The fight against cell phones in schools often feels like the age-old dispute over jaywalking. For every student caught using a phone at an inappropriate time, dozens of other offenders may skate away unscathed.
Just like jaywalking, the cell phone battle can create accusations of selective enforcement, with all the unsavory overtones the term implies. Can so-called “good” kids get away with using phones more than “troublemakers”? What about students who use phones to complete assignments? Or to answer a text from a parent or guardian?
That last hypothetical really isn’t hypothetical. A recent Associated Press report notes that many disagreements over phone use in schools have less to do with battling students and more with battling parents. This is especially true as schools over the past two years have bucked the trend of loosening phone restrictions, likely because the devices are seen as distractions to addressing learning gaps caused by COVID.
But when students and staff must practice active-shooter drills periodically as a price for living in a society that values guns over people, it’s hard to blame a parent or guardian for wanting a constant connection to their children.
With added concerns over students’ mental health because of the COVID pandemic, it also makes sense that adults would want the reassurance of knowing their children are just a call or text away.
I teach at a high school that allows students to use their phones in the lunchroom and hallways (but not for traditional voice calls), yet requires them to put the devices away when they enter classrooms or restrooms.
It’s a great improvement over a previous policy that banned the devices completely. Enforcing the earlier restriction really did feel like catching one or two jaywalkers on a busy downtown street during lunch hour.
Most of my students obey the policy. Yes, it’s not always “clean.” Sometimes, students will not quite finish texting before they enter a classroom, prompting some redirection from the teacher. Occasionally, students will take surreptitious peeks at their phones during class, especially during March Madness or afternoon MLB games.
And sometimes students will ask if they can step out into the hallway “really fast” to let somebody at home know that a practice time has changed or to tell a boss that yes, they can come into work later that day.
To me, this all feels like part of an educator’s job: teaching responsible use of technology, normalizing asking for permission rather than begging for forgiveness, and helping students navigate a world where these devices are omnipresent.
I am also confident that policies about phone usage will become more permissive as districts recognize how walling off a resource with so much potential is counterintuitive. When teens today have more knowledge at their fingertips than the president of the United States did just 10 years ago, it makes little sense to prohibit their use.
Furthermore, busting kids for cell phones feels like selective enforcement when more and more of their peers wear smart watches, making those surreptitious checks of text messages almost impossible to catch.
“Everything in moderation” has seldom applied so perfectly as it does to cell phones, for adults and kids. Most districts don’t want students binge watching entire seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” on their devices in school, but I can’t believe they begrudge those same students a message from home to see how their day is going.
And, yeah, I know we didn’t have pocket phones a generation ago and we grew up just fine. Just like our parents or grandparents didn’t have televisions, and their parents or grandparents didn’t have radios. Go back far enough and you’ll find somebody griping about kids and abacuses. It’s a specious argument.
Banning phones entirely doesn’t teach kids anything except blind obedience or, more likely, how to outwit an out-of-step restriction. Better to integrate the devices more fully into the school day, with consequences for offenders who misuse a revolutionary tool in education.
Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig
Originally published in The Alliance Review on Nov. 9, 2022.
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