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Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration (fortune.com)
Students at a California high school are getting less screen time since the school implemented a ban on cellphone use during the school day. From a report: After one teacher at San Lorenzo High School brought pouches, created by the tech start-up Yondr, into her classroom to lock away students' phones, the entire school began using them from the beginning of the school day at 8 a.m. until the end of the day at 3:10 p.m. According to a 2018 study from the Pew Research Center, more than half of teens said they felt loneliness, anxiety, or upset in the absence of a cellphone. The study also found that girls were more likely to feel these sentiments than boys.
"If something feels weird about modern life to young kids who are dealing with a lot of angst and anxiety in general, maybe it has something to do with relating to the world primarily through a screen eight hours a day," Yondr's founder Graham Dugoni told CNBC. Students said they initially felt awkward and annoyed having their phones taken away during the school day, but added that they started to see more teens interacting with each other. One student added that not having a phone in class helped with concentration.
"If something feels weird about modern life to young kids who are dealing with a lot of angst and anxiety in general, maybe it has something to do with relating to the world primarily through a screen eight hours a day," Yondr's founder Graham Dugoni told CNBC. Students said they initially felt awkward and annoyed having their phones taken away during the school day, but added that they started to see more teens interacting with each other. One student added that not having a phone in class helped with concentration.
Nice advertisement for "tech startup" Yondr. I thought tech startups stopped the "drop the last vowel thing" a while ago.
Just require students to keep them in their lockers (existing tech) for the duration of school. Privacy concerns can be addressed by locked/encrypted phones. Theft may be a problem, but that's an argument for not buying Buffy and Brittany a $1000 e-leash. But ... what about an emergency? Students survived for decades without phones in class...
I hope more schools do this. Wean them off smartphones and their addiction to them.
Bad headline: "Schools Are Locking Students' Phones Away to Help With Concentration"
(1) Only one student reported that it helped with concentration. There was no indication that it actually does help with concentration.
(2) There was no indication that "helping with concentration" was the motive for the school doing it
(3) The article only mentioned one school; I don't know where the headline got the plural "schools".
(That said, I personally believe that phones are bad for concentration, and indeed my children's school also bans phones. I just want to see actual defensible data. Not a dumb article designed as click-bait to reinforce some people's prejudices and raise the ire of those who disagree with it.)
Oh shut up you retarded Libertarian faggot. Kids don't have "the right" to smartphones in the class and there are reasons for restricting it. Go fuck yourself. Thank god you have no kids.
This is an Authoritarian Indoctrination scheme.
the phones are the perpetrators of authoritarian doctrine, see facebook
Screens cause depression because they give access to information that would take ages to get in person. Ignorance is bliss. Take away the screens.
Special camps where they can concentrate.
We could call them "concentration camps."
But here come the arguments/complaints about one's "right" to have their digital toy with them at all times in 3... 2...
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
A "tech start-up Yondr" makes bags to hold phones? Ummm... that's hardly a tech company. At best, it's a packaging company.
One of the benefits of cellphones is that in the event of a school shooting potentially anyone can phone out, capture images of, or otherwise help identify the shooter(s) for situation awareness during police response as well as initial call-ins of the event.
By taking away cellphones you are not only treating youth like children (the 6 year old kind), but also teaching them that responsibility will be handled for them, so they never become responsible for themselves.
As PP stated, this is yet more Big Brother nanny state bullshit that neither curbs the problem nor acts as a long term solution to the larger societal malady. Sticking band-aids over a problem only helps them heal in time with regular inspection, washing, and application of further treatment. Plastering band-aids atop band-aids is only concealing the wound until it festers beyond all treatment. America's school system, as well as larger society as a whole, is part of the latter, not the former example.
It's funny.. back in my day (ugh..), class of 2001, cell phones were small and portable, and cheap enough that many adults had them, but very few kids did. And they certainly weren't so engaging that people would spend a lot of time on them.
No sir, we wasted time playing games on our TI-83s and we liked it!
I am the headmaster of a private technology magnet school, and while we love technology, we do not allow cell phones to be brought to school. If there is a phone call that is important enough that a student needs to make it during school hours, he or she can go to the school office and make the phone call from there.
