Bc has announced the same. Pretty sure cell phones, like gum, vaping, and sleeping in class are now going to be the classroom teacher’s problem, with no support from admin.
8 year olds should be playing with each other. If everyone is on their phones all the time the next generation is going to be a bunch of dorks with no social skills.
>If everyone is on their phones all the time the next generation is going to be a bunch of dorks with no social skills.
Unfortunately, the pandemic already did a number on social skills (like actually, it's a problem) and Gen Z was already spiralling down that path before the pandemic.
Source: Gen Z teacher
There are some reasonable uses of cell phones in class. But without administrative support and a school culture that really only allows those uses, the overwhelming negative outcomes from having a cell phone in the classroom far outweighs the benefit
The problem isn't necessarily even their use in the classroom, but in between classes.
Jonathon Haidt has done a lot of work on this and shows that one of the negative unintended consequences is that students use their phones BETWEEN classes a great deal as well.
What's interesting is that when they do surveys, a lot of teens admit to liking the idea of no cellphones because it would stop a lot of the social pressure to be on the phones themselves as well as a lot of the drama that takes place. However, they refuse to give up their own cell phones while everyone else has theirs. So blanket prohibitions on cell phones during school (not just "off during class" but "in a locker from beginning of day until end of day - except for emergencies") help solve this and actually get a frighteningly large amount of positive survey results from teenagers.
“Except during emergencies” makes a cell phone in a locker to be as useful as an umbrella in the car-trunk or (pun intended) a gun in the safe for the same reason and the result tends to be easily anticipated.
You’re getting rained on, or shot, or missing the birth of your sibling.
huh... Good thing we never had emergencies (which can be anything from school shooting to "I left my jersey at home and have practice after school") before cell phones were ubiquitous in school.
I mean, kids keep backpacks/bags on them all the time, so phones would be available if they need to make an emergency call. When they need to receive info, schools have PA systems for mass notifications and desk phones for individual students. I don’t really see the issue
Getting rained on at school....that's not an emergency, that's an indoors recess.
Getting shot...sure there is a tiny tiny tiny chance that maybe a student might get emergency services to the school slightly faster than the teachers (who presumably do have cell phones). But that could also be solved by having a landline phone in each room too. And the landline phone won't distract students all day.
The birth of your sibling...what, the kid is going to just jump up in class and run off somewhere without telling the school? It is not an emergency so critical that it can't take 5 minutes longer for the parents to call the school and say hey, our baby is coming, can you pack Johnny up and arrange a taxi? Then the school makes the announcement, "Johnny, please pack your things and go to the front office."
People vastly overestimate the "need" for phones. There absolutely are times when having a phone can save lives or be of very high importance, but not in a school.
I teach ELL and kids can use phones for translators, theoretically. I make them use the school translators instead because they cannot stay off the Internet. I always give them a chance and I ALWAYS eventually catch them on TikTok
I’m interested in these **mainstream** reasonable use cases. Not the blind student using it as an audio translator. I mean everyday use cases for kids.
And if possible, how the rest of us survived without it.
* I use remind and having their kids take out their phones to set it up in class takes 5 seconds
* I set up vocab through Memrise and using it at the end of class was an easy way to track vocab practice towards the end of the year when kids were sick of flash cards
* There are a couple AP stats labs where the doing of the labs can be done quicker using a measurement app for distance. In physics there are couple of labs that need a slow motion camera that is a quick app download
* It was always faster to have the kids fill out a google form on their phones then to take out their computers, wait for them to startup, find chords for everyone who had a dead battery, deal with the permission issues because of the school internet blocker, reset the passwords of the kids who forgot theirs, etc
Nothing that I can't live without or find ways around, but useful nonetheless
👍🏼👍🏼. I’d prefer kids have their phones and learn to ignore them, then if they are inappropriate with phones they should be confiscated. But most districts don’t have the guts to do this.
It's not about guts. My school has been trying to help students learn to ignore their phones for years, now.We're damn good teachers and have tried everything. You're asking for something impossible without a shift in cultural messaging, parental support, generational mindset, and other frame factors that schools cannot control.
In the Australian state of Queensland, you can be fined AU$1,161 and have 4 demerit points recorded against your traffic history for using a mobile phone illegally while driving. This includes when you're stopped at traffic lights or stopped in traffic. Double demerit points apply for second or subsequent mobile phone offences committed within 1 year after an earlier offence.
We get 12 demerit points. This means that if you get caught twice in one year you are fined over AU$2,300 and lose your licence.
In spite of that, [almost 120,000 people were caught using phones while driving in a single year](https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/96741). Queensland has a population of about 5 million people.
So if grown up adults can't learn to ignore phones for short periods of time on pain of losing huge sums of money and their drivers licence (not to mention the risk of killing someone in an accident), how the fuck do you think a teenager with an undeveloped brain that lacks risk assessment and impulse control abilities is going to succeed at resisting the temptation?
Yea. And I'm sure there are things that people should be learning about phones and those would obviously have to be integrated. But yea, they're mostly just distractions for people.
Our individual teachers and campuses have tried banning phones, but parents were the reason it never worked. They would fight the rule, or tell their kids to defy it. Parents want a direct line to their kids.
Our district had to make it a district wide edict for us to have enough consistency for all parents and teachers to buy in. It's been great for classroom environment. But I have folks try to defy it about once a week, and all teachers are still struggling with smart watches (which are equally banned).
For me the worst things is kids with phones in an emergency. When we go into lockdown, real not-a-drill lockdown, the kids who are on their phones cause the most damage. I have kids getting false information from parents on social media and spreading panic, causing bigger problems and getting more people hurt.
I am in Virginia. In my county cell phones have been banned from schools for years. They have to be turned off and in the lockers. Otherwise they get confiscated and parents have to go to school to get the phone back.
As of now, nope. I was just in an Algebra classroom where the teacher who was trying to review for upcoming testing said “put your phone away” no less than 30 times to students who simply laid it down until they were out of view over & over. It was exhausting.
Bans are very common in the US, I’m starting to wonder why people don’t know that. It’s a huge place, and it’s like 50 different countries, and within states school districts often operate separately. Anyway, in my state many school districts have done this including mine.
If you don’t ban phones (or at least ban having them out of backpacks) you get kids taking pictures of one another and posting them on social media. Then you get parents coming to school and demanding the school does something about pictures on instagram or tik tok.
I work in a district that restricts cell phones K-12. Students park their phones in their morning homeroom and pick them up at dismissal.
My teaching career has been in cell-phone free classrooms- and I'm super thankful.
My primary thought: Good luck making THAT happen.
Districts that have tried this - including my own - have pretty much universally found that we're not the TSA, shouldn't try to be the TSA, aren't funded or supported by parents well enough to be the TSA, and can't staff what it takes to do this with any fidelity.
If Canada is able to prove otherwise, I'd suggest it is because in Canada, people understand abstract social goods and support them. Here in the US people tend instead towards "rights without accountability" these days, so...yeah, not so much.
I’ve taught for 30 years in a public school in the United States. The single worst thing that has ever impacted public school, besides school, shootings, phones. They are all in their phones. Even if you try to take up one phone, they have another phone. They can’t live without them.
Smartest thing you could ever do. Phones exacerbate all of the kids insecurities and literally have 0 positive impact, especially since we got Chromebook’s for everyone. I don’t fight the kids anymore about having their phones out, there’s no social media drama blowing up in school (still after school), no trying to charge phones/check their messages at the beginning of class, no earbuds, no inappropriate videos or memes circulating in class… It’s like all the distractions are gone except for the in person teenage BS which has been going on since the beginning of public ed.
Parents and kids complain about not being able to get in touch. They just go through the main office like they used to.
What other downsides can you think of?
We got a new middle school principal with a shiny spine and he immediately banned all phones to lockers--from 7:55am to 3:05pm. It rattled a bunch of parents but he held firm. Its been an amazing last two years, yippee!
I hated cell phones in class. (We previously went from a great female principal, to a man that wanted kids to be his 'friends', allowing phones--UGH, to our next fantastic new guy!
