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France Bans Smartphones in School (washingtonpost.com)
When French students return to school in September they'll have to leave one of their most prized possessions at home -- their smartphone. From a report: French lawmakers on Monday passed legislation banning students as old as 15 from bringing smartphones and tablets to school or having them turned off at least, according to the Agence France-Presse. Officials in support of the new rule described the policy as a way to shield children from addictive habits and to safeguard the sanctity of the classroom. "We know today that there is a phenomenon of screen addiction, the phenomenon of bad mobile phone use," education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told French news channel BFMTV, according to CNN. "Our main role is to protect children and adolescents. It is a fundamental role of education, and this law allows it." The law, however, does make exceptions for educational use, extra-curricular actives and for students with disabilities, the AFP reports. French high schools can choose to impose a less stringent ban on Internet-connected devices.
Oh wait, they are.
You may be confused, this is France, not America, where the public schools are a mix of shooting gallery, drug den, drone factory and whorehouse, and the private schools are filled with religious indoctrination to make the next generation of arrows for Jesus.
Much better to take notes on dead trees -- aside from the usual distractions, too easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole of searches about something which the professors said which you found interesting. Save the tablet/phone for after class.
If you can't detach for a few hours, you're addicted.
France can see what other nations attempted with
laptops.
desktops.
GUI robots.
The "internet".
The USA put so much money into every school and per student. The test results stayed the same for decades in the USA. With all the new support and more tax spending.
More tax to pay for more support for education did not result in smarter students from the 1980's and beyond.
France tried that with its MO5, T07 computers.
Remove the distractions and focus on merit. Pass exams and see what education in France can do.
More and more technology spending did not allow France, the UK to become leaders with computers for all. The (Plan informatique pour tous) idea of computers for all and good jobs making new educational computers in France.
Get back to education and remove the mobile phone distractions.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Symptom: Kids are on their phones.
Problem: Because school is designed by, and for, idiots, with no regard for biology or psychology. Every child is treated like a rote learning "I can absorb information while sitting in a chair while you spout off dry lists of facts while you scold me for not rigidly adhering to your desire for me to remain quiet and motionless."
There are plenty of ways to learn. Learning by doing (people who learn WAY more in the labs than the classes). People who learn through physical memorization (this magical thing called "dancer") and more.
If your kids aren't learning it's two reasons: 1 - Shitty parents. 2 - Shitty teaching. Kids are BIOLOGICALLY designed to be knowledge sponges--that's the entire purpose of growing up. So if you're not getting the desired result, it's because you designed "the system" wrong.
William Edwards Deming said "95% of line-level worker problems, are the direct result of top-level management decisions."
So here we are, trying to blame cellphones for being too distracting. But the question is, why the hell is school so boring that kids WANT to learn from their phones instead?
Ever been in a technical lab? Huge equipment, wires running everywhere. Cool sounds going off. Microscopes that let you see literally down to the atomic level. You think anyone (or at least the majority of kids) give two shits about a YouTube video or text message, when they could be, say, climbing on a tank? And learning how a tank works and hearing the engine roar to life?
Dear Mr. Trump, before you criticize, maybe you should compare the education of a US HS graduate to their foreign counterparts.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Yet you have more actual freedom in Europe, unless your idea of "freedom" is easily buying a gun, or being subject to the latest and greatest Internet surveillance tech.
Look to incarceration rates of the US vs European countries for an example of this. Look at insurance systems, where you're actually FREE to move between jobs, go to school, etc without threat of medical bankruptcy. Look at drinking ages in Europe vs the US. Hell, look at mass protests in Europe -- they're allowed to happen and aren't brutally smashed by police.
Economic freedom isn't the be-all and end-all of freedom -- there's also social freedom.
Well, they must be doing something right, considering that the average high school in Europe teaches at a level some colleges in the US would like to aspire to.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes. Why do you *think* they're banning them?
Yeah, we didn't have smartphones, but we had hand held entertainment devices of various sorts.
Formal or informal, guess what, you didn't get to play with them in class, or essentially use them in school at all. If they were ubiquitous then the ban surely would have been formal.
Because they're politicians and want to be seen as if they're "doing something" to address some issue, no matter whether that actually addresses the issue?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Look, I can deal with all kinds of insults. Call me a pinko Commie or a Nazi, call me a fag or a redneck, I can deal with pretty much anything.
