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Schools Are Giving Up on Smartphone Bans (gizmodo.com)
Bans on phones in schools are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, new research shows. From a report: A survey from the National Center for Education Statistics exploring crime and safety at schools indicates that there is a trend toward relaxing student smartphone bans. The survey reports that the percentage of public schools that banned cell phones and other devices that can send text messages dropped from nearly 91 percent in 2009 through 2010 to nearly 66 percent in 2015 through 2016.
This drop did not coincide, however, with more lenient rules around social media. In 2009 and 2010, about 93 percent of public schools limited student access to social networking sites from school computers, compared to 89 percent from 2015 through 2016. That's likely because these bans aren't lifted in response to student demands to use their electronics during school hours -- they are bending to the pressure of parents who want to be able to reach their kids.
This drop did not coincide, however, with more lenient rules around social media. In 2009 and 2010, about 93 percent of public schools limited student access to social networking sites from school computers, compared to 89 percent from 2015 through 2016. That's likely because these bans aren't lifted in response to student demands to use their electronics during school hours -- they are bending to the pressure of parents who want to be able to reach their kids.
I hear the kids call it "juuling".
They are shit anyway.
Or send the kids overseas for better education.
That's any cell phone made in the past 20 years, not just a smartphone. Personally, I don't think smartphone bans can be enforced easily. The way to enforce them is via grading. Discuss a topic that's not "in the book." Test students on it. Maybe even discuss different "off-book" topics and give the option of which questions to answer to not penalize absent students, but punish students who are perpetually on their phones and tuned out. "Professor, I should have got an A on this exam, it wasn't in the book..." "Next time, put away the phone."
Some schools may be relaxing restrictions on cell phones, not just for parents to contact the students, but for the school to send safety alerts and other notifications.
it'd be nice for my kid to be able to use a backpack to carry her schoolwork in. They aren't even allowed clear backpacks.
But yet half the parents that are at work during school hours are likely banned from using phones at work.
April fools is over already!
If kids are playing mobile games during class, it is effectively the same as not showing up to class at all.
To what extent is this also true of the time between the end of the lecture and the bell that signals the end of the class period? Truancy law requires the student to remain in the classroom until that time.
Can I get my kid's phone usage records, and if I see any text messages or network activity on his phone during school hours, he gets punished?
As a teacher, I can tell that the main reason for relaxing the cell phone bans is the parents demanding it. the research is in, cell phones detract from learning.
The following is part of a letter I sent to my building administrator on this topic. The first point, that is cut out, but mentioned, had to do with my student to robot ratio.
The second is more generalized, yet it remains a problem. It is the cell phones in the school.
The research done by the London School of Economics showed that the benefit to a cell phone ban was the equivalent to an extra week of instruction. However, even more relevant to our district, is that the gain was driven by low income students. they showed an improvement equal to receiving three extra weeks of instruction per year.
Simply telling the students to put the phones is not enough. A study by the University of Chicago determined that the negative effects of the cell phone are present when the phone is in close proximity, such as in a backpack. When in close proximity, the addictive nature of the phone continues to interfere with the cognitive process.
Based on research, a simple ban of cell phones could improve the students education. In cases where the parent believes that their child needs a phone, and will not be swayed by research, a area of small lock boxes in the office would allow the students to secure their phones at the beginning of the day.
These are two proposals that would increase student engagement and learning.
Here I include summaries and abstracts from recent cell phone research:
a couple of studies that have been completed in an attempt to assess the impact the impact of having cell-phones in school on education.
The first is a study completed by the London School of Economics. Here is the abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we find that student performance in high stakes exams significantly increases post ban. We use a difference in differences (DID) strategy, exploiting variations in schools’ autonomous decisions to ban these devices, conditioning on a range of student characteristics and prior achievement. Our results indicate that these increases in performance are driven by the lowest achieving students. This suggests that restricting mobile phone use can be a low-cost policy to reduce educational inequalities.
Source: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/down...
A more readable summary is provided by CNN:
The authors looked at how phone policies at 91 schools in England have changed since 2001, and compared that data with results achieved in national exams taken at the age of 16. The study covered 130,000 pupils.
It found that following a ban on phone use, the schools' test scores improved by 6.4%. The impact on underachieving students was much more significant -- their average test scores rose by 14%.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/1...
This study was supported by a recent study conducted by the University of Chicago. Further, they determined that the negative effect of the cell-phone were present even if the cell-phone is put away, such as in a backpack. From the Abstract:
Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity.
Source: http://www.journals.uchicago.e...
5. Payphone operators cease maintaining payphones due to reduced use by adults
How did we ever survive before cell phones?
Payphones were around then. I thought I mentioned that. But what I initially neglected to mention is that there wasn't quite as much "stranger danger" hysteria back then as what we have had lately, where police arrest parents for neglect for letting students walk to and from school. It took a federal law to curb that.
I can't imagine the absolute fucking distraction in class that goes on with either SMS, social media, watching kids make a goofy damn face 'snapchatting', etc. As much as I want to dismiss it as back in the day when I'd doodle or sketch nonsense in a notebook while a teacher was droning on, passing notes, counting ceiling tiles or what-the-hell-ever all of us non-millennials did as being just as non-productive, it's a complete different type of blatant disrespect and lack of dedication without being able to 'disconnect' and focus on something other than _you_.
