I may have agreed with this a year ago, but here’s what’s going on with my son school’s phone ban.
The school requires the children to bring in a laptop from home. The laptop mine brings is controlled via parental controls. My child is a stickler for the rules, so the phone is only used to let us know if parental controls need to be adjusted during school hours because of a change in lessons, or to let us know if there’s a problem on the way home (he has a disability and sometimes he needs a lift from a bus stop, and he’s also been late the bus after school before, so I’ll have texts going between me, him, and the bus driver). It’s never been an issue for him and I’ve never had a complaint from the school. One of the administrative personnel also told me that he’s really good about not using his phone and would never use it when he wasn’t supposed to.
The school banned phones because they wanted the children to be more social. I complained to the school about the above and that my son has already had many issues with bullies and taking away their phones might cause more incidents. The school told me not to worry, not many kids are really using their phones and a lot of them are either going to some sort of computer gaming room on their breaks or at lunch time, or they’re gaming on their laptops, and none of that is expected to change. So, what exactly was the point?
My son also raised a complaint about possible theft. They assured him that the phones would be securely stored in a safe. Within a week the kids knew the code and the school said, “well, it was inevitable”.
At this point, all of the kids on phones in school stuff seems mostly like theater to me. I’m sure it’s happening in some places, but it doesn’t seem to have been an issue at my son’s school. To some extent, I wonder how much of it has to do with teachers not wanting to risk being recorded, but they still have laptops so I don’t know what exactly they are doing this for. The whole thing seems like it could’ve been avoided by either giving more punishments to the children that are using their phones inappropriately or giving special dispensation to the students that never use it inappropriately.
I may have agreed with this a year ago, but here’s what’s going on with my son school’s phone ban.
The school requires the children to bring in a laptop from home. The laptop mine brings is controlled via parental controls. My child is a stickler for the rules, so the phone is only used to let us know if parental controls need to be adjusted during school hours because of a change in lessons, or to let us know if there’s a problem on the way home (he has a disability and sometimes he needs a lift from a bus stop, and he’s also been late the bus after school before, so I’ll have texts going between me, him, and the bus driver). It’s never been an issue for him and I’ve never had a complaint from the school. One of the administrative personnel also told me that he’s really good about not using his phone and would never use it when he wasn’t supposed to.
The school banned phones because they wanted the children to be more social. I complained to the school about the above and that my son has already had many issues with bullies and taking away their phones might cause more incidents. The school told me not to worry, not many kids are really using their phones and a lot of them are either going to some sort of computer gaming room on their breaks or at lunch time, or they’re gaming on their laptops, and none of that is expected to change. So, what exactly was the point?
My son also raised a complaint about possible theft. They assured him that the phones would be securely stored in a safe. Within a week the kids knew the code and the school said, “well, it was inevitable”.
At this point, all of the kids on phones in school stuff seems mostly like theater to me. I’m sure it’s happening in some places, but it doesn’t seem to have been an issue at my son’s school. To some extent, I wonder how much of it has to do with teachers not wanting to risk being recorded, but they still have laptops so I don’t know what exactly they are doing this for. The whole thing seems like it could’ve been avoided by either giving more punishments to the children that are using their phones inappropriately or giving special dispensation to the students that never use it inappropriately.