89 points

I mean… fine? France always does things kind of top-down and there’s certainly no reason you have to have your phone readily available, and plenty of evidence it’s good to be away from it.

It’s not like they need to get to their phones to tell their parents there’s an active shooter on campus. 😐

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-6 points
Removed by mod
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0 points

Tragedy in a French school:

“Maman! Maman! Ze school is out of baguette and fromage! Please come pick me up! I am about to le faint!”

Disgusting.

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22 points

“The video footage of the Ulvade TX shooting has been edited to remove the children’s screams.”

I think the French will be fine, lucky fuckers.

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6 points
*

Uh… I’m actually French Canadian. My comment was meant as a joke.

Edit: I really didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings. And if that happened, I apologize.

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4 points

Lmao is that the comment that got removed?

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36 points

Good, you don’t need smart phones in school

For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t.

We’ve been without smart phones for millenia, literally, and we were fine without. You will be fine without.

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20 points

we didnt have clean drinking water either, or daily showers, we lived without soap for millenia

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1 point

Those are good things.

Mobile ohones, barring a few exceptions, are not

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5 points

Lol, we definitely have had clean drinking water for far longer than we have had dirty drinking water, thank the industrial revolution for that. And try skipping a shower for a day - you’ll be fine. Soap also has a long history https://www.soaphistory.net/soap-history/ over 4000 years

So literally wrong on all three points. Perhaps you need to read more instead of doom scrolling and swapping nudes on your smartphone

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14 points
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I’m pretty sure there can be other bad stuff in water that existed before the industrial revolution

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7 points

“So literally wrong on all three points. Perhaps you need to read more instead of doom scrolling and swapping nudes on your smartphone” This made me feel like I was on reddit not lemmy lmao

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Motherfucker how long do you think humans have been around for? Okay, sure, soap has been around for like 6k years, wow, such a long time. Modern humans have been fumbling around figuring shit out like an untrained ai model for the last 60k-160k years. Quick math shows us that for somewhere between 54k and 154k years of our history as a species, no soap. MILLENIA!

Drinking water: you’re making a distinction between clean, as in unpolluted by chemicals and other substances, and cleaned drinking water, which has been processed by humans to make it fit to drink with a lower risk of causing illness. Clean water has obviously been around for eons, but cleaned water, as I believe OP was describing, is a much more modern concept.

Showers: “try skipping a shower for a day”? Motherfucking neckbeard no, shower every fucking day. Try it, people might find you somewhat less repulsive until you open your mouth.

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16 points

We’ve been without a lot of things for millennia

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0 points

Uh huh, and we can do without the bad things

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7 points

For me school was a great way to learn almost nothing of any use while occupying 11 years of my life with pointless time filing busywork that I hated every hour, minute and each and every eternal second of of. The only thing worse than school has been work and my consolation is that at least it’s not forever!

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1 point
*

Aaahhh yes, you’re one of those people that just knew English grammar right at birth. I envy you! I guess that things like history, math, geography, economics, computers, it all was just already in your head and you didn’t need to lean anything. Wowowow

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1 point

I’m not saying that, I’m saying most of that time was wasted. I got very little for the 20’000 hours and most of my youth. In fact the overwhelming majority of what I kmow I got from the internet after class.

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6 points
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And yet here you are writing English.

You take what you’ve been given for granted.

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1 point

That doesn’t take even 1% of 11 years

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5 points

You wish you would have been home schooled?

To be honest I’m disappointed we haven’t seen more progress into “VR schools” yet. Where you are fully submerged into a learning experience. While your blood is constantly analyzed and drugs to increase concentration and energy levels are dispensed. Ok maybe not the last part.

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4 points

I wish it didn’t waste most of my youth

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2 points
*

For anyone screeching that you do: No. You don’t

I have a feeling that you haven’t gone to school recently lol

Educational resources are blocked that you literally cannot do your assignments without accessing. Teachers will tell you to use your phone to access it.

If you have some questions for someone who is actively in highschool right now, I’d be happy to answer :)

edit: tone

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1 point

Do I really need to explain this? I guess I do

I’m sure there are classes in school now that require a phone. There better be, kids need to learn how to properly and responsibly use them. Having said that, 90% of other classes never required and still do not require a phone.

Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media, harmful to the development of the brain. This is not news, this has been known for a while.

This is not fascism, this is not me trying to be a dick this is simply kids needing to be away from their phone for a few hours per day and everyone is losing their minds because OMG, how are we going to make it without phones? Such opinions alone are reason enough to ban phones in schools. Learn ti be a human being first.

