Slashdot Mirror
France To Ban Mobile Phones In Schools (theguardian.com)
The French government is planning to ban students from using mobile phones in the country's primary, junior and middle schools. While children will be permitted to bring their phones to school, they will not be allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks. The Guardian reports: Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister, said the measure would come into effect from the start of the next school year in September 2018. It will apply to all pupils from the time they start school at age of six -- up to about 15 when they start secondary school. Blanquer said some education establishments already prohibited pupils from using their mobiles. "Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons [...] for urgent situations, but their use has to be somehow controlled," he told RTL radio. The minister said the ban was also a "public health message to families," adding: "It's good that children are not too often, or even at all, in front of a screen before the age of seven." The French headteachers' union was skeptical that the ban could be enforced.
Good idea, as long as they also get rid of this:
Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons
You can't have it both ways.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I predict that French schools will have a serious lack of empty toilets in the foreseeable future. And for a change, it's not because of the quality of the cafeteria lunch.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You had to have it on silent (not vibrate). If you got it out the teacher took until the end of class.
As a parent, I totally agree with this. My eight year old son is already asking about when he gets his own mobile phone. Some friends of him already have one! Insane! Kids at that age are not ready for the internet and communication like that. If they learn to communicate via digital devices instead of directly, they miss essential things like non-verbal communication. This will seriously affect them if you ask me.
I know I can't go around giving him a mobile phone when he goes to high school, otherwise he will be left out of a lot of social events. This nation wide ban removes the difficult discussion between schools and parents. I wish they would do this in my country too.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Nope. Kids don't need to have 24/7 access to a device with access to the internet that parents have no way of monitoring.
That's not luddism. That's just good parenting.
Next you're going to tell me not letting your 5 year old watch porn is neo-puritanism.