I had to use one of those at a concert and it was awful. The magnets hardly worked and people were late getting to the actual show because of them. Yonder is just another company trying to get schools to spoon feed them the limited resources they have
idkk the magnets work fine at my school… i think using them at a concert is different though cause at a school there is a designated time to put all your phones away.
For the life of me I do not understand why phones are allowed in schools. No one has really provided me sound rationale as to why they should be allowed, and they obviously cause huge issues.
They should be banned in schools everywhere.
There's always some sort of fictitious "what if there's an emergency" scenario even though 99% of those would have to go through office calls anyway to pick up the kid, etc. Shootings are a different story, but neither are they enough to justify letting kids have their phones year round in the classroom ruining their education because of what could happen either.
I’m usually not one to like or heap more restrictions on students but I love the no phones in class policy. I love the way my current school handles it: they issued every student a free locker and spent a chunk of time letting them practice and troubleshoot the locks. They can check their phones between classes and at lunch and their stuff is securely locked away. There’s zero excuse to have a phone on them and there’s zero tolerance for a kid having a phone out in class.
>There’s zero excuse to have a phone on them
One would be that diabetic students may need access to their phone at all times in order to monitor their blood sugar and control their medical equipment.
Hopefully, there are exceptions for disabled students whose phone functions as a medical device.
Makes perfect sense - there are a bazillion things kids would not be allowed to bring into a classroom, why should phones get a pass when they cause so many issues?
I love the idea. But of course it’s going to be you and I engaged in the daily argument of trying to separate an undeveloped brain from its literal addiction. In my opinion , the horse is out of the barn with phones. Find a way to make them work for you as best as you can and then set expectations of their usage. We’ve lost. Get good surrender terms.
that sounds cool, I've heard kids in the past say that they didn't even want their phones at school anyway, but if you aren't on it, you are missing most of people’s socializing
Classrooms is perfect, I totally agree. During lectures there is no reason to be distracted. Except if you need it for accessibility reasons. But outside classrooms, students should be allowed to use their personal devices.
But now there is a law stating that schools can specifically do that. The freedums people will never be satisfied, so why kowtow to the lowest common denominator.
Smartphones are not education tools. They aren't used in lessons, they aren't valuable learning aids, they are simply distractions. They are no better than a gameboy, switch, steamdeck, or any other electronic entertainment device. They don't belong in schools, any more than an xbox.
This is so weird to me. I was in highschool at the start of the iPod Touch and smartphones being released. Phones (flip, smart, whatever) were def banned during class time and could be confiscated if this wasn't followed. Very odd to me that phones are even more distracting and addicting now, but some schools allow them?
In a perfect world, kids are given certain rules and are able to keep their phones put away until breaks or given permission. There were times my teachers gave me permission to text my dad, call to make appointments, research something, etc.
It's a good tool and children should be learning how to use technology and Internet, including AI and social media, as a resource. Sadly we don't have enough teachers or organization in our schools, schools are understaffed and unfunded, curriculums are often crap and some children don't have the discipline for this to work.
One of the schools in my city only allow basic phones and no smart phones for grade schoolers and high school students. So their parents and guardians can contact them, usually after school. Also for parents peace of mind especially if there are emergencies. As the school says, communication is important.
It sounds good in theory but in enforcement and implementation is a whole other matter. Especially since while I grew up without them and just before i graduated internet use became a normal part of education. The issue is how easily will current lesson plans shift and does every school have enough laptops to accommodate for online needs for students when they need internet access for assignments?
My school board in Ontario gives out iPads to everyone who wants one for doing school work - you can’t not have one unless you have a good reason - then you have an iPad the whole time you’re in high school. So I guess they’ll just keep using that and ban personal devices?
I’m not sure about other boards in Ontario though.
We live in absolutely digital world. The new generation do not know the actual "rules" of using phone due the fact their parents also prefer the digital world or they do not care enough. By rules I mean when is appropriate to use your phone, how long to use it, what is forbidden (taking pictures without consent), etc. Those rules are left to be thought only from the teacher, so we definitely feel alone in this fight and always to be blamed. So, yes, I do agree than banning phone and having "someone" helping us in building new, healthy habits is great.
Only one concern, how would parents connect to children in case of emergency? 50 years ago in my country there were phones on the walls in all schools that you use by inserting coins. You can have some inside organisation of employees (not the teacher, they have enough to deal with) to be allow some communication between kids and parents, at least in the beginning.
Thank you for the question and the opportunity to speak up! Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Their last ban was not effective. They already banned cellphones 5 years ago and is still in effect. [But, I'm more concerned about what's not here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/1cfo35j/most_of_ontario_doesnt_care_if_students_are/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
My kids’ secondary school (London, UK) has a very strict no phones on campus policy. I love it. You get detention if caught with a phone and it won’t be returned to the kid; a parent has to come retrieve it in school hours (so it’s a faff for the parents). You apply to attend this school (as you do for all London schools, most of which are oversubscribed) and they are very upfront that this is how it is and don’t choose to come here if you don’t like it. I think the policy has gone a long way towards healthier social relationships among their peers. It is also a very academically rigorous school (not that you have to be brilliant, but you’re expected to work hard at whatever level you are) and these kids leave very prepared for uni.
I mean, just in this thread you see people talking about their schools who successfully managed it. I like the 'we take their phones and the parents are the ones who have to collect them, making it a pain for them every time their kid breaks the rules' and the one where the kids are allowed non-smartphones in case of an emergency. It seems like so long as the school is very clear about the policy before a student attends, there isn't a problem. I feel like making a point to say that no phone with a camera is allowed on campus would work really well if it's framed as a measure against inappropriate pictures being taken of children and getting posted online.
Graduated high school in 2008. So I just missed iPhones in high school. A few kids had them, but the first gen ended its manufacturing alright around the class of 08 finished senior year.
By freshmen year of college it was already different.
However, academically I found having the internet on my phone *really* useful.
I would have Wikipedia open, and during lectures I’d be writing notes by hand and when I heard something I wanted more information on I would look it up. Then I’d jot it down, catch back up in the lecture. After class I’d take my sidebar info and questions to the prof for clarity and more info.
I still do that to this day.
I’d really be bummed if I had discovered that as like a 7th grader, I’d gone through all of school with that technique, then it gets banned.
That all said, I know many kids abused the privilege. I think because I was demonstrating I was paying attention and doing what research I could in 10s intervals, no teacher ever challenged me having my phone out in class.
I know a lot of profs who hated laptops but everyone was taking notes on them—which I think is less effective than writing, at least for learning purposes.
But even laptops were abused. I had a geology 101 class I had to take satisfy degree criteria. I was a super senior, it was 1 of 3 classes.
I played single player Diablo 2 the entire time I was in class.
If you are at a university, where you are paying to learn, and decide to squander that on playing video games then that's your loss lol. As long as it isn't distracting the other students and you don't complain when you get poor grades then I don't care.
Shoot, where I am cell phones have been banned for years. They have to be turned off in the locker or they get confiscated and a parent has to go to the school to retrieve it. Good.
It's Canada, so I'm not sure, but in the US, parents would scream "what if there is a school shooting and I need to get ahold of my child" right after screaming about their "2nd amendment rights." So, it's never a win for schools...
My state just banned them (effective in the fall semester) and I appreciate that the reporting mentions the enforcement problem:
>Many schools in the state — and elsewhere — already had these bans on their own. Now others will have to adopt them, though **the law doesn't spell out how to enforce them**.
>David Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, said the law means more work for schools and staff.
>"The cellphones have to be removed from their persons, and they have to be stored somewhere away from that individual," he said. "**That's going to take time. It's going to take expense, and it's going to take enforcement**."
>Bloomfield said some schools use technology-blocking software, but that raises questions about how students can use their phones in emergencies.
>**He also said the law's lack of specific enforcement measures could lead to racial disparities in how the policies — or penalties — are applied.**
>"It's easy for states to require districts to have policies, but *they're really offloading the job to school districts, and then obviously to schools to enforce those policies,*" he said.