We love technology, but we don't teach "technology for its own sake." Our curriculum revolves around the appropriate use of technology in our culture. We teach that technology should be used to improve quality of life and not solely as a means of cheap entertainment or instant gratification. We are always asking the question, "what problems in human suffering can be solved by what we are learning today?"
This has been our policy since we opened our doors in 2012, and it has been very successful.
I think it's definitely true that modern life revolves around the screen to too great a degree. I applaud these schools for taking this necessary step to breaking the cycle of dependence upon cell phones. They have become like a drug with real withdrawal symptoms and deleterious effects on society and culture.
This is an Authoritarian Indoctrination scheme. Teach the kids they don't have freedom, that is how you get them dependent on authority to tell them what they need to do. Creates great little democrats and republicans. You are not allowed to decide how you learn, you must do it our way or else.
What you describe is every school everywhere. They tell you when to go to school, what rooms to go to when you get there. You have to leave at a set time and can't take more than allotted number of minutes to get to the next class room day in and day out.
Once in a room you are required to shut your mouth, sit down and do nothing other than what the grownups want you to do for the duration of the class even if you spend 90% of your day bored to tears.
To pour salt on the wound they make you work on even more shit even when you get home and are not even at school.
Cell phones are an irrelevant footnote in the grand scheme of "authoritarian indoctrination".
Let them have their devices, if they can pass while playing Farmville and texting with their friends then good for them. The only thing school should be doing is teaching them is knowledge, not what to believe or how to behave. If a child will not behave, kick them out of school and make it their parents problem.
Once the kids start getting kicked out and parents have to start dealing with them... the problem will get fixed in much better ways.
At least be consistent.
I'm free to not give cellphones to my kids
A kid who takes a transformer toy out of his bag and plays with it is just as distracting, but there doesn't seem to be a pending IPO launch slashvertisement about solving that problem...
What is the difference between them having a phone or a 6oz mad libs book, game boy or kindle? There is no reason to arbitrarily ban one type of relatively inert matter va another. What if they do origami with paper money, going to ban that? So there needs to be a behavioral problem to confiscate an item.
If a kid uses a phone or other item when they shouldn't, then thr teacher can tell them to put it away (first warning) or confiscate it for the duration of the class, and assign a punishment essay, say, on "snow".
No school in my area (central Washington state) allows students to have phones on the grounds, unless they are turned off. It's been this way for many years. Get caught with one that isn't turned off and it's confiscated, only retrievable by a parent or guardian.
I do not belong to the church of the lowercase 'i'
I was always one of those students that finished things really fast with high focus and then would have to sit with nothing to do the rest of class. They should structure things more like a meritocracy where if you finish early you are allowed to learn about and/or prepare for the next grade or something.
As it stands now though, if kids have nothing much to do in class, I can see allowing cellphones as fine.
No, this isn't some grand scheme for indoctrinating students with some political ideology. I don't agree with taking away students' phones, but I don't agree with most of what you're saying, either.
Schools have a significant role in preparing youth to be productive members of society. Education is a large part of that role, but it's not the only thing. Cellphones in the classroom are a problem, but taking away their phones is probably counterproductive. Instead of encouraging students to think about how their cellphone use might be a problem for them, it might make them resentful toward their teachers. What happens when they get out of school? Students need to be able to manage and avoid distractions rather than having the teachers remove the distractions altogether.
I'm a college instructor and I have a class of roughly 60 students, most of which are freshmen. It's largely the same age range that this policy is targeted toward. Part of the first assignment this semester asked the students to give me their views on technology in the classroom and what they think my policy should be. I listened to them and electronic device use in my class is nearly unrestricted. It really hasn't been a problem.
I asked students to think about how electronic devices affect their class performance, so they'd think it over and hopefully make smarter decisions for themselves. I have some in-class activities that prepare them to do the homework. I don't grade the activities, but it prepares them to do the homework assignments, which are graded. I also have clicker questions and encourage the students to discuss them with other students in class. I also sometimes bring in internet resources, and I'll ask the students to visit the website, too, and follow along. Finally, I take a couple of 2-3 minute breaks during the lecture because I recognize attention spans are limited, and the break also allows them to check their phones. The combination of active learning, peer instruction, encouraging them to use their devices to follow along with my lectures, and the breaks are probably more effective then any type of ban or restrictions that I could enact.