But calling me American is really uncalled for. What have I done to deserve that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes. Unfortunately. And let's be blunt here, cellphones ain't the problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
All our progress happened without all this new great stuff and we sure do not seem to be progressing forward in modern times...
Delaying gratification is a huge indicator of having a better life; simply forcing students to learn lessons along those lines will do them more good than most every other lesson. Waiting for their phone use alone is a great learning opportunity for them.
Studies and science will and have begun to back such policies; we are talking about big new changes and should be conservative about their use while waiting for the science to catch up. We ALREADY have studies showing IQ drops simply having their phone known to be within range distracts them EVEN if they know it is OFF!
We have preliminary stuff from many observations which will lead to studies showing that boredom is healthy and an important of child development.
We have studies already going on about the poor social skills and many of use non-millennial are noticing problems in the younger generation that are beyond the classic older generation complaints. Just 1 area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Right. The Constitution says one thing, various governments in the US do another.
Excessive bail is common. So are people being jailed to bully them into a plea bargain. Bye-bye, 5th Amendment. Internal "border" checkpoints can search you and your car at random -- whoops! There goes the Fourth. Right to property. Civil forfeiture anyone?
"Freedom" in the US is a cruel joke unless you're rich.
There is no need for school students to have a cell phone in school, period; let alone a smartphone. School is a place for learning and phones and tablets are a distraction.
Would you say they are...... Opportunists?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There are not enough mod points in the world for this post :D
Exactly. If your kid is doing homework in front of the TV and not getting much done, what do you do? You turn off the TV.
Removing distractions and devices which are, at best, not needed for school is a great way to help students focus on what they're there to do.
So your argument is that Europe is more free because they let criminals off with a slap on the wrist, and they allow riots to happen.
Neato. I sure wish I lived there.
Yes. I'd rather side with so-called "criminals" than with authoritarians. At least "criminals" don't have absolute power.
The ability to riot, strike, and shut down a country means that a government doesn't have absolute power -- this is a feature, not a bug.
Sure. In general phone use and especially internet smart phone use is detrimental for children. Some examples (easy to find if you do actually look at health journals) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... and https://www.sciencedirect.com/... And especially so for students in class. https://www.tandfonline.com/do... If you don't have access just read all of the abstract, since it is the summary. For more easy to find papers check the links on the hosting pages and especially in the references provided in these papers.
A student is more likely to be killed by a deer than by a school shooting at a U.S. school (ignore the dumb up-voted reply who doesn't realize that fatality rates are comparable between different population sizes). The whole school shooting "epidemic" is a fabrication by the news media (who are mostly pro-gun control). 3x more students die from complications due to pregnancy and childbirth than from school shootings. Why aren't there 3x as many news stories about the evils of teen pregnancy?
The biggest threat of death facing students is car accidents. That's followed by suicide - usually from bullying. That's over 100x as common as death from school shootings. France's suicide statistics are similar to the U.S., so it's not unreasonable to think their student suicide rate is similar. And smartphones and social media are one of the primary methods now used by students to bully each other.
In many schools in my area, the children are forbidden from using the phone during school hours. (Detention if the child is caught using the phone during school hours) However, after school they can use it. Also, many students ride their bike to school or their parents drive them.
Seems like students using the phone after school to let their parents know they're being delayed (my bike has a flat, come pick me up) or the parents are running late so that the other party isn't left waiting/worrying why there is a delay, is an appropriate use of the phone.
Sacre bleu!
That's a thing they say, right?
Je ne sais quoi!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
What's wrong with living a reasonably happy, but not innovative, life, anyway? Why should everything be about rush-rush-rush, run like a rat on a wheel, constant change and turmoil?
But to answer your question... let's see: CRISPR was pioneered in France, high-speed trains, nuclear reactors capable of load-following, basic nuclear physics research (LHC is on the Swiss-French border). Not all innovations involve the Internet or mobile phone fart apps.
Now turn it off and listen to what we think instead.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes. I'd rather side with so-called "criminals"
That's obvious. Everything you say makes you sound like a violent lunatic. I suspect you've spent you share of time in the clink.
Most of the things you say make you sound like an authoritarian, boot-licking ass.