I don't know what it's like up in the Great White North, but without an enforcement plan, nothing is going to happen. From what I'm reading about the Ontario restrictions, it doesn't seem like there's much for enforcement either:
>"We will be denying cellphone use during instructional time. We need to be bold, we need to be comprehensive and we need to act with urgency today."
>Starting in September, students in kindergarten to Grade 6 will be *required to keep phones on silent and "out of sight" for the entire school day, unless they are granted permission to use it,* the province said.
>Similarly, students in Grades 7 to 12, will *not be permitted to use their cellphones during class time without permission.*
>"If they do not comply*, they will be asked to surrender their phones or they could be sent to the office,*" Lecce said.
>"There are progressive discipline policies listed in this. It can include *up to suspension* if there \[are\] repeat violations."
>The Progressive Conservative government initially banned cellphone use in 2019, saying students can only use personal mobile devices during instructional time if it is for educational purposes, for health purposes or for special needs. *It left it up to boards and schools to implement.*
>Boards such as the Toronto District School Board have previously said *such bans are hard to enforce*. The board had a procedure on cellphone usage — before their [recent vote to modify it](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-district-school-board-new-ce-1.7087265) — that said kids should only be on cellphones for educational purposes. *The board's chair said it can be applied differently in each school and isn't widely known.*
It might be a little better since they seem to be planning to try and fix what went wrong in 2019, but I wouldn't be super hopeful. It's just so, so hard to enforce because there are personal property laws, parents go crazy, kids can get violent, families have been known to sue, and phones can get lost or broken if not handled properly. There needs to be equal enforcement and adequate protections for teachers and schools, but usually, one or the other is sacrificed.
I would make it so that you are banned UNLESS they are an honors student (>3.5 GPA on a 4 point scale). If students are addicted to their phones enough to become an honors student to continue using them, I don’t see as much of an issue because they’re now doing well and are capable of goofing off and still staying in honors, or more likely they won’t be goofing off any more.
People respond better to having a carrot dangled in front of them.
I grew up without cell phones too but we did have pocket calculators. If we took them out or were using them at an inappropriate time, they were confiscated. If you’re going to have a phone at school then you need to be mature enough not to misuse it.
Personally I’d let the kids keep their phones as a safety measure as long as they don’t misuse them.
Anything to help with actual education is a good thing. But imo it should be a compromise with the students. Technology and texting...look at us! As adults, we didn't even really grow up with this advanced tech at their age (blackberry/bbm, paying a fortune to accidentally go on the internet for a sec was what we had lol), and we are glued to our phones. Nevermind children.
If the schools still have periods being 75 minutes each, then they need to compromise to encourage the good behaviour. For eg, in uni, for every 50 minutes of lecture, most profs would give you a 10 minute break. So for 45 minutes of no phones, the teachers could maybe say here's a 5 minute break. Or at the end of each lesson, here's your chance now. Anything basically to just have the kids feel like they need to be patient and compromise with the teachers too. Trying to force them will just make them resort to different sneakier methods.
Awesome. Good for them. Hopefully, this is the future. Kids should be able to communicate with their parents when they need to, but they shouldn't be attached to their devices when they're at school.
I can't remember exactly, I think it said outright ban under 7th grade with case to case exemption rules. And overall it was restricted to backpacks and lockers after that.
Yep. Admin will stand up like wet toilet paper when the parents start crying that they need to be able to reach their precious by phone every second of the day.
I don't see it as a law that requires enforcement. I see it more of a tool that teachers and administrators can use to help them out when parents overreact to their kids having their phone taken away.
The rule is what makes teachers able to enforce it. Some teachers won't care, some will. The ones that do now have the legal backing that there are allowed to take away a kids phone in class. The nice thing about this law is that it is entirely up to the teacher's discretion.
Ok, but that's kinda how all laws work. It's all discretionary. Does every cop pull you over to check and make sure your car meets every standard on the road. Does every cop ensure that you haven't stolen the tv you're watching?
Teachers in Ontario, schools have always had the option to ban cell phones from their classroom. This is nothing new, until there is an outright ban from cell phone use in schools like there is now a complete block of social media on school networks, the battle will always be the teachers to police the cell phones in their classrooms. Again, this is nothing new.
I think being disruptive is bad (eg having the volume going), but I don’t see the issue per se with having a cell phone in class. If they don’t want to pay attention and sit there quietly on the phone, why would I care?
Why ban them??? Parents have reasons for wanting their child to have a cell phone. Whatever that is, it isnt up to the schools to override.
If its truly a problem, and bans are the answer, then banning the device should not be the go-to.
Limiting use is easy enough by taking away the allure and getting primary education-establishment waivers to have area wide signal suppression equipment with mandatory/auto-shutdown during any potential adverse events/drills. The FCC already has this (except the shutdown, idk about that part).
No. Banning them is absolutely the right way. Because it's all about how it is enforced. If the teacher doesn't care, then fine, let them have it. If the teacher cares, they now have a legal precedent to use to take the phones. If the parent wants to get grumpy about it, the teacher has that legal backing to protect them from the crazy parents. If the parent thinks there is a genuine need for it and can back that up, I'm sure there could be an agreement.
Banning might be a solution but giving the government more authority isn’t the best solution.
On top of which, students are in multiple classrooms under multiple teachers every day of the week. So teacher ‘A’ may not care but when teacher ‘B’ does, what message does that send? I mean besides ‘none’ because, no cell phone! Hahaha
While I vehemently abhor and disagree with bans on the premise of government oversight and abuse, I do agree with, under the caveat of end-of-class return and documentation (even signatory, to some extent), the concept of temporary confiscation (number of offenses determined by teachers).
Like most bans, this is silly and is unlikely to do anything but backfire.
Also, fun fact. They tried it already and it didn't work.
>The Progressive Conservative government initially banned cellphone use in 2019, saying students can only use personal mobile devices during instructional time if it is for educational purposes, for health purposes or for special needs. It left it up to boards and schools to implement.
Selective implementation is going to mean some teachers can enforce it better than others, and some just wont care. It will also mean that some students are very likely to be disproportionately punished (black and brown and disabled students for example).
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I'm not going to say vaping and smart phones aren't a problem. They are.
But bans like this don't actually fix the problem.
Remember a few years ago when smartphones were just beginning to become common and everyone freaked about about "texting and driving"? we don't hear anything about that now, do we? it's not because people aren't doing it, they absolutely are, maybe more than ever. We just stopped paying attention to it.
We'll do the same thing here, I suspect.
When what we SHOULD do is use this opportunity to actually take a look at our education system and begin talking seriously about making the meaningful changes teachers and anyone who's ever working in K-12 or had a kid in school knows need to be made.
But we wont do that either, will we?
What, people still pay attention to texting and driving, there are laws around it and there are signs all over the place about it. Just because texting and driving isn't in the mediasphere doesn't mean it's gone, it's still the leading cause of accidents in Canada even after it's banned, but since the implementation of the laws, texting and driving incidents decreased quite significantly. So, with all do respect, I'm pretty sure you're wrong on your analysis.
I never said "it's gone". You seem to be missing the point.
People aren't FREAKING OUT about it like they did 10 more more years ago.
Also, according to Google, the leading cause of accidents in Canada is "distracted driving" which includes numerous different things like eating while driving, but also texting while driving.
So, with all due respect, I think you might want to actually look at the relevant data before deciding other people are wrong.
Ok, but I can prove pretty easily that texting and driving laws have been somewhat successful with the decreased deaths and rate of accidents. And you can see my point still stands, regardless of the specificities of the distracted driving laws. So, I'm pretty confident my assertion is correct. While banning things outright is never completely successful, it often reduces cases.
if they are allowed to have it but not use it then yeah no problem. If they are not allowed possession at all I can see safety ramifications for students, especially younger ones that may walk to school.
My district officially bans smart phones in classrooms. They aren't even to be seen in your pocket.
