Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones
tek@calckey.world to 
Why Schools Are Racing to Ban Student Phones
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/11/technology/school-phone-bans-indiana-louisiana.html
https://archive.ph/KSXxg
(Paywall free)
You are viewing a single comment
I don't quite understand why this is still a thing? Back when I was in school in the late 2000s, phones were banned. Couldn't even bring it out even if you were going to use it as a calculator. Immediate 3 hour detection if you were seen with one. I got one for calling my mother to pick me up because I needed to go to the doctor.
I don't understand how between now and then, the rules seemed to lax.
You haven't really spent any time near a school system have you? I don't even refer to them as parental units anymore, they are just banshees. These awful horrible screaming demons that want you to raise their kid but also never discipline them.
Nope I have not. I don't have kids. I have heard your comment said by many other teachers around too. I don't understand how it got to be like this. If people really don't want the responsibility, time, money, emotional and physical investments of raising kids, they shouldn't be having them.
It's not nearly as bad when you view it from a parent because for every team there's probably not more than 2-3 really shitty, vocal parents. And usually they can be kept in check by other parents (peer pressure can and should still be a thing when used correctly at any age level, it just takes proper leadership).
When you are on the other side all you get to see and interact with 75% of the time at best is the ugly, loud and rude. Full blast.
I got in trouble for trying to use a payphone to call my mother to pick me up on a day when they cancelled school after it started due to worsening ice conditions. I didn't have permission to use the phone and my teacher got on my ass.
They want kids to be completely dependent and controllable.
I think they want kids to pay attention in class
The post you responded to was responding to someone that got in trouble for using a pay phone to call home when school was canceled.
Public school exist to teach obedience first and foremost.
Eh I don't buy that, at least not as the primary goal. It's more a side effect of the structure and resources of a class. When the classrooms were built to support 18 students per class, and the teacher's union contract says they'll have a max of 25 students per class, but in actuality they have 31 students per class, kids sharing desks and bumping elbows, yeah we kinda need all 31 of those kids to sit down and buckle up, or no one at all is going to get any learning done.
Is it the ideal learning environment for every student? Nope. Is it the ideal learning environment for any student? Probably not. But unless we're willing to invest more in education, it's what we're working with.
My guy they literally have you pledge your allegiance to a symbol of the state before your anywhere near old enough to know what that means.
Anyone who doesn't, and I can speak from experience, usually gets shit for it from the teachers.
Yeah the pledge is definitely weird.
They make for better unskilled laborors or cannon fodder that way. Wouldn't want them to learn that they're entitled to the pursuit of happiness or anything.
Power of unions. Can't suspend everyone.
Because smart phones are a more normalized piece of technology that (most) people have and use extremely often.