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1 point

If we’re talking about how it SHOULD be, the educational system to properly teach kids knowledge about life and not encouraging cheating (which a teacher has implied to do before) on some math equations.

never required and still do not require a phone

If your teacher does their job and teaches, sure. In the modern age where the teacher just tells you to “google it” then you DO Google it and it’s blocked, yes you DO need a way to get information related to your studies online.

As an example:
I need to make an essay on a song… that I can’t access because it’s blocked. Literally today.

Phones are an extreme distraction to the learning process and coupled with social media…

I do agree with your reasoning though. Ideally the schools provided resources would be able to do this. However due to the fact that we have 2 IT guys for 4 schools, 6,000 students assuming similar size, there’s not enough people to actually make stuff work.

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0 points

Yeah who needs the wheel either? We survived 450,000 years without it. And don’t get me started on paper. Paper can be used to make paper airplanes or spitballs. What a distraction! Kids should chisel their assignments onto stone slates like our ancestors did.

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4 points

If wheels could brainwash a kid, completely distract them, and make them throw a tantrum when you take it away then we might have to worry about them.

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-2 points

Except they can, remember fidget spinners?

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-5 points

Literally anything can distract kids and make them throw a tantrum when you take it away. Have you ever met a child?

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0 points

No, you’re being facetious. Go sit in the corner.

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-1 points

I understand the paper, but why do they need wheels? Why are you leaving out guns?

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1 point

why do they need wheels?

Carts, busses. There’s wheels in lots of stuff.

Why are you leaving out guns?

Well, you see, unlike the wheel/paper/mini computers with built in calculators calendars document editors email and research tools, guns serve no legitimate purpose in a school.

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-1 points

Type 1 diabetics would like a word.

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0 points

About?

That didn’t exist 20 years ago?

There are no teachers with mobile phones around?

You don’t need a mobile phone

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1 point
*

Lots of type 1 diabetics now use their smartphones to keep track of their numbers, they use them to work out carbohydrates, the phones also warn them of high numbers and potentially fatal lows. So yes they do need phones.

The child’s phone also sends blood glucose values to family members.

Also a teacher having a mobile phone doesn’t help one iota.

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-1 points
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I wanna preface this with I had a small keyboard slide phone in school, not a smart phone by today’s standards, but I am firmly against this archaic mentality.

It doesn’t address the elephant in the room, classrooms have become painstakingly boring. There is no real incentive for the student to actually do well anymore, or even pay attention. This is exclusively for the k-12 system though, as the issues seem to have become non-existent entering the college and university system. I went from being a solid D/C student in high-school to being an A/B+ student going into college

I spent my time in grade school fucking around and barely paying attention, this was without a smart phone. I couldn’t keep focused on the class subjects, and so therefore I gave up. The college system has the process down-packed, it’s laid back, not hours on end in a row learning useless shit you won’t need, and you have the freedom to either listen or don’t, there isn’t the constant pressure from professors “You are failing you need to do better” like in high school. Plus the professors seem actually happy to be there and they make the content more enjoyable, its not just droning on and on on a subject.

The only things removing a phone from a classroom is going to do is remove a potential learning tool, and just annoying your students even further. If your student doesn’t want to learn, removing items isn’t magically going to make the kid learn. Make it entertaining, do something OTHER than this stupid info cram shit where you just regurgitate information constantly. There is zero incentive on almost every subject you learn to actually want to learn it. You don’t learn any type of life skills, you don’t learn anything for your career/future. Hell they don’t even teach cursive anymore. My sister couldn’t even read a physical clock entering 7th grade. They don’t teach it. But you can bet things like “what happens in the 16th century” will be taught, or what basic cell structure is (I couldn’t tell you, I forgot all that info leaving that class room).

Like I get needing to know history, and basic mathematics, but the current schooling system is a overburdened plug of useless information for society. Everyone knows it, everyone lies to their kid saying things like “yea you will definitely need to know what beware the ides of march means in life”. If things were taught that people knew would be useful in life (or at the very least explained HOW it would be), and it wasn’t just a professor saying “ok class open your book, this is the lesson” for 3/4 of the year, you might have a better student attention span.

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0 points

We oughtta send the kids to the mines again, god forbid they might discover something they never knew they’d like studying at school.