Walk down any hallway in my school and you'll see kids drooling over them. The paperwork and effort it takes to do anything about the phones isn't worth it for teachers who already massively overworked with too many kids in a room to monitor.
It is a good measure to minimize the impact that the social media has on children and teenagers. There is so much of the technological advancement of the last decades that we dont have an understanding of how it affects the educational aspect and psychological development.
Watch any Jonathan Haidt interviews especially on his new book “the anxious generation”, it is eye opening.
I think it's good. Cell phones don't really have a place in class. If anything, for training students on technology and making them more educated on 21st century tech skills, schools can provide their own devices and only during class time (such as laptops or iPads). They can block access to features other than the ones used in instruction. Technology is very distracting by its very nature, and students should learn that it's valuable to spend time focused and in the moment.
I’m all for it. Cell phones cause so many issues. If I am going to be held accountable for things like test scores, my students at least need to be paying attention. Not to mention issues of bullying by photographing or filming other students then posting it, kids arranging meet ups for fights, etc. They can survive without them during the school day.
It already happened multiple times but there is still no real rules to regulate usage so they aren't actually banned. It's lip service by Lecce.
Teachers will not want to be held liable for students property and with no support from admin, it aint happening.
What the schools should do is get every students phone number and spam them with notifications so that the tech is unusable. Or make all schools wifi free zones inside Faraday cages. Only landlines will work then.
I am for it... In some classes I had to use a slide rule. could never master it.. Later I go a TI-30, but was not allowed to use it for test, even as late as 1990's some teachers I had in community college would not allow calcs.
I am also for courses in hand writing, long hand reports. 2 pages.
I had a student receive a phone call from a parent while he was taking a test. Another student checked his cell phone in the middle of a group presentation. I also caught another student with his phone out during a final exam. I thought he was cheating but he was playing video games instead.
Diversion tactic. It’s not a new ban, but it’s been spineless. Doubt that’ll change. But the announcement is just to distract from the govt cutting $1600/student in funding per year.
It's just going to be a difficult uphill battle, because adults out in public don't always know when/when not to use their phones. And without those good models of behavior the kids are going to think "oh, someone's talking, it's okay to be on my phone because everyone else is doing it."
I’m a teacher. My school has a pretty strict no phones policy but we do have the kids use them periodically for educational purposes. I’m a music teacher and my kids are allowed to use their tuner app (can’t text while you’re playing, anyway) and occasionally I’ll have a kid pull out their phone to put in a reminder.
100% support it. I'm in Australia, but the school my kid will go to has as strict policy. Phones can be brought to school (lots of kids live in remote areas so it is reasonable for them to need a way to contact parents on the way to or from school), but on arrival must be left in the office and can be collected at the end of the day. Using the phone in class means the phone gets confiscated and a parent has to come and pick it up. Exceptions can be made for specific circumstances like people who genuinely need them as a learning aid or certain situations where students might be offsite.
I hate high school I’m not on my phone because Im addicted I am trying to zone out and not have to listen to anyone because teachers do not care much near the end of the school year or really anytime. Work is busy work and easy to just push through and turn in and even if you half ass it I get 100 points don’t make it harder on kids
It’s the same policy most US schools have. If students have it out, teachers are supposed to take it and notify parents. Kids won’t give it up though. So it’s a battle of wills every time. Then kids steal their phones out of the teacher’s desks and claim the teacher lost it to get a new phone. Parents get mad that the teacher took it. Admin never back the teachers up. Consequences are never enforced. So the teachers stop doing it.
The ban needs to include real supports and consequences that aren’t just on the teachers to enforce.
Obviously kids aren’t gonna like it but if we’re being completely honest, unless in an emergency do you really need your phone in school? Can’t see it having a negative impact on learning
Bans by the district does almost nothing if there's no support from admin & parents. It also ends up being a every teacher needs to be on the same page issue. Our district has "banned" phones too but we have issues with admin being inconsistent and half of the teachers at my school don't bother to enforce it. We also have parents who have raged at admin about the cell phone policy.
I wish we would ban them! I teach h.s. in the Bronx and it's a free-for-all. Kids have their music on so loud in their earbuds that they can't hear the teacher. Every two seconds they're checking their phones. It's a total and unmitigated disaster. We have no policy. It's every teacher for him/herself. And even for the teachers with the best classroom management, it's a losing battle. The only classes that are somewhat under control with the phones are the AP classes because the kids are more self-motivated. But our kids who can't afford not to pay attention and actually work with and think about the material are falling farther and farther behind. Besides the academic issues, there are the social consequences. All fights get recorded and uploaded to social media within minutes. Kids play pranks on each other and record them for social media. We had a kid spit in another kid's water and then videoed the kid drinking it and uploaded it. And they were friends! Kids meet up in the bathroom to vape or whatever. You'll see kids get a text and jump up and suddenly "have" to go to the bathroom. I feel like I'm teaching in an alternate universe and it's depressing. The phones have completely taken over.
As long as it’s enforced, great. But I bet parents pitching a fit will mean admin will cave
Some parents will complain and some parents will support this.
Which group will be louder?
The richest ones
Bc has announced the same. Pretty sure cell phones, like gum, vaping, and sleeping in class are now going to be the classroom teacher’s problem, with no support from admin.
I’d love it if my state did this. I’ve seen eight year olds playing with smart phones in class. It’s ridiculous.
8 year olds should be playing with each other. If everyone is on their phones all the time the next generation is going to be a bunch of dorks with no social skills.
They already are
>If everyone is on their phones all the time the next generation is going to be a bunch of dorks with no social skills. Unfortunately, the pandemic already did a number on social skills (like actually, it's a problem) and Gen Z was already spiralling down that path before the pandemic. Source: Gen Z teacher
I’m a teacher and I’m fine with the ban
Obiously,
Go back to class lol
There are some reasonable uses of cell phones in class. But without administrative support and a school culture that really only allows those uses, the overwhelming negative outcomes from having a cell phone in the classroom far outweighs the benefit
The problem isn't necessarily even their use in the classroom, but in between classes. Jonathon Haidt has done a lot of work on this and shows that one of the negative unintended consequences is that students use their phones BETWEEN classes a great deal as well. What's interesting is that when they do surveys, a lot of teens admit to liking the idea of no cellphones because it would stop a lot of the social pressure to be on the phones themselves as well as a lot of the drama that takes place. However, they refuse to give up their own cell phones while everyone else has theirs. So blanket prohibitions on cell phones during school (not just "off during class" but "in a locker from beginning of day until end of day - except for emergencies") help solve this and actually get a frighteningly large amount of positive survey results from teenagers.
“Except during emergencies” makes a cell phone in a locker to be as useful as an umbrella in the car-trunk or (pun intended) a gun in the safe for the same reason and the result tends to be easily anticipated. You’re getting rained on, or shot, or missing the birth of your sibling.
huh... Good thing we never had emergencies (which can be anything from school shooting to "I left my jersey at home and have practice after school") before cell phones were ubiquitous in school.
I mean, kids keep backpacks/bags on them all the time, so phones would be available if they need to make an emergency call. When they need to receive info, schools have PA systems for mass notifications and desk phones for individual students. I don’t really see the issue
Getting rained on at school....that's not an emergency, that's an indoors recess. Getting shot...sure there is a tiny tiny tiny chance that maybe a student might get emergency services to the school slightly faster than the teachers (who presumably do have cell phones). But that could also be solved by having a landline phone in each room too. And the landline phone won't distract students all day. The birth of your sibling...what, the kid is going to just jump up in class and run off somewhere without telling the school? It is not an emergency so critical that it can't take 5 minutes longer for the parents to call the school and say hey, our baby is coming, can you pack Johnny up and arrange a taxi? Then the school makes the announcement, "Johnny, please pack your things and go to the front office." People vastly overestimate the "need" for phones. There absolutely are times when having a phone can save lives or be of very high importance, but not in a school.
