While small things like this create a big contrast between "school" and the "real world". When kids are at home doing homework they will have access to phones. They live in a world where every adult always has a phone in their hand. Why not teach them good and healthy ways of using tools and technology?
Also, to be frank, schools need to take the easy way out sometimes. They have part-time, limited custody of children across the whole spectrum of development. Even if some large subset of kids would take well to a "digital wellbeing" curriculum, they will always also have to deal with the subset of kids who could not care less.
Some things are still the job of the parents, not the teachers.
> Why not teach them good and healthy ways of using tools and technology?
They are. Good and healthy ways of using a phone when you should be paying attention and learning is to not.
Seems like a false equivalence, given that a sword can be used to kill someone and a phone seems very unlikely to be able to be used for that.
You don't start educating people on responsible alcohol use by getting them something to drink...
I can only imagine how distracting phones are today for kids in school, especially with the rise of extremely addictive apps like TikTok.
I think banning them in schools is a good thing and I’m not surprised schools are seeing improvements in behaviour without them.
As a parent I would probably consider giving my kid a flip phone for school hours. Maybe that’s a creative solution.
Pulling out a phone in class in the schools I was in would result in it being taken where you could collect at the end of the day.
It takes discipline to get good grades and master your footwork!
This is interesting - I wonder who she was talking about in particular, perhaps someone from BJ Fogg's Behavior Design Lab (formerly Persuasive Technology Lab?) Though it appears that the lab, and its graduates, are generally oriented toward more positive outcomes.
Sometimes it isn't possible to get to the main office.
