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0 pointsspondylosaurus1y ago0 comments

I'm young enough that smartphones were just hitting the market when I was in high school, but old enough that using your phone in class was still totally verboten. (We all tried to skirt the rules[1], of course, but we knew the rules were unambiguously a thing, and knew there'd be consequences if we got caught.[2]) And for the most part, teachers didn't have to implement any special solutions; we kept them on us at all times, and if a teacher heard/saw your phone, they were liable to take it for the class or for the day.

So the current situation with out-of-control phone use in schools is interesting/puzzling to me, because clearly something's changed since then—but I don't think "better smartphones" are the differentiating factor here. Something's shifted with how schools enforce (or don't enforce) these policies, or with kids' relationship to their phones (and believe me, I was plenty hooked on mine back then too :P), or something else entirely.

It's also puzzling when people argue that smartphones have opened a Pandora's box that makes it impossible to control student behavior—because I know firsthand that that's not true!

[1] I think the threat of punishment also forced us to be relatively discreet about it. If you're texting in class, you have your phone on silent, brightness all the way down, barely sticking out of your bag...

[2] Some teachers admittedly gave more of a shit than others, but I rarely saw students taking advantage of that in a disruptive way—the most blatant thing you'd see is a kid listening to music on headphones during art class or something. I might've been the biggest offender in that regard, because I would occasionally bust out a Wiimote and N64 emulator to play Mario 64 on my phone, but I knew when I could get away with that and when I couldn't.

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11 comments · 5 top-level

giantg21y ago· 3 in thread

"Something's shifted with how schools enforce (or don't enforce) these policies"

This is it. The other parts are tangential to the true cause.

techjamie1y ago

Based on my current understanding of the climate teachers work in, it's probably a mix of parents and admin. Based on what I've heard, parents very frequently get angry when teachers try to enforce rules on their kids. So they go complain to admin, admin backs up the parents, and leaves the teachers out to dry. Then you have the helicopter parents who can't stand for their child to be inaccessible to them for a few hours every day.

Plus, the phones are much more expensive than they used to be. A teacher confiscating a phone could very well be confiscating $1,000+, making it a harder justify to a lot of parents.

giantg21y ago

"a mix of parents and admin."

Yes, sorry, I meant enforcement in general. Parents and admins are absolutely a big part of that.

"A teacher confiscating a phone could very well be confiscating $1,000+, making it a harder justify to a lot of parents."

Those parents should probably reconsider their justification of buying a $1k device for a child if that child can't be responsible with it.

klipklop1y ago

That and cases of teenagers assaulting teachers that dare take away their phone. For many teachers it’s not worth the career and physical risk. If kids don’t want to learn they are not the enforcers. They didn’t buy these kids the phones.

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1_1xdev11y ago· 2 in thread

Punishment is effectively not allowed at many schools because parents suck.

Kids complain to parents.

Parents complain to teacher. Teacher tells parent to pound sand. Parent complains to administration about unfair teacher. Administration takes a “customer is _always_ right” mindset for various reasons, and teacher told to not enforce. Or the rule is changed.

Some parents refuse to allow their child to do anything wrong (by moving the goalposts of “wrong”, assuming their child is always right, etc), some have anxiety if they can’t reach their child instantly via text, some parents refuse to enforce rules they don’t understand or agree with.

mindslight1y ago

Prohibit phones in AP classes, allow phones in the GA or remedial classes. If a parent complains about their kid having to put away their phone, then they can switch classes to be with the rest of the distracted kids. Normally you'd be wary about creating this kind of segregation, but with the loss of effective intelligence from being tethered to a surveillance industry terminal, this arrangement would likely end up expanding access to AP classes.

juunpp1y ago

Oh, but my child is the best!

Have you ever gotten into that situation, as a kid, where you argued with an adult about how stupid their kid was? That's the summum of the situation you just described. Good times.

usefulcat1y ago· 1 in thread

> I'm young enough that smartphones were just hitting the market when I was in high school, but old enough that using your phone in class was still totally verboten.

When you were in high school, none of your teachers had grown up with smartphones. Today, many have, maybe even a majority depending on the teacher demographics at a particular school.

Not saying this is the entire explanation, or exactly what it might explain, but it seems likely to at least be related somehow.

monkeyfun1y ago

Yeah, this seems absolutely like a relevant observation -- it might be massively increasing the number of "empathetic" teachers.

To elaborate: Certainly for me as a highschooler, I was bored out of my mind with how easy and mind-numbing the curriculum was, and as my mother refused to let me drop out and try for college early, I felt stuck for years just feeling utterly imprisoned and wasting my time. Books, drawing, writing, sure, but no doubt about it, my phone (and through it, the internet) was also one of my big escapes back then.

Noted because yeah, I can actually tell that prior to thinking about this now, in the place of many teachers I might have been very sympathetic to teens using their phones "discretely", even if it might not at all be the best thing for most of them. Especially anyone for whom it's the only source of entertainment or anti-boredom.

Can't say I understand it for elementary schoolers, or students who are obvious underperformers, but it does seem teachers who grew up with smartphones before they were out of high school could be a big aspect, just from the empathy factor.

consteval1y ago

In my opinion it's 100% the parent's fault. I have multiple teachers in my family and over the past 10 or so years the occurrence of absurd parental expectations has skyrocketed.

These parents not only want, but EXPECT, to be able to directly communicate with their child at any given time. It's also extremely common for them to track their children's phones via Life360 and thoroughly monitor every aspect of their kid's lives. This even, now, extends to college. Parents will literally email professors and perform tasks for their kids (or adults).

The helicopter parenting in the US has gotten completely out of control and nobody knows what to do. Kids aren't playing outside because of phones; they're not playing outside because parents are terrified.

Kids no longer even have to argue for their grades. The parents will, literally, side with their kid and force better grades for their kid. Parent-teacher conference isn't what you think it is anymore.

Teachers don't give a shit because they can't. Nobody supports them here. I mean, they can't even implement a late policy anymore. Seriously, if you don't accept an assignment that's 1 week late, you'll never hear the end of it. And then the principal complains, and then you're fucked. Which is why we have no late policy and infinite retakes and on and on. They couldn't enforce no phones because they have no power.

sn91y ago

Students have gotten smartphones at younger and younger ages since you were in school.

They got addicted to the dopamine feedback loop smartphones provide when their brains were even further undeveloped and don't remember a time before that so this is their norm.

Parents have thrown up their hands and given up, pretending that it's impossible to avoid buying their kids expensive super computers engineered to steal the attention of their users rather than just buying their kids dumb Nokia bricks and letting them learn to be bored and cultivate the ability to direct their attention and concentration.

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