The system is designed to suck people in. Take some California cities, where a simple traffic ticket can be $500. Most Americans don't have $500 for an emergency. So it spirals into late fees, contempt-of-court charges, maybe an arrest warrant. Whereas a civilized system would allow judges to equalize punishment by basing fines on income.
As far as excessive bail, read about the case of Kalief Browder. Held without trial on suspicion of a crime, for years because he had the temerity not to plead guilty to SOMETHING instead of standing on his Constitutional right to a fair trial. Eventually released, but the experience of imprisonment on Riker's Island damaged him psychologically and eventually lead to his suicide.
helicopter parents would howl in outrage as they wouldn't be able to nag/stalk their kid on a minute by minute basis.
how on earth did the human race ever survive without constant telemetry of our kids?
Protecting the sanctity of learning by cutting off the connection to all the known human knowledge? Idiots!
Cell phone contents...
5% - Collective wisdom of the world
95% - Collective idiocracy of the world
Turning it off in school to learn the difference - priceless
The true master realizes all things hold wisdom, even if negative wisdom to learn what not to do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I didn't get my first cell phone until I was in my 20s and it wasn't even close to a smart phone. My parents still somehow knew when I was out getting into trouble and I have never relied on a cell phone to let me keep track of my kids as a matter of fact they didn't get a smart phone until they paid for it themselves.
Sending my son to a Christian private school...no one talks about the Bible or anything. It is a marketing thing that will slowly fade. they have a serious science program too. The kids would probably burn them at the stake for spouting a creationist curriculum.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
And yet... Where are the great french entrepreneurs and innovators?
France was a tech leader back when we appointed Ben Franklin as the first ambassador, and it's just as much as a tech leader now that it has the carbon-free economy that no other country even plans to achieve this century.
Study?
Could you explain further what you mean by this? Early in the school year, I would read ahead in the textbook between the end of the lecture and the end of the class period. But later in the school year, I have finished the textbook, and this is no longer effective.
Or walk around the school as a type of exercise?
In schools in most states of the United States, leaving the classroom during a class period without a hall pass would result in disciplinary action against the student for truancy. Do schools in France have different customs compared to schools in the United States with respect to under what conditions a teacher is willing to grant a hall pass?
prepare for the next class?
Could you explain further what you mean by "the next class"? Do you mean the next meeting of the same class, or the different class next period?
It's not that long time (5-10 minutes) to control yourself.
What prevents a teacher from finishing the lecture even earlier than that?
Glad that someone is doing something about this!
On the plus side, this will also result in fewer teens getting depressed.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Maybe we could start a religion whose sky fairy commands the use of smartphone instead of funny hats.
They did that in Denmark already.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yep. CERN! Though the actual institute is on the Swiss side, not the French.
"No, you're not allowed to smash Starbucks windows and light police cars on fire."
"Shut up bootlicker! I'm fighting da power!!1!1"
I'd like to amend my previous statement to "a violent, petulant man-child".
No, but mass demonstrations where some inconvenience is caused are fine. So are general strikes that cause inconvenience. Protests SHOULD be inconvenient, otherwise they often fail to get their point across.
How you've managed to convince yourself that "mass demonstrations where some inconvenience is caused" aren't allowed in the USA is beyond me. Maybe try news sources other than RT?
I'd call them populists.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In the USA, they shut down a road or two. In France, they shut down cities when the government does something boneheaded.
And smartphones and social media are one of the primary methods now used by students to bully each other.
Cellphones don't bully. People do.
It's not that we want to ban phones. They are useful tools, a heck of a lot of fun, and can save you in an emergency.
Along with the benefits, we should recognise the harm done by phones. Sure, they are far from the biggest killer, but somehow our country seems to have a unique problem with them, at least among civilised nations. Thousands of deaths are not to be ignored just because it is less deadly than cancer or road transport.
So how can we continue to get the benefits, while reducing the harm? Surely there must be some measures that cellphone users can accept, even though it limits their freedom? Nobody wants to allow cellphone use in cinemas. Can we all agree on that? And nobody wants to ban cellphones. So we are really only debating over the degree of restriction.
How can we maximise the benefits, including entertainment, while curtailing the deaths a little? I love Angry Birds, but I don't want to risk leaving my screen unlocked so my toddler might find it when I'm not watching.
You're sig references something that is usually considered American.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
A student is more likely to be killed by a deer than by a school shooting at a U.S. school
Bad maths. How many deer are there at US schools?
