One thing I miss about reddit is that I could just filter out r/teenagers
We’ve been so busy fighting extremists and gross fetish porn that we forgot to quarantine the annoying children.
Lmao it pains me every time I think of my prior behavior as a kid on the net. Becoming an adult, I was not prepared to face the shame of my behavior simply due to my lack of understanding. I genuinely thought I knew. ugh.
Technology is clinically known to suppress emotions. It has a correlation to a-motivation. So banning technology use in school is actually good. It’s just that most schools think that will fix all the motivation problems, which it will not.
It’s always rude to not listen. So phones should not be allowed during class.
However, It’s rude not to allow breaks, growth, emergencies, and the fact that they are in fact, kids. They should be allowed to socialize, enjoy youth, and understand hierarchy/respect. So to earn respect, you must respect first.
Let the kids have their phones/computers as that is the modern world we live in. They will have technology. Don’t discourage it just because some people learned “you won’t always have a calculator in your pocket”. Well, now you do, so rather than ban it, teach them to USE IT!!! Just… properly.
Adapt the teaching, not the class.
I would still disagree about phone usage.
Even when in school, phone helped me quite a bit with education. Having a way to do a quick fact-check is invaluable.
Now as I’m finishing getting my degree such devices became an inseparable part of the process.
Yes, you may not always listen to what’s being said whilst using them, but lets be frank, you wouldn’t be listening to those parts either way.
School education in a lot of places is fundamentally flawed. It’s extremely difficult to learn when you’re expected to absorb information just by listening and writing.
I’d agree with OPs sentiment here, off-topic smartphone usage isn’t the cause for worse education, but instead is a result of poor engagement in the first place. Should people be more engaged in the topic then suddenly smartphones start being used as a studying tool and not for entertainment. There are many ways of achieving that, but that’s a whole different story.
I second this.
How do I motivate my students? I’ll need to know by 7:30 am PST tomorrow.
Thanks!
Something I’ve found to have worked well in the past is phone breaks. It helps regulate phone usage and makes students far more likely to pay attention, myself included. The teachers that had the most success gave us phone breaks. Regulation and breaks > punishments.
That’s actually a pretty elegant solution. A teacher being against something that motivates the kids is a losing battle to begin with. Extending that olive branch stops that bridge from being burned, and there’s been all those studies that show prudent use of breaks increase productivity, including outside of that environment
In classrooms children shouldn’t remove their phones from their pockets at all, they are there to focus on the class. If we removed our phones from our pockets, they would be confiscated until the end of class, and rightly so.
School is for paying attention and learning, not for going into your own little world on your phone (which we’re all guilty of).
Also, the only time you need to use a computer at school is during IT lessons, or study/research sessions. School is the time that we learn and perfect our handwriting abilities, and our abilities to read through books, make notes based on what the teacher is saying, or writing on the blackboard, etc. It is not appropriate to pull out a laptop and use that instead, because that won’t teach the child these important hand skills.
I’m talking about primary school and secondary school, and mostly college too. Once the student is 18 and begins university, there’s nothing stopping them from using computers or phones, it’s up to them to regulate their own attention and such.
I think that’s all pretty reasonable and fair.
P.S: This also applies during breaks.
to answer your question, there is no reason other than america’s fetishization of the protestant work ethic.
schools don’t need to be a joyless labor camp. you already have to wake up far too early and be there all day, can’t you at least be on your phone? maybe give kids a break? everyone has stress in their lives, my anxiety started in 5th grade, maybe i don’t have the mental capacity for 7 fucking classes today and i check out after 5. just like no honest person pays full rapt attention every minute of their jobs.
in college you can basically be on your phone during class and i remember just as much from college as i do grade school. either way, you have to study for the exams. if you aren’t gonna pay attention, there are plenty of ways to do so. being forced to listen doesn’t necessarily increase absorption.