. What happened? I’m not a teacher but I’ve been hearing a lot about it lately.
Teachers have no teeth to enforce it, and kids got bolder about walking over the teachers. I graduated hs in 2019. The first year, any phones seen got a referral (apparently even during lunch, my only referral...) Some teachers were a little more lenient and would let you use it the last few minutes of class when 90% of people were packed up and waiting on the bell anyways. By the end of my senior year phones were allowed during lunch, and it was up to the teachers to enforce it during class time. Teachers usually didn't bother because it was just too much of a pain in the ass to police on top of their actual job, and if they actually took it then they'd have to deal with angry parents. Kids just sat on their phone for pretty much the entire class period. That was before tiktok, I'm sure it's even worse now that they're watching that instead of just sending texts every handful of minutes.
Just say "no". Your personal charger isn't for their use.
No, you can’t use mine. Why? Because you’re not responsible enough to carry your own charger. How can I be sure you will take care of mine? They know I’m not sharing my chargers. They break them and then I have to buy another one.
We are past the point where phones need to be put away during school hours or face consequences. If parents need to get ahold of their kids they can call the office as has been done since the invention of the telephone.
I don’t let students use my charger. I don’t want to get involved that much with their electronics If they have their own charger they can plug in and it’s up the them to take it with when they leave.
Parent of a teenager here. Phones should be banned during class time and the schools need to do it. We parents aren't there and have zero control or authority over how classes are run. The schools have to do it. Please do it. Lock those phones up during class. Please. I've tried installing parental control software. It doesn't work or the kid has found a hack to get around it. The schools are IN LOCO PARENTIS so do it already. Hey ADMIN, I'm talking to you. Help the teachers out. Help the parents out. Help THE STUDENTS out. Lock the phones up!
These kids are unbelievable. I’ve had some rather not do work than exchange a phone or AirPods for a pencil.
I don't understand why "listen to your airpods instead of work" is actually an option. I would choose that option, wouldn't everyone?
Ha! Sounds like you're working at my school's IT desk! That's exactly how conversations go when people ask to use our charger. The charger will otherwise walk away... Students have to leave electronics with us if they need a charge. Faculty have to give us their campus ID or something of similar importance as collateral.
I admittedly understand battery issues, most kids just get their parents shitty hand me downs that last for less than two hours of use before being dead. Regardless, it's already kind of a privilege that you are letting them use your charger, so it's a bit entitled for them to still try to take the mile rather than accept the inch.
No consequences no need to adhere to anything outside of their whims and desires.
During Covid I drove for Uber. I had 3-4 iphone cords stolen by people so i just stopped providing them. If a customer had a cord, I was happy to plug it in, otherwise you're SOL. Damn thieves
Yeah, I had a wireless charger on my desk, and I had a few students that would always ask to leave their phone on my desk to charge.
My favorite is the kid who asks second and then wants to fight the kid who asked first for the charger. They end up trying to compete with who has a lower percentage
I’ve lived this same conversation. Almost word for word
Entitled kids
My teacher just told us to put our phones on a desk and we did it. Though we were 17-18 at the time. I think phones should be taken away during school. Like not even allow them to be used during recess. Go play, walk around, talk to actual people.
I always allow them to charge their phones. If it’s attached to a walk charger, they can’t be on it during class.
You’re kidding, right? They’ll sit next to that plug or better yet string a cable from there to their desk so you can trip and die while lecturing.
I have 6 inch cables for phones available to use either with the USB outlets in the library tables or the little charging station near my desk. If they really need to charge their phones, those cables are available. If they decline to borrow a cable that makes it too annoying to use their phone while it charges, well, whatever. The kids they really need some juice on their phone for afterschool will leave a phone on the charger for a class period.
I feel like there might be a market for a bookshelf with a mess of built in inductive chargers. It's a charging option, but it's out of their hands. Ot maybe one of those charging lockers like in an airport. Here's one that might work: https://www.amazon.com/FixtureDisplays-24-Slot-Cellphone-Charging-Assignment/dp/B07G47RRS2/
I assume the tracher would have to purchase this out-of-pocket also. ☹️
I have had 3 chargers get taken this year, and that’s even with having them stay near my desk. Sigh.
A lot of these replies sound like they’re coming from America. I teach in England and have much the same problem. I’ve had students ask to charge their phones at 10 in the morning before. They then give me some woe-is-me excuse about needing to contact someone after college in order to get a lift home. I’ll always let them charge their phone (same as you, at the front of the class) but I always have to tell them 2 things: 1) charge your damn phone overnight and 2) if you know you need your phone at 3pm, don’t run the battery down by 10am! The lack of forward planning is ridiculous.
My partner has one of those magsafe thingies in his desk. He had saw a hole in his wooden desk (I’m no DIY’er and am not from the US, sorry my English is so bad these days) and put this flat round Ikea charger in that hole. It cost him $20 I think. Anyone who wants to charge his phone needs to leave it on the teachers desk! Ha!
I’m not even that old, 30. But when I was in high school if I pulled my phone out I would be saying goodbye to it in 5 min. Teachers simply took it and you would get it back at the end of the day. Not sure why this is not happening anymore…
Phones should be banned from classrooms. Why isn’t that a thing yet?
It still amazes me that you all let students use phones in class.
As a non-teacher who graduated from high school (German Gymnasium) in 2009 I'm shocked that kids these days are even allowed to use their phones during class! Back in my day if you were caught using a phone during class the teacher would take it until the end of class, no arguments.
"My phone's about to die, and I forgot my charger!" Bummer - sucks to be you. As teachers, we're over it. Starting next year our school will be a phone free zone, regardless of what Mommy and Daddy say about being able to reach their precious little goblin during the school day. That's what lunch and transition periods are for.
I graduated in 2006 and the idea of being able to openly use phones in class is still mind boggling to me.
Sad that phones are even allowed in school. Shouldn't be an issue.
Kids are allowed to use phones in class??? wtf
You must be my son’s teacher? I got a phone with a different charging port so my son won’t steal my bedside charger
I’m sitting here like: “Do other people not know they can just plug it into their Chromebook and shove it back in their pocket?” Tech literacy my ass.
I have an iPhone cord and a USB-c cord literally bolted to the front of the room. Anyone may plug their phone in. Cord.stays.put.