What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation
What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation
Teachers say mobile phones make their lives a living hell – so one Massachusetts school barred them
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
A) This is a boarding school where they have a lot more control, the result will not be the same even if copied exactly in public or non-boarding private schools
B) Even being a boarding school, id bet money there's a healthy smartphone "smuggling" operation going on that staff isn't aware of (Or are, but keeping it out of the public eye so they can proclaim "success!" To the media)
Yeah...... My wife used to teach at a local university, and is friends with a lot of highschool teachers. This just sounds like a formula to create scenarios where teachers have to fight students.
Teachers at public schools have no realistic way to prevent students from doing whatever they want. Unless there are parents at home willing to enforce some sort of system of discipline, then there's not a whole lot a teacher can do.
The quality of parenting has just tanked in recent years. I'm sure part of that is our new economic reality, however I personally think the addictive nature of smart phones isn't helping the situation either.
Im a specialty provider at a children's hospital, and in recent years we've had a hard time getting kids and their parents to put down their phones or tablets during appointments.
There are tons of kids that will have a complete breakdown if we have to take away their tablets during a casting. Hell, Ive had parents get confrontational because I ask them to put down their phones so I can explain to them how to take care of their sick child. It's a hot mess, and it seems to get worse every year.
They certainly picked a very… particular school to profile. It’s a private boarding school with a 62k per year tuition. They also gave all students replacement phones…
So I doubt this would have quite the same positive effect in a more urban school where they ban with no replacement.
I personally grew up in the era before cellphones, but even I can see that it’s a difficult sell to ban teens from using them.
Yeah, not exactly a feasible route for the most public schools to take given that most public school money goes towards administration and voucher programs it seems.
Ah yes, now they can bully in person instead of over the internet.
Honestly. As someone who grew up analogue, and transitioned to digital, an in person bully only is so much better.
No access to you outside of school. The difference it makes is massive.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Students, faculty and guests grab their food from the kitchen, and eat together under a white tent that overlooks western Massachusetts’ Berkshire mountains.
As the close of the school year neared last June, talk turned to final assignments (the English class was finishing Moby-Dick) and end-of-year fun (there was a trip planned to a local lake).
The devices can make calls, send texts (slowly) and can’t load modern applications; instead coming with deliberately cumbersome versions of music and mapping apps.
When a middle school in Canada surveyed staff, 75% of respondents thought that cellphones were negatively affecting their students’ physical and mental health.
Providing dumb phones could be part of the way forward, Nina Marks admits, but she wonders if funds at already strapped public schools could be put to better use.
While Hollier says that Light Phones are intentionally small and slow, so that people use them less, students report that they also break easily and the batteries die quickly, which wasn’t in the plan.
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