Can I choose to go to a school that doesn't have deer thereby eliminating this risk altogether?
I'm France they shut down cities when it's Friday and they woke up a bit cranky.
Yes France tried all that into the 1980's. Huge educational push for new French computers for education.
All that did was bring in computer system and software imports from the UK, USA.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Why was the DA allowed to defer the case 33 times, in violation of his right to a speedy trial? Because America, and the Constitution doesn't apply unless you're rich.
No he isn't.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A student is more likely to be killed by a deer
A completely stupid comparison given the risk of death by deer is avoidable and entirely in control of the person being (not) killed. Unless you're suggesting that kids in classrooms get randomly visited by savage deers leaving a bloodbath in its wake.
Don't abuse statistics. There is a big difference between dying due to your action, and dying randomly while doing a mandatory societal activity due to cultural stupidity.
Mostly because this is a US-centric site and if I made a snide comment about the situation over here in Europe, people overseas would not get it.
People in Europe usually do know a bit about the US, at least when they spend time on US-centric sites, so the joke is internationally understandable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ahhh, lying by statistics I see.
I note that it was 120 Americans killed by deer IN ALL AGE GROUPS. In 2015, 425 Americans in all age groups were killed in mass shootings, over 13,000 died by gunshot wound (I'll admit this figure includes accidents).
Oh, but you wanted us to ignore the person who pointed this out... because it invalidates your theory.
Thus far this year, 40 people have been killed in school shootings. We're not talking about freak accidents involving an elk on the road here (which is how most of them occur, so actual cause of death is MVA), we're talking deliberate and premeditated attacks that dont seem to occur in other countries. Its time to admit that your society's attitude towards firearms is horribly broken and dead kids will keep happening until your society decides to do something about it.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Did you happen to use pay phones?
My Transformation Website
Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
Yes where you make the collect call and instead of recording your name it's a rushed "I'm at... Come pick me up"
Point was, cell phones have led to many of the pay phones being removed.
My Transformation Website
Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
Those are interesting articles... aside from the fact they all conclude a priori that these internet and Smartphone use "addictions" are bad. One of them is simply studying the levels of such "addictions" and taking no conclusions whatsoever on their consequences, which in itself is turning the scientific method upside down, starting from conclusion and not from a plausible hypothesis.
The fact most parents, or worse, scientist parents observe their children use a smartphone more intensively than they do or did back when they were their age (as there were no smartphones or ubiquitous internet in most cases) only contributes to their opinion being biased to a flawed scientific method - formulate a biased hypothesis; find only contributing factors that support that hypothesis and gather them for statistical analysis; take conclusions based solely on biased arguments for an already biased hypothesis.
I am in a privilleged position as an observer of 2 children now aged 6 and 8 - my young sister and a cousin. Most hypotheses I spontaneously formulate while interacting with them are stuff like "how much smartphones and other connected (or not) portable devices such as tablets, game consoles and others, have improved their basic school education and actually gave them an edge in first and", or "how it hasn't really detracted their home study or work because parenting (and my "brothering") hasn't neglected the correct steering of these devices' correct use (and I don't mean embedded parental controls on the devices, I mean good old "make sure you do these [insert important children errand] while/before/after you get to the leisure part of using these devices). These are the kind of things that go through my mind in my practical scenarios. Not skeptical or last century's idea of social interaction being automatically overridden by the time they take cater connected device use. It's not like in the 90's/00's where most parents would put their children in front of a TV and let them educate themselves on 80% their free time at home. They actually learn and make associations while googling or binge-youtubing just like we do on our young adult-elder lives. I can say my little sister learned doing Google Image searches by herself, like about animals she heard the name but never seen. She also learned how to find websites for her own interesting topics such as cartoons and games by herself, to a point I had to tell her not to look for some topics without my support in order for her not to get to the dark corners of the web, which also exist in real life btw.
Unfortunately, I am still a software developer in a scientific environment and my academic work has been limited to reviewing/supporting paper authoring and not really authoring them, but I do work on the field of improving quality of life through smart devices available to the consumer. But I am in no way biased for or against smartphone/connected devices, I simply see them for what they are - gadgets that will only rise in use and in paradigms of use through the times, and that aren't the harbinger of illiteracy and anti-social behaviors everyone and wants to make of them.