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-5 points

People werent fine either, why dont you just google 911 calls from kids and see how many would have been better off without phones

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1 point

without phones

IN SCHOOLS.

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33 points

Brazil did it a while ago. Nobody died [yet]

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1 point

Brazil and nobody dying, what kind of propaganda is this?

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-2 points

That you know of

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-17 points

Some kids have medical issues and need a phone to monitor their health or text family for advice and help since they may be young. It’s also nice to track the kids with their phone when they’re walking too and from school.

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12 points

We did not even have dumb phones … somehow we still survived …

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-4 points
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Yea but now we do. And not every one did survive

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6 points

Right. Kids used to die like flies back in the day when there were no smartphones.

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-3 points

Jesus Christ exaggerating what I said like talking to a trump voter

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31 points
*

Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy? This happens everytime a new technology becomes popular and schools don’t know how to regulate it they do this.

The downside is, a fair few student will have their phones confiscated by the school. But it won’t dissuade them from bringing them in. You make them better at hiding them instead of creating tools and protocols to enforce for when they can and can’t use them.

The crazy thing is, this should be about schools not wanting to be liable for or responsible for these pieces of tech. But Everytime I see legislation like this, it’s to do with “children’s mental health”, or these devices being a distraction.

Model it. Nobody should be allowed to have a phone in schools by this metric. No phones for students? No phones for teachers and administration.

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20 points

Yeah I think the adverse effect of handing an iPhone to a 10 year old in Atlanta, when that teen is still highly impressionable unrestricted and unsupervised access to the internet is far worse than handing a kid a Gameboy on which they can only game, or a Walkman on which the worst thing they can do is listen to Cardi B.

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-4 points

And the fault of the parent who is the only one who can do anything about that child having unrestricted access to the internet of a phone. This is adding to the responsibilities and liabilities of the schools without solving the problem in a meaningful way and this is exactly what I’m being critical of in my statement.

If nobody has a phone you can implement other technologies to alarm if such a device is brought into the property etc. You can actually jam cell phone use in the area too. There’s solutions that would mitigate a school having to take on hundreds of confiscated $1000 phones which would be a huge liability and make them a target.

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0 points
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You compared smartphones to previous tech such as Walkmans, and I explained how they’re nowhere near the same in the extreme case (unsupervised access). No school is gonna confiscate the phones as long as the kids listen. And the kids need to learn to listen to parents and teachers. Discipline is sorely missing in the new generation. Look at that series “adolescence “ to see the real effects of giving kids a smartphone.

And jamming is expensive and ineffective (you’ll end up jamming nearby devices not on school property too).

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17 points
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Does anybody but me remember when schools banned walkmen? What about portable CD players? Gameboy?

Except none of these things were feeding Andrew Tate or Joe Rogan garbage straight into their highly impressionable skulls.

I, for one, support the banning of phones in schools. The social media addiction has been shown to cause depression, particularly in girls, and the brainwashing is ever more apparent.

If anything, this policy fails by not going far enough. I question whether kids should have access to social media at all before a certain age.

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6 points

Rush Limbaugh was broadcast on the free radio, you could listen to it on $1 worth of junk parts if you knew what you were doing. The ease of access is not what made republican bigotry accessible or popular.

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7 points

Sure, but we’re talking about a way different scale. “If you knew what you were doing” being a key word here.

It’s never been easier to come across this garbage when youtube/Instagram/Tiktok comes installed on most phones by default. What’s worse, there have never been so many grifters spewing the same shit.

Back in the day, you might have been able to call Limbaugh an isolated instance of a clear grifter getting paid to spread lies.

Nowadays, the Tate clones are so ubiquitous that it’s hard to point out the flaws in thinking because so many people seem to believe in them. But its just the algorithm feeding you more of the same, over and over.

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1 point
*

And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about. (Edit for clarification: what I meant by “so anything about it” was schools aren’t responsible for teaching good and responsible phone use and self control, nor is it their job to step in when the parent is doing their job with teaching these skills).

I’ll also point out the argument that there was a push back then for outlawing video games and violent music because of its effect on young children and regardless of the validity of the danger to kids, it’s still the fault of parents who were allowing their children to listen to that music or play those games. Schools already likely have policies about cell phones, or at the very least policies about confiscating distractions.

You seem to have taken this as not support for banning phones in schools rather than what it really is. A criticism of this method for the deficiencies that it creates without solving the problem or even (more than likely) changing anything about the protocols already in place for handling distractions in schools except potentially creating a worse situation for the administration who have to now be responsible for these items en masse because students and parents are going to ignore this until it hurts them personally.

