In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.

Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning.

The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes.

  • andrew_bidlaw
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    10 months ago

    What I actually like about phones in classrooms is a transparency. Every fuck up like teacher being rude or kids picking fights with each other would be recorded from a couple of angles. 20-30 teens collected together in a small room and feel bored is a recipe for something to happen, especially when teacher is that bad at getting their attention. That’s a highlighted reason why the same law was introduced in my country - to defend teachers from responsibility while they are to indocrinate youth with things even kids don’t find believable and use force if necessary.

    • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      If you are into surveillance wouldn’t it be easier to just install cameras everywhere and record everything? Then phone can stay away and locked.

      To be clear, I’m not advocating for this, it sounds like a 1984 nightmare. It’s just that you don’t need kids with phones to enact surveillance

      • andrew_bidlaw
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        10 months ago

        It matters who have that survelliance capability. With phones all parties are equal to report problems, with cameras - it’s school, and it’s not that hard to imagine them losing data when they themselves are at risk of a lawsuit. Besides, mass surveiliance via cameras would rightfully meet a pushback (and it’s an overkill) while phones are already here and already fixated tons of problems.

        • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Totally agree camera it’s an overkill and they rightly meet a push back, I’d be one of those. It’s just that we are trying to fix something that in dont see as a problem, with something that doesn’t make any sense. Phones haven’t been in a classroom for long. If the main reason you think they should remain is because they have a camera and they might catch something, it looks like a pretty weak one to me given all the downsides - kids at school are not schooling l.

          • andrew_bidlaw
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            10 months ago

            It was one of the reasons why banning phones is stupid. Besides obvious, like a way to contact a child when it’s not at home, or using it to find information, access cloud documents, editing them.

            Phones aren’t a problem. Bad parenting and bad teaching are.

      • uis@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        If you are into surveillance wouldn’t it be easier to just install cameras everywhere and record everything? Then phone can stay away and locked.

        Never works in kids’ favor. Catch teacher lying or yelling? Never.

        If you wondering that country is Russia.