By the way, what happens if there's an emergency, like a school shooting, and parents are trying to contact their children? That could be a problem, if students' phones are locked away.
Lets say some kid goes bannanas and pulls another Columbine. Several students are already dead, and many more are hiding. They need to communicate with people who can rescue them. Unfortunately, they can't because the phones are locked in these pouches, and in the confusion, they didn't have time to get the key to unlock them. There is no teacher with an unpouched phone with them either.
Or how 'bout this? An big earthquake collapses the school building, and kids are stuck in 'air pockets' but still able to move, yet tgey can't use their phones because of the pouch.
I'm a college instructor
you have no experience with teaching children and yet you think your opinion means something
It was stupid then too.
Do you have something to add beyond your rude comment?
As I said, I'm teaching relatively large classes that consist mostly of freshmen, just out of high school. That one year doesn't make a big difference. College is quite a different experience from high school, largely because students have far more freedom than they had previously. Many students make very poor decisions once they have the freedom to do so. I don't believe high school adequately prepares students for what to expect in college.
Most teens have an understanding of fairness, and they understand when they're being treated fairly versus something that's unnecessarily restrictive. If they think rules are too restrictive and are unfair, they're more likely to circumvent or outright disobey the rule. However, if you try to adopt a policy that's more of a compromise and they view it as being fair to them, they're more likely to abide by whatever rules you put in place. I spent quite a bit of time looking up advice about how to manage technology in the classroom, and this came up frequently whether it was about high school or college students. Metacognition is also something that applies both to high school and college students. So while there are, indeed, differences between high school and college environments, some teaching strategies do work well in both situations.
> The study also found that girls were more likely to feel these sentiments than boys.
Das seccsist.
what is with the trend of creating startup names by dropping vowels? people have zero ability to think of actual names now?
That one year doesn't make a big difference.
your students are adults
I don't believe high school adequately prepares students for what to expect in college.
Yeah in college you can't bring your phones to lecture either
If someone feels this in abcence of Alcohol they are called an Alcoholic.
If someone feels this in abcence of a drug they are called a Drug Addict.
It is the SAMETHING!
>Yeah in college you can't bring your phones to lecture either
You went to some sort of christian college day care for adult children.
Children today are worse than they were in the past. Humans reproduction is not bringing the best to the market. We need a serious genetic cull.
Feel better now special penis cupcake?
what about active shooter situations? we just disarmed 99% of the school population by doing this... not an even trade?
At thier first real job they will not have thier phones taken away. They will be fired and escorted out. When they get another job they will have a bad reference.
At school, especially high school, kids have to be taught to use thier devices to succeed. They have to run searches, calculators, simulations to learn thier devices are not just toys. This was the problem with 1990 kids. Computer were video games and they never learned to leverage for profit.
In lower grades, take away phones like you take away all toys, but in later grades there is no good done if you don’t let student fall, learn why they fall, and get up. If they are failing because they cannot get off their phone, they have to deal with this organically. Schools hav3 to teach, not live in fear
It is parents who need to manage time. Kids need sleep, so they maybe need thier phones taken away at night. Kids need more time to process than adults, so having kids fighting with thier freinds all night or being bullied or never having any alone time is likely going to lead to depression and maybe even thoughts of suicide. But school cannot do this. It is the parents who bought them the phone and pay the bills.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Concentration Camps!
See, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Why would they allow cellphones in the classroom in the first place?! They never did at my school. Anyone caught with one got it taken away for the day at the very least and probably a call to your parents to stop letting you bring it. They are unnecessary for a classroom. In fact I would go so far as to say they are detrimental to education in the classroom. If students are literally straight up dopamine withdrawing from the shit then you definitely better take those bad drugs away from them.
Are you trying to start a loop?