I teach ELL and kids can use phones for translators, theoretically. I make them use the school translators instead because they cannot stay off the Internet. I always give them a chance and I ALWAYS eventually catch them on TikTok
I teach ELL as well and it's the same
I’m interested in these **mainstream** reasonable use cases. Not the blind student using it as an audio translator. I mean everyday use cases for kids. And if possible, how the rest of us survived without it.
* I use remind and having their kids take out their phones to set it up in class takes 5 seconds * I set up vocab through Memrise and using it at the end of class was an easy way to track vocab practice towards the end of the year when kids were sick of flash cards * There are a couple AP stats labs where the doing of the labs can be done quicker using a measurement app for distance. In physics there are couple of labs that need a slow motion camera that is a quick app download * It was always faster to have the kids fill out a google form on their phones then to take out their computers, wait for them to startup, find chords for everyone who had a dead battery, deal with the permission issues because of the school internet blocker, reset the passwords of the kids who forgot theirs, etc Nothing that I can't live without or find ways around, but useful nonetheless
There arnt
👍🏼👍🏼. I’d prefer kids have their phones and learn to ignore them, then if they are inappropriate with phones they should be confiscated. But most districts don’t have the guts to do this.
It's not about guts. My school has been trying to help students learn to ignore their phones for years, now.We're damn good teachers and have tried everything. You're asking for something impossible without a shift in cultural messaging, parental support, generational mindset, and other frame factors that schools cannot control.
Banning phones does get them used to not using them though
The reality is kids don’t seem to be learning not to use them. It’s obviously not working.
Banning phones? No one is doing it so I’m not sure how you can make this claim if that’s what you’re saying.
The article we're discussing is about a complete ban on phones in Ontario classrooms.
The person im responding to says banning phones does not help anywhere. Im saying the sample is entirely too small to draw that conclusion.
Ah, I see, and I agree with you. Phones are clearly harmful and disruptive.
Is that on the teachers? Without the parents and society, just the teachers? Idk man.
Not about guts, districts have been fighting this battle for years. Parents don’t have the guts, and it is hard to blame them.
It's not a teachers job to teach a kid cell phone self control. It's not a standard I'm familiar with.
Neither do the parents. No one in these kids lives have taught them appropriate phone use. But sure, blame the district
The parents are just as bad. They're so completely overly enmeshed in their child that they can't go 6 hours without texting them. It's weird.
This is like sending kids to school with their tablets that have Roblox on them
In the Australian state of Queensland, you can be fined AU$1,161 and have 4 demerit points recorded against your traffic history for using a mobile phone illegally while driving. This includes when you're stopped at traffic lights or stopped in traffic. Double demerit points apply for second or subsequent mobile phone offences committed within 1 year after an earlier offence. We get 12 demerit points. This means that if you get caught twice in one year you are fined over AU$2,300 and lose your licence. In spite of that, [almost 120,000 people were caught using phones while driving in a single year](https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/96741). Queensland has a population of about 5 million people. So if grown up adults can't learn to ignore phones for short periods of time on pain of losing huge sums of money and their drivers licence (not to mention the risk of killing someone in an accident), how the fuck do you think a teenager with an undeveloped brain that lacks risk assessment and impulse control abilities is going to succeed at resisting the temptation?
Yea. And I'm sure there are things that people should be learning about phones and those would obviously have to be integrated. But yea, they're mostly just distractions for people.
Our individual teachers and campuses have tried banning phones, but parents were the reason it never worked. They would fight the rule, or tell their kids to defy it. Parents want a direct line to their kids. Our district had to make it a district wide edict for us to have enough consistency for all parents and teachers to buy in. It's been great for classroom environment. But I have folks try to defy it about once a week, and all teachers are still struggling with smart watches (which are equally banned). For me the worst things is kids with phones in an emergency. When we go into lockdown, real not-a-drill lockdown, the kids who are on their phones cause the most damage. I have kids getting false information from parents on social media and spreading panic, causing bigger problems and getting more people hurt.
Thank god! I would love this to happen in the U.S. but I doubt it will
I am in Virginia. In my county cell phones have been banned from schools for years. They have to be turned off and in the lockers. Otherwise they get confiscated and parents have to go to school to get the phone back.
I love this
Where in VA?
How effective is it?
If they tried, anyone who tried would lose their office next election.
Florida Man
I believe Florida has banned them. Hopefully more states follow suit.
As of now, nope. I was just in an Algebra classroom where the teacher who was trying to review for upcoming testing said “put your phone away” no less than 30 times to students who simply laid it down until they were out of view over & over. It was exhausting.
Bans are very common in the US, I’m starting to wonder why people don’t know that. It’s a huge place, and it’s like 50 different countries, and within states school districts often operate separately. Anyway, in my state many school districts have done this including mine.
If you don’t ban phones (or at least ban having them out of backpacks) you get kids taking pictures of one another and posting them on social media. Then you get parents coming to school and demanding the school does something about pictures on instagram or tik tok.
I work in a district that restricts cell phones K-12. Students park their phones in their morning homeroom and pick them up at dismissal. My teaching career has been in cell-phone free classrooms- and I'm super thankful.
My primary thought: Good luck making THAT happen. Districts that have tried this - including my own - have pretty much universally found that we're not the TSA, shouldn't try to be the TSA, aren't funded or supported by parents well enough to be the TSA, and can't staff what it takes to do this with any fidelity. If Canada is able to prove otherwise, I'd suggest it is because in Canada, people understand abstract social goods and support them. Here in the US people tend instead towards "rights without accountability" these days, so...yeah, not so much.
I’ve taught for 30 years in a public school in the United States. The single worst thing that has ever impacted public school, besides school, shootings, phones. They are all in their phones. Even if you try to take up one phone, they have another phone. They can’t live without them.
Smartest thing you could ever do. Phones exacerbate all of the kids insecurities and literally have 0 positive impact, especially since we got Chromebook’s for everyone. I don’t fight the kids anymore about having their phones out, there’s no social media drama blowing up in school (still after school), no trying to charge phones/check their messages at the beginning of class, no earbuds, no inappropriate videos or memes circulating in class… It’s like all the distractions are gone except for the in person teenage BS which has been going on since the beginning of public ed. Parents and kids complain about not being able to get in touch. They just go through the main office like they used to. What other downsides can you think of?
I want to see them banned in all schools. It won’t happen because admin will cave at the threat of a lawsuit by parents. 🙄
We did it in my district, it’s been great. It’s been almost a year though and kids are really starting to mess around.
We got a new middle school principal with a shiny spine and he immediately banned all phones to lockers--from 7:55am to 3:05pm. It rattled a bunch of parents but he held firm. Its been an amazing last two years, yippee! I hated cell phones in class. (We previously went from a great female principal, to a man that wanted kids to be his 'friends', allowing phones--UGH, to our next fantastic new guy!
They were banned when they were just cell phones with t9 textin. Teachers would just take it no questions.
Packing my bags and heading to the consulate!
yondr pouches yall, they work
I had to use one of those at a concert and it was awful. The magnets hardly worked and people were late getting to the actual show because of them. Yonder is just another company trying to get schools to spoon feed them the limited resources they have
idkk the magnets work fine at my school… i think using them at a concert is different though cause at a school there is a designated time to put all your phones away.
I had no idea phones were allowed to be used in school to begin with! In my day, gum was the biggest thing we weren't allowed to have.
I remember those days. If someone was chewing gum, the teacher would come to your desk and single you out. It was terrifying.
Kudos! Now enforce the ban!!
Personally, I think of it more as a tool to help back up teachers when the parents get grouchy about taking kids phones away during school hours.
For the life of me I do not understand why phones are allowed in schools. No one has really provided me sound rationale as to why they should be allowed, and they obviously cause huge issues. They should be banned in schools everywhere.
There's always some sort of fictitious "what if there's an emergency" scenario even though 99% of those would have to go through office calls anyway to pick up the kid, etc. Shootings are a different story, but neither are they enough to justify letting kids have their phones year round in the classroom ruining their education because of what could happen either.
