A School's Way To Fight Phones In Class: Lock 'Em Up

[Cattledog]

Any teacher will tell you, class has never been the same since kids started coming to school with cellphones. Ancient Roman history will pretty much never win the day when competing with Snapchat and Instagram.

And sneaky as kids think they are, teachers know exactly what's going on when students look up with those zombie stares and constantly ask: "Can you say that again?"

"You can see that they're not listening to you," says history teacher Tony Patelis, at Newton North High School in Massachusetts. "They're looking down, and they tell me they're checking the time, even though the clock is on the wall."

Patelis says he's got a reputation as a "psycho about cellphones," constantly confiscating them from kids in class. "It's so ingrained," he says. "The kids say 'Forgive me, Mr. P. I can't help myself.' "

It's a daily battle, he sighs, and teachers are losing.

But now, exasperated teachers at hundreds of schools around the nation have another weapon in their arsenal.

At the City on a Hill Circuit Street charter school in Boston, students entering school in the morning are met by administrators fanned out at the front door with their hands out. One by one, they take students' phones, slip them into a soft pouch, and lock them closed with a snap that works like the security tags you find on clothing at department stores. Students take their pouched phones back, but can only unlock them with a special device at dismissal time, nearly eight hours later.

"It sucks," grumbles freshman Toninho Emanuel, echoing the sentiment of many here.

"It's aggravating," says sophomore Tyler Martin. "It's just like your toy and they take it from you and you can't use it." But in the next breath, Martin jumps off the toy analogy and says his phone is actually a necessity. "Like glasses," he says.

Full article at:

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/11/577101803/a-schools-way-to-fight-phones-in-class-lock-em-up?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180111

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. All schools should have a no phones policy.

I've actually heard parents justify their kid having a cell phone at school just in case they need to contact the kid. Excuse me? Does the school your child attend have a main office? Does that office not have its own phone?

[mainstreetonce]

2. I do not think kids should have phones in class

But then there was Columbine and phones summoned help.

It's a difficult situation.

At least one student in each room with phone access?

[Phoenix61]

3. I'm sure the teacher has a phone

But I have mixed feelings about taking phones when they walk in the door. If they pull them out in class then confiscate them till the end of the day. It's all well and good to say parents can call the office but in a school with 100's of students they would need one person just to manage student messages.

[Igel]

5. Two points.

Yes, the teacher often has a phone. At some point they installed them in all the classrooms in many schools. It sits in the corner in my classroom. I use it to call parents. Or not. Some parents don't pick up when they recognize the school's prefix, they're so involved in supporting their offsprings' implementation.

I also have a cell phone. I was my mother's guardian. I needed to be easily contacted and rather than update the information with the doctor, assisted care facility, courts, lawyers, custodians, police, etc., etc., I had a cell phone. It wasn't on vibrate. My mother survived my guardianship, at which point it went on vibrate. I check it sometimes between classes. Or use it during lunch to check DU, which my school district banned from our laptops.

Otherwise, cell phones are also a plague among teachers and substitutes. You walk down the hall during your conference period and you see substitutes with their noses in their phones, and far too many teachers, likewise.

(At the same time, there are some nice apps for phones that relate to ways of polling students, grading bubble-form test or quiz sheets, etc. Some connect to quiz-game programs, some are like Pickrs.)

In any event, the point is that teachers =/= students. When they're legally responsible for offspring, they have a need to be in what's considered fairly easy contact with others. Or when they're responsible for implementing the buzzword-driven regimen imposed on teachers by authorities.

As for students, it distracts them and those around them. It reduces achievement on tests. It compromises test security. It facilitates cheating and active non-learning. And it coordinates troublemaking, from drug sales to coordinating attacks on other students to during stupid things like getting friends together for drinking or toking during athletics events. Fortunately, some have their brains so addled that they post their illicit behavior to social media. Lost a kid recently to alternative school because he and some friends got on a school bus during an away game, got high, and posted the video. "Hey, we're at an away game during halftime getting wasted." As though administrators and teachers don't monitor such things. Oh, and the relevance? They used their phones to take their very self-incriminating selfies.

[BigmanPigman]

4. Boo hoo...you're there to learn!

[Igel]

6. I think I like yondr. n/t