Think public/private school issues are bad, anymore, I wish workplaces would eliminate phone usage from the damn work force, except for under extreme circumstances, where you actually need to use it. I can't even get away from it in meetings or presentations I do at work anymore; there is guaranteed at least one mega-douche with his face buried in his phone not even paying attention (but in a title and position to absolutely the fuck pay attention), then is always the person who has to have things repeated, or burning up questions that were already covered, or whatever waste presented on, the opposite (or nothing) gets done.
Just like most teachers already get paid shit, assuming they are par to upper quality educators and care, it's flat out an extreme waste of their time, expertise, educational background and breath when you can't even get someone to put down a device for 1/16th of their entire day they are awake for that one hour class to be dedicated and open to being taught and educated. We all know, the 15 other slivers of time are 'on that thing' anyway.
"they are bending to the pressure of parents who want to be able to reach their kids." ...during school hours. If they need to reach their kids during school THEN THEY SHOULD CALL THE FUCKING OFFICE, the way it has always been.
At the 90% of schools that "block" social media, I'd say around 90% of the students use a VPN to punch through that noise. I found this out after I found one of my kids, who resisted programs like "Hour of Code" and wouldn't even help his old man maintain the home network, had a system of two VPNs and related AV on his phone to get around his schools' bans on SnapChat and the like. Frankly, I was impressed.
I remember years ago I worked at a place that didn't allow cameras on the property. Cameras in phones were just getting popular at the time. My phone was getting old and unreliable and so I went shopping for a phone without a camera. The guy at the store seemed very confused at this request. We looked through their catalog of phones and I was able to find something suitable, which I bought.
While we were looking for a phone without a camera the sales droid suggested I buy a nicer phone and just punch out the camera lens to render the camera inoperable, so I could find a nicer phone and yet still comply with my employer's demands. I thought the guy was insane to suggest such a thing. How would my employer know the camera was truly inoperable unless there was obvious damage to the phone? In which case I'd have a brand new phone that was intentionally broken. How would I explain this if I ever needed a repair later? "No, I want the phone fixed BUT NOT THE CAMERA IN IT!" How would I know that no other damage was done, and if I did then we are back to fixing the phone but still leaving obvious damage to the camera function.
Weeks after I got my camera-less phone they lifted the ban on phones with cameras. Too many people complained and the company gave in. They just said that getting caught taking a photo on the premises could be grounds for dismissal. That was of course impossible to enforce. They could certainly walk someone out the door for taking pictures of something and posting it on the internet but that's closing the barn door after the horses left.
I later went back to university and had one instructor say during the first class period that anyone using an electronic device during class would be marked as absent that day. That's not just a ban on devices for quizzes and tests but during class discussion. That was the first and last time I saw that happen as every class since would have nearly every student with a laptop or electronic tablet for taking notes, or whatever. Of course some people were just goofing off, like one guy I saw that was watching a soccer game in the middle of class. It's not like people didn't goof off in class before electronics, I remember doing crossword puzzles during lectures.
I remember when pagers were a thing and schools wanted to ban those. They gave up on banning pagers a long time ago too, and not just because they fell out of use. Parents that were able to afford a two-way pager for their kids can have a lot of influence on the schools.
Everything old is new again. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
In my school days the parents would call the office and the secretary would either take a message or the student would located in class and sent to the office to make or receive a call. I can recall hearing the school intercom calling people to the office or the in house system ringing in the class the student was supposed to be requesting the teacher send the student to the office.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
periodically having to stand in class because there were 30 seats and 40 students did. And no, I'm not joking. And this was in one of the better school districts in my area.
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That's right, in 1st grade I took my BB gun to (private) school for show and tell. I carried it with me on the bus. No one said shit, in fact they were impressed!
Simply jam cell frequencies in the school except maybe at certain times of the day.
Second install cell phone towers on school property; increases the number of ways you can spy on the kids and over parent them.
Third make the teens (and school employees) buy special school cell phones which operate on a different frequency and whose software you can lock down.
The cost would be approximately $150 per child. Alternatively you could buy tablets instead of phones for actual school use (ebooks and digital homework) which could be used as phones in a pinch but not without being noticed. Calls and messages from parents could be allowed and texts between students could be limited and monitored.
How so ? They are not going to let the kid go anywhere, emergency or not without a guardian arranging it thru the school. They are not going to let even the guardian just show up at the school and take the child without checking in at the office. I am all for everyone having a phone or some means to reach emergency services etc. I see the kid getting an emergency message and jumping up and running to the office or just failing let anyone know what is going on causing far more impact as the campus is locked down, because the kid left without telling anyone anything. Having the teacher pause briefly to answer the class intercom and sending the child to the office would be far less disturbing than the child running out of class unexplained and much quicker than the child having to try and explain to the teacher, and then again to central office personnel.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Where I went to school all sorts of phones were banned in the classroom. If they saw you with one they'd confiscate it and give it back at the end of class.
I believe learning to pay attention for longer times to be a crucial part of growing up.