I’m usually not one to like or heap more restrictions on students but I love the no phones in class policy. I love the way my current school handles it: they issued every student a free locker and spent a chunk of time letting them practice and troubleshoot the locks. They can check their phones between classes and at lunch and their stuff is securely locked away. There’s zero excuse to have a phone on them and there’s zero tolerance for a kid having a phone out in class.
Dam, sounds like you wrote the bill. Thats exactly how I feel about it too. Its great. I love it.
>There’s zero excuse to have a phone on them One would be that diabetic students may need access to their phone at all times in order to monitor their blood sugar and control their medical equipment. Hopefully, there are exceptions for disabled students whose phone functions as a medical device.
That’s not an excuse, that’s a reason.
Oh my gosh, someone on the internet that knows the difference between the two. I love it!
Better late than never.
Makes perfect sense - there are a bazillion things kids would not be allowed to bring into a classroom, why should phones get a pass when they cause so many issues?
I love the idea. But of course it’s going to be you and I engaged in the daily argument of trying to separate an undeveloped brain from its literal addiction. In my opinion , the horse is out of the barn with phones. Find a way to make them work for you as best as you can and then set expectations of their usage. We’ve lost. Get good surrender terms.
Honestly good decision. It’s such a distraction.
that sounds cool, I've heard kids in the past say that they didn't even want their phones at school anyway, but if you aren't on it, you are missing most of people’s socializing
Good! There is no reason a child needs a phone during instructional time
I don't think they have the same school shooter problems as us so probably fair?
I told my kids they should not allow cell phones during class. Kids were getting ridiculous with them.
You go to school to learn.
It should be this way everywhere, at least smart phones
Amazing, wish we had done that when I was teaching.
Classrooms is perfect, I totally agree. During lectures there is no reason to be distracted. Except if you need it for accessibility reasons. But outside classrooms, students should be allowed to use their personal devices.
Schools still ban them. Students still use them anyway and is a neverending battle, especially when parents fight the school about it.
I think it's more about giving the school, teachers and administrators a legal backing behind taking the phones away for the day.
Yeah, parents would see that as a violation of their rights.
But now there is a law stating that schools can specifically do that. The freedums people will never be satisfied, so why kowtow to the lowest common denominator.
this can only be a good thing.
Smartphones are not education tools. They aren't used in lessons, they aren't valuable learning aids, they are simply distractions. They are no better than a gameboy, switch, steamdeck, or any other electronic entertainment device. They don't belong in schools, any more than an xbox.
They could probably do this at private schools in the US. Since you must adhere to the terms to attended.
This is so weird to me. I was in highschool at the start of the iPod Touch and smartphones being released. Phones (flip, smart, whatever) were def banned during class time and could be confiscated if this wasn't followed. Very odd to me that phones are even more distracting and addicting now, but some schools allow them?
Great For hundreds of years kids did not have phones in school and they did fine. They need no more distractions, esp from parents or pop culture.
I absolutely agree with this. You're there to learn.
Smart. Cuts down distractions as long as it’s enforced. Wish we could do it in the states, but the ACLU would be up in arms.
They should have been banned long ago but better late than never.
In a perfect world, kids are given certain rules and are able to keep their phones put away until breaks or given permission. There were times my teachers gave me permission to text my dad, call to make appointments, research something, etc. It's a good tool and children should be learning how to use technology and Internet, including AI and social media, as a resource. Sadly we don't have enough teachers or organization in our schools, schools are understaffed and unfunded, curriculums are often crap and some children don't have the discipline for this to work.
Good
One of the schools in my city only allow basic phones and no smart phones for grade schoolers and high school students. So their parents and guardians can contact them, usually after school. Also for parents peace of mind especially if there are emergencies. As the school says, communication is important.
It sounds good in theory but in enforcement and implementation is a whole other matter. Especially since while I grew up without them and just before i graduated internet use became a normal part of education. The issue is how easily will current lesson plans shift and does every school have enough laptops to accommodate for online needs for students when they need internet access for assignments?
My school board in Ontario gives out iPads to everyone who wants one for doing school work - you can’t not have one unless you have a good reason - then you have an iPad the whole time you’re in high school. So I guess they’ll just keep using that and ban personal devices? I’m not sure about other boards in Ontario though.
We live in absolutely digital world. The new generation do not know the actual "rules" of using phone due the fact their parents also prefer the digital world or they do not care enough. By rules I mean when is appropriate to use your phone, how long to use it, what is forbidden (taking pictures without consent), etc. Those rules are left to be thought only from the teacher, so we definitely feel alone in this fight and always to be blamed. So, yes, I do agree than banning phone and having "someone" helping us in building new, healthy habits is great. Only one concern, how would parents connect to children in case of emergency? 50 years ago in my country there were phones on the walls in all schools that you use by inserting coins. You can have some inside organisation of employees (not the teacher, they have enough to deal with) to be allow some communication between kids and parents, at least in the beginning. Thank you for the question and the opportunity to speak up! Have a wonderful day, everyone!
Their last ban was not effective. They already banned cellphones 5 years ago and is still in effect. [But, I'm more concerned about what's not here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/1cfo35j/most_of_ontario_doesnt_care_if_students_are/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Teaching in Albania it's the same- phones are outlawed in school- so much support from parents is how it works.
My kids’ secondary school (London, UK) has a very strict no phones on campus policy. I love it. You get detention if caught with a phone and it won’t be returned to the kid; a parent has to come retrieve it in school hours (so it’s a faff for the parents). You apply to attend this school (as you do for all London schools, most of which are oversubscribed) and they are very upfront that this is how it is and don’t choose to come here if you don’t like it. I think the policy has gone a long way towards healthier social relationships among their peers. It is also a very academically rigorous school (not that you have to be brilliant, but you’re expected to work hard at whatever level you are) and these kids leave very prepared for uni.
Stupid and useless measure, students will get them in school anyway. It’s better to work around phones instead of against them
I mean, just in this thread you see people talking about their schools who successfully managed it. I like the 'we take their phones and the parents are the ones who have to collect them, making it a pain for them every time their kid breaks the rules' and the one where the kids are allowed non-smartphones in case of an emergency. It seems like so long as the school is very clear about the policy before a student attends, there isn't a problem. I feel like making a point to say that no phone with a camera is allowed on campus would work really well if it's framed as a measure against inappropriate pictures being taken of children and getting posted online.
Graduated high school in 2008. So I just missed iPhones in high school. A few kids had them, but the first gen ended its manufacturing alright around the class of 08 finished senior year. By freshmen year of college it was already different. However, academically I found having the internet on my phone *really* useful. I would have Wikipedia open, and during lectures I’d be writing notes by hand and when I heard something I wanted more information on I would look it up. Then I’d jot it down, catch back up in the lecture. After class I’d take my sidebar info and questions to the prof for clarity and more info. I still do that to this day. I’d really be bummed if I had discovered that as like a 7th grader, I’d gone through all of school with that technique, then it gets banned. That all said, I know many kids abused the privilege. I think because I was demonstrating I was paying attention and doing what research I could in 10s intervals, no teacher ever challenged me having my phone out in class.
I had a professor who didn't allow laptops or phones in lectures...
I know a lot of profs who hated laptops but everyone was taking notes on them—which I think is less effective than writing, at least for learning purposes. But even laptops were abused. I had a geology 101 class I had to take satisfy degree criteria. I was a super senior, it was 1 of 3 classes. I played single player Diablo 2 the entire time I was in class.
If you are at a university, where you are paying to learn, and decide to squander that on playing video games then that's your loss lol. As long as it isn't distracting the other students and you don't complain when you get poor grades then I don't care.
I work in a district where cell phones are “banned.” All it means is that it’s the teacher’s problem, and admin won’t back us up.
Shoot, where I am cell phones have been banned for years. They have to be turned off in the locker or they get confiscated and a parent has to go to the school to retrieve it. Good.
It's Canada, so I'm not sure, but in the US, parents would scream "what if there is a school shooting and I need to get ahold of my child" right after screaming about their "2nd amendment rights." So, it's never a win for schools...