Because of the parents. Friend teaches and theoretically students are not supposed to use phones or it can be taken away, BUT NOT BY THE TEACHER. The procedure is to send the student to the assistant principle who will take the phone. Usually when he does this, the student goes to the AP, refuses to turn over the phone, and AP returns student to class. Parents provide cover for the kid. I cannot begin to remember all the funny stories my friend has told me about parents defending the indefensible child behaviour. It is sad and tells me we as a nation are screwed.
France banned phones in school up to 9th grade. Children complained of course, but they survived after all.
This is an example of what's wrong with the paternalistic attitude that's prevalent toward students. Acting as if high school students have absolutely no self-control by seizing their phones because they're deemed to be too distracting is certainly not a good way to form them into responsible adults who can take care of themselves.
It's worth emphasizing that the only reason this is allowed to stand is because high school students don't have another option. If an employer imposed the surrender of phones by employees, people would quit, or collectively advocate against it with their union. But high school students are legally required to go to school, and generally don't have much (if any) choice in which school, and aren't unionized.
Let me guess, you're not a teacher?
cell phones teach students and children to network or rely on eachother. if they find it easier to txt otherhan directly talk then it improves socializing ability among bashful or family neglected persons. if these are looked upon as children and not STUDENTS then th teacher has failed to teach ethical communications abilities. teachers are the bad parents durring daytime mismanagenta sondont forget they arent ignorant. if thwy runbthe class like a dictator and not a Constiturionalist then they are no teaching peers to be reaponsible, starting with the Bill of Privileges about the right to free speach.
to better habits? do u want to tell a Ham radio op to surrender his peice? he will have the trees sprawling with antennas.
what is with the monarchy in class? doesnt the teacher wanna teach how to use a comlink before judged fail to teach?
My two sons went to a school where cell phones were banned during the school day. Students were required to keep them in their lockers. If any phone was discovered, it was immediately confiscated, and could only be returned to the student by having a parent come to the office to claim the phone.
Did it work? Not in the least.
One of our sons told us that "everybody" had their phones with them every day. They learned to keep them on silent, and away from the eyes of staff. Our son admitted that he was among the students flouting the rule. Never once did we have to claim his phone.
Nice thought, but these pouches aren't going to keep phones away from the students.
Not a lazy one that just wants kids to sit like zombies and regurgitate factoids and trivia. They need to learn to learn the tools that will allow them to leverag3 thier skills into high paying jobs.
While that ban didn't necessarily stop kids from bringing phones into school, I'll bet it did have the effect of stopping them from whipping them out blatantly and constantly during classroom time. If the ban forced them to hide their phones and only bring them out discreetly whenever the teacher wouldn't be seeing them, that limits the times and places where they can get away with using them. It requires them to pay attention, at least during class, since the teachers will be watching you more carefully inside the classroom than outside of it.
That being said, it sounds like the ban might have not accomplished the letter of its goals, but it did indeed accomplish the spirit of its goals. Kids in classrooms are now learning, and I'm sure that's why teachers can't be arsed to enforce this rule in the halls, the bathrooms or the cafeteria. They're happy enough that their pupils are finally paying attention again, at least when and where it matters most.
There are some schools that literally just let their students sit at their desks and use their phones all damn day. Could you imagine doing that while your boss is giving a presentation at work? The teachers that allow that to happen have no backbone and are damning their pupils future to a very rude and sudden awakening once they enter the workforce. Having at least *some* enforcement of acceptable social behaviour during class time is absolutely necessary, otherwise the whole damn point of school -- preparing the kids of today to become the workforce of tomorrow -- is lost on everyone.
Personally, if I were a teacher, my rule would be thus: "You may have your cellphone in class for as long as it takes me to catch you with it. If you're not clever about hiding it, the shop teacher and I will gladly show you how clever we can be at destroying it. If you choose to participate in my little game without first making backups, I will personally submit your application to the special education department."
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-cellphones-gaining-schools.html
This is a good solution, I am often distracted by the smartphone. By the way, I can boast of my successful discovery of easy way to better grades in the form of service TakeAwayEssay.com. I don't use it often, but a paper writer helps me solve difficult academic situations very quickly and for little money. Such assistance should be in the mind of any student.