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.
If you don’t remember the fact that kids were more respectful 25 years ago or so, you’re probably less than 25 years old. The shit teachers deal with today simply did not happen back then.
Didn’t happen at your school, maybe. I grew up in public school in the hood. There were maybe 15 kids in the student body, myself included, that were there to learn anything. Everyone else was causing fights or stealing shit or just trying to be funny all the time.