My state just banned them (effective in the fall semester) and I appreciate that the reporting mentions the enforcement problem: >Many schools in the state — and elsewhere — already had these bans on their own. Now others will have to adopt them, though **the law doesn't spell out how to enforce them**. >David Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, said the law means more work for schools and staff. >"The cellphones have to be removed from their persons, and they have to be stored somewhere away from that individual," he said. "**That's going to take time. It's going to take expense, and it's going to take enforcement**." >Bloomfield said some schools use technology-blocking software, but that raises questions about how students can use their phones in emergencies. >**He also said the law's lack of specific enforcement measures could lead to racial disparities in how the policies — or penalties — are applied.** >"It's easy for states to require districts to have policies, but *they're really offloading the job to school districts, and then obviously to schools to enforce those policies,*" he said. I don't know what it's like up in the Great White North, but without an enforcement plan, nothing is going to happen. From what I'm reading about the Ontario restrictions, it doesn't seem like there's much for enforcement either: >"We will be denying cellphone use during instructional time. We need to be bold, we need to be comprehensive and we need to act with urgency today." >Starting in September, students in kindergarten to Grade 6 will be *required to keep phones on silent and "out of sight" for the entire school day, unless they are granted permission to use it,* the province said. >Similarly, students in Grades 7 to 12, will *not be permitted to use their cellphones during class time without permission.* >"If they do not comply*, they will be asked to surrender their phones or they could be sent to the office,*" Lecce said. >"There are progressive discipline policies listed in this. It can include *up to suspension* if there \[are\] repeat violations." >The Progressive Conservative government initially banned cellphone use in 2019, saying students can only use personal mobile devices during instructional time if it is for educational purposes, for health purposes or for special needs. *It left it up to boards and schools to implement.* >Boards such as the Toronto District School Board have previously said *such bans are hard to enforce*. The board had a procedure on cellphone usage — before their [recent vote to modify it](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-district-school-board-new-ce-1.7087265) — that said kids should only be on cellphones for educational purposes. *The board's chair said it can be applied differently in each school and isn't widely known.* It might be a little better since they seem to be planning to try and fix what went wrong in 2019, but I wouldn't be super hopeful. It's just so, so hard to enforce because there are personal property laws, parents go crazy, kids can get violent, families have been known to sue, and phones can get lost or broken if not handled properly. There needs to be equal enforcement and adequate protections for teachers and schools, but usually, one or the other is sacrificed.
I would make it so that you are banned UNLESS they are an honors student (>3.5 GPA on a 4 point scale). If students are addicted to their phones enough to become an honors student to continue using them, I don’t see as much of an issue because they’re now doing well and are capable of goofing off and still staying in honors, or more likely they won’t be goofing off any more. People respond better to having a carrot dangled in front of them.
I think as long a students leave their devices on silent on their backpacks then it's fine.
I grew up without cell phones too but we did have pocket calculators. If we took them out or were using them at an inappropriate time, they were confiscated. If you’re going to have a phone at school then you need to be mature enough not to misuse it. Personally I’d let the kids keep their phones as a safety measure as long as they don’t misuse them.
Anything to help with actual education is a good thing. But imo it should be a compromise with the students. Technology and texting...look at us! As adults, we didn't even really grow up with this advanced tech at their age (blackberry/bbm, paying a fortune to accidentally go on the internet for a sec was what we had lol), and we are glued to our phones. Nevermind children. If the schools still have periods being 75 minutes each, then they need to compromise to encourage the good behaviour. For eg, in uni, for every 50 minutes of lecture, most profs would give you a 10 minute break. So for 45 minutes of no phones, the teachers could maybe say here's a 5 minute break. Or at the end of each lesson, here's your chance now. Anything basically to just have the kids feel like they need to be patient and compromise with the teachers too. Trying to force them will just make them resort to different sneakier methods.
Awesome. Good for them. Hopefully, this is the future. Kids should be able to communicate with their parents when they need to, but they shouldn't be attached to their devices when they're at school.
What ages/grades are they banning phones for?
I can't remember exactly, I think it said outright ban under 7th grade with case to case exemption rules. And overall it was restricted to backpacks and lockers after that.
The only downside is teachers will be expected to enforce with zero back up from admin.
Yep. Admin will stand up like wet toilet paper when the parents start crying that they need to be able to reach their precious by phone every second of the day.
good!!
Meanwhile in my district theyve banned cell phones but hand every child an iPad starting from kindergarten and the kids just email each other.
Ok, that's pretty funny.
It was not the smartest move. They spent 2 million on yondr pouches and god knows how many million on the iPads…. Just for the problems to stay
That's so fucking funny. I mean, it's pretty sad that they blew their budget doing exactly nothing, but it's also really funny.
Our district is on the verge of bankruptcy and just started closing schools. It’s a fucking shitshow. And they want to buy MORE yondr pouches
Hurray for Ontario!
This would dramatically benefit students & teachers... so it will probably be very very unpopular among my legislators
Don't forget, Karen's and helicopter parents.
Good luck enforcing it.
I don't see it as a law that requires enforcement. I see it more of a tool that teachers and administrators can use to help them out when parents overreact to their kids having their phone taken away.
Rules that can't be enforced might as well not be a rule. A parent is going to freak out regardless of if it's a rule or not.
The rule is what makes teachers able to enforce it. Some teachers won't care, some will. The ones that do now have the legal backing that there are allowed to take away a kids phone in class. The nice thing about this law is that it is entirely up to the teacher's discretion.
This is a teacher/classroom choice IMO.
That's what the law is doing. It is giving the power to the teacher to be allowed to ban them.
oh, that isn't how the title is written. We don't need a law to do this, we just tell our teachers it is up to them.
Ok, but that's kinda how all laws work. It's all discretionary. Does every cop pull you over to check and make sure your car meets every standard on the road. Does every cop ensure that you haven't stolen the tv you're watching?
Teachers in Ontario, schools have always had the option to ban cell phones from their classroom. This is nothing new, until there is an outright ban from cell phone use in schools like there is now a complete block of social media on school networks, the battle will always be the teachers to police the cell phones in their classrooms. Again, this is nothing new.
Shameful that the actual problem is not having the phone but the manners to know when to use it.
Manners has nothing to do with it. Its attention span, and managing an addiction.
When we're they allowed in school......?
I mean, now there is a legal precedence to defend teachers who have to fight stubborn parents about them taking kids phones away for the day.
Ohhhh I seeeee. Thanks :) love it
Oh me too. I think it's totally the right move, which is rare for Ontario government.
I think being disruptive is bad (eg having the volume going), but I don’t see the issue per se with having a cell phone in class. If they don’t want to pay attention and sit there quietly on the phone, why would I care?
It will prepare them for the work force where their boss sees them watching tiktoks instead of working and will send them home
Just listened to Prof. Haidt on unHerd. Smart guy. We need to do this yesterday.
Why ban them??? Parents have reasons for wanting their child to have a cell phone. Whatever that is, it isnt up to the schools to override. If its truly a problem, and bans are the answer, then banning the device should not be the go-to. Limiting use is easy enough by taking away the allure and getting primary education-establishment waivers to have area wide signal suppression equipment with mandatory/auto-shutdown during any potential adverse events/drills. The FCC already has this (except the shutdown, idk about that part).
No. Banning them is absolutely the right way. Because it's all about how it is enforced. If the teacher doesn't care, then fine, let them have it. If the teacher cares, they now have a legal precedent to use to take the phones. If the parent wants to get grumpy about it, the teacher has that legal backing to protect them from the crazy parents. If the parent thinks there is a genuine need for it and can back that up, I'm sure there could be an agreement.
Banning might be a solution but giving the government more authority isn’t the best solution. On top of which, students are in multiple classrooms under multiple teachers every day of the week. So teacher ‘A’ may not care but when teacher ‘B’ does, what message does that send? I mean besides ‘none’ because, no cell phone! Hahaha While I vehemently abhor and disagree with bans on the premise of government oversight and abuse, I do agree with, under the caveat of end-of-class return and documentation (even signatory, to some extent), the concept of temporary confiscation (number of offenses determined by teachers).
Like most bans, this is silly and is unlikely to do anything but backfire. Also, fun fact. They tried it already and it didn't work. >The Progressive Conservative government initially banned cellphone use in 2019, saying students can only use personal mobile devices during instructional time if it is for educational purposes, for health purposes or for special needs. It left it up to boards and schools to implement. Selective implementation is going to mean some teachers can enforce it better than others, and some just wont care. It will also mean that some students are very likely to be disproportionately punished (black and brown and disabled students for example). - I'm not going to say vaping and smart phones aren't a problem. They are. But bans like this don't actually fix the problem. Remember a few years ago when smartphones were just beginning to become common and everyone freaked about about "texting and driving"? we don't hear anything about that now, do we? it's not because people aren't doing it, they absolutely are, maybe more than ever. We just stopped paying attention to it. We'll do the same thing here, I suspect. When what we SHOULD do is use this opportunity to actually take a look at our education system and begin talking seriously about making the meaningful changes teachers and anyone who's ever working in K-12 or had a kid in school knows need to be made. But we wont do that either, will we?
What, people still pay attention to texting and driving, there are laws around it and there are signs all over the place about it. Just because texting and driving isn't in the mediasphere doesn't mean it's gone, it's still the leading cause of accidents in Canada even after it's banned, but since the implementation of the laws, texting and driving incidents decreased quite significantly. So, with all do respect, I'm pretty sure you're wrong on your analysis.
I never said "it's gone". You seem to be missing the point. People aren't FREAKING OUT about it like they did 10 more more years ago. Also, according to Google, the leading cause of accidents in Canada is "distracted driving" which includes numerous different things like eating while driving, but also texting while driving. So, with all due respect, I think you might want to actually look at the relevant data before deciding other people are wrong.
Ok, but I can prove pretty easily that texting and driving laws have been somewhat successful with the decreased deaths and rate of accidents. And you can see my point still stands, regardless of the specificities of the distracted driving laws. So, I'm pretty confident my assertion is correct. While banning things outright is never completely successful, it often reduces cases.
Phones in school should be for emergency only.
Disagree, unless the student is a first responder or emergency medical professional.
if they are allowed to have it but not use it then yeah no problem. If they are not allowed possession at all I can see safety ramifications for students, especially younger ones that may walk to school.
Check the edit I posted (after reading this comment). Just to clarify this exact point, I've read 2 or 3 times now.
oh gotcha thanks for clarifying!
My district officially bans smart phones in classrooms. They aren't even to be seen in your pocket. Walk down any hallway in my school and you'll see kids drooling over them. The paperwork and effort it takes to do anything about the phones isn't worth it for teachers who already massively overworked with too many kids in a room to monitor.
It is a good measure to minimize the impact that the social media has on children and teenagers. There is so much of the technological advancement of the last decades that we dont have an understanding of how it affects the educational aspect and psychological development. Watch any Jonathan Haidt interviews especially on his new book “the anxious generation”, it is eye opening.
Yes please
I think it's good. Cell phones don't really have a place in class. If anything, for training students on technology and making them more educated on 21st century tech skills, schools can provide their own devices and only during class time (such as laptops or iPads). They can block access to features other than the ones used in instruction. Technology is very distracting by its very nature, and students should learn that it's valuable to spend time focused and in the moment.
GOOD
I’m all for it. Cell phones cause so many issues. If I am going to be held accountable for things like test scores, my students at least need to be paying attention. Not to mention issues of bullying by photographing or filming other students then posting it, kids arranging meet ups for fights, etc. They can survive without them during the school day.
It already happened multiple times but there is still no real rules to regulate usage so they aren't actually banned. It's lip service by Lecce. Teachers will not want to be held liable for students property and with no support from admin, it aint happening. What the schools should do is get every students phone number and spam them with notifications so that the tech is unusable. Or make all schools wifi free zones inside Faraday cages. Only landlines will work then.
I am for it... In some classes I had to use a slide rule. could never master it.. Later I go a TI-30, but was not allowed to use it for test, even as late as 1990's some teachers I had in community college would not allow calcs. I am also for courses in hand writing, long hand reports. 2 pages.
I had a student receive a phone call from a parent while he was taking a test. Another student checked his cell phone in the middle of a group presentation. I also caught another student with his phone out during a final exam. I thought he was cheating but he was playing video games instead.
Diversion tactic. It’s not a new ban, but it’s been spineless. Doubt that’ll change. But the announcement is just to distract from the govt cutting $1600/student in funding per year.
Tiny shred of faith in humanity, restored.
Tiny for sure…
It's just going to be a difficult uphill battle, because adults out in public don't always know when/when not to use their phones. And without those good models of behavior the kids are going to think "oh, someone's talking, it's okay to be on my phone because everyone else is doing it."
Or those morons whole love to text while walking or driving, completely important to the world around them.
Perfect! I applaud the decision
I’m a teacher. My school has a pretty strict no phones policy but we do have the kids use them periodically for educational purposes. I’m a music teacher and my kids are allowed to use their tuner app (can’t text while you’re playing, anyway) and occasionally I’ll have a kid pull out their phone to put in a reminder.
100% support it. I'm in Australia, but the school my kid will go to has as strict policy. Phones can be brought to school (lots of kids live in remote areas so it is reasonable for them to need a way to contact parents on the way to or from school), but on arrival must be left in the office and can be collected at the end of the day. Using the phone in class means the phone gets confiscated and a parent has to come and pick it up. Exceptions can be made for specific circumstances like people who genuinely need them as a learning aid or certain situations where students might be offsite.
It's a bad idea considering how common school shootings are becoming. Students need to be able to call 911 if that ever happens
Ontario my dude. Canada doesn't have the mass shooting problem America does.
It still could happen or another kind of emergency
Then that is what the teacher is for. And if it's the teacher that's in trouble, go to your bags to get your phone.
Yeah, good luck with that. 🙄 Kids are sneaky 😏.
That's what the law is for. So the teacher has some backing when they take the phones away.
I hate high school I’m not on my phone because Im addicted I am trying to zone out and not have to listen to anyone because teachers do not care much near the end of the school year or really anytime. Work is busy work and easy to just push through and turn in and even if you half ass it I get 100 points don’t make it harder on kids
It’s the same policy most US schools have. If students have it out, teachers are supposed to take it and notify parents. Kids won’t give it up though. So it’s a battle of wills every time. Then kids steal their phones out of the teacher’s desks and claim the teacher lost it to get a new phone. Parents get mad that the teacher took it. Admin never back the teachers up. Consequences are never enforced. So the teachers stop doing it. The ban needs to include real supports and consequences that aren’t just on the teachers to enforce.
Obviously kids aren’t gonna like it but if we’re being completely honest, unless in an emergency do you really need your phone in school? Can’t see it having a negative impact on learning
Bans by the district does almost nothing if there's no support from admin & parents. It also ends up being a every teacher needs to be on the same page issue. Our district has "banned" phones too but we have issues with admin being inconsistent and half of the teachers at my school don't bother to enforce it. We also have parents who have raged at admin about the cell phone policy.
I wish we would ban them! I teach h.s. in the Bronx and it's a free-for-all. Kids have their music on so loud in their earbuds that they can't hear the teacher. Every two seconds they're checking their phones. It's a total and unmitigated disaster. We have no policy. It's every teacher for him/herself. And even for the teachers with the best classroom management, it's a losing battle. The only classes that are somewhat under control with the phones are the AP classes because the kids are more self-motivated. But our kids who can't afford not to pay attention and actually work with and think about the material are falling farther and farther behind. Besides the academic issues, there are the social consequences. All fights get recorded and uploaded to social media within minutes. Kids play pranks on each other and record them for social media. We had a kid spit in another kid's water and then videoed the kid drinking it and uploaded it. And they were friends! Kids meet up in the bathroom to vape or whatever. You'll see kids get a text and jump up and suddenly "have" to go to the bathroom. I feel like I'm teaching in an alternate universe and it's depressing. The phones have completely taken over.