It also doesn’t teach students anything at all about moderation or the dangers of the internet, nor does it teach them anything about this tech which they will end up having to use as adults. And if you have seen adults with this tech you know it’s not just a danger to kids.

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4 points
*

And that is the fault of the parents who chose to hand phones to these kids. It is not the fault of the school, nor is it something the school should have to do anything about

Okay so, because some parents are bad and fail at educating their kids properly, society shouldn’t take a role in correcting that behaviour and instead should just let kids be damaged for life, did I understand you correctly?

I don’t know where you’re from (although I can guess), but here in Europe, and this is an article about France, we recognise the state has a role to fulfill in society, we all pay taxes and expect them to be used for the benefit of all. I don’t see any problems with schools being the enforcers of government legislation in this instance.

Also, everything else you wrote… I mean, it is obvious that your school system is very different from what I’m familiar with. Because yes, it IS the school’s responsibility to make sure that rules are applied properly in their premises, the money/resources necessary to do so are a secondary thought. This shouldn’t be something that needs to be explained, but well, here we are.

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-1 points

What’s your point? Are you banning the entire Internet?

All this stuff is still accessible once the bell rings and before they get to school, just like it was when I was a kid. Kids were still going on YouTube/MySpace/ Facebook and more to share things. This argument doesn’t make sense.

You’re attributing the issue of algorithms to the medium itself.

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2 points

Facebook and YouTube weren’t as good at recommending things back then. It’s not the internet as a whole that’s the problem, it’s what social media has become. Addiction skinner boxes. It’s not ok for kids to grow up using that.

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15 points

I remember when people didn’t have phones on them 24/7 and kids didn’t die and parents could call the school if they needed to talk to the kids. Somehow we survived.

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7 points

And a bunch of people didn’t but we don’t talk about them, it was the norm back then.

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6 points

Teddy sniffing glue, he was twelve years old, fell from the roof on East 2-9, Cathy was eleven when she pulled the plug, twenty six reds and a bottle of wine.

But people don’t like that song, so you’re right about not wanting to talk about it.

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-1 points
*

Well the #1 reason US parents want their kids to have phones is because so many kids die in school shootings and parents have a need to be able to get ahold of their kids.

That’s the #1 reason, no matter how illogical it is

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2 points

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, you’re right. Kids calling 911 is what gets first responders on scene. Until kids in America can attend school without the threat of gun violence, banning phones is not an option.

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5 points

About ‘better at hiding them’; maybe so; but that will largely be down to how the rule is enforced. Some schools basically just say “please don’t carry your phone. Put it in your locker.” In those schools, basically every student has their phone in their pocket. Whereas other schools are more strict about it. The phone can be confiscated on site, and in some cases require the parent to collect it. In those cases, compliance goes way up.

As for ‘no phones for teachers and admin’; unfortunately, some of the jobs and responsibilities of teachers are done using a phone. Teachers are required to carry a phone during yard-duty, for emergency purposes. And teachers often use their phone to mark class attendance rolls. … But its definitely a bad look when a teacher is walking down a school corridor staring at their phone while student phones are banned.

As for the reasons for the ban… well, they are many and varied - including all of the things you mentioned. (liability, mental health vs bullying in particular, and distraction from class activities.)

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-2 points

Are they going to allocate money to every school to employ technologies to prevent cell phone usage on the premises? Unlikely because, as I said, this law is to prohibit students from having cell phones, not teachers or administration.

So what happens when a school now has to confiscate and hold $1000 phones en masse? It makes them a target for theft. It makes them a target for lawsuit in the event that any of those phones are misplaced, stolen, damaged etc.

Teachers and admins didn’t used to have cell phones in schools either. What are they doing on a phone that they can’t use a landline and a computer for? Why is a cell phone so important for yard duty? Why is it a requirement? What does the cell phone do that a landline can’t do?

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2 points

To avoid any risk of legal liability the school rule becomes “do not bring a mobile phone to school”, similar to the advice that schools give about valuables in general - especially on sport days. Bring at your own risk. This is especially true when it is a government policy - i.e. not the school’s decision.

Note, this article is talking about France. But as has been pointed out, France is not the first country to do this. I live in Australia, and my comments are based on the phone bans here which have been in place here for a few years (I think the state of Victoria was first, and all states have seen one-by-one followed that example because they see it as a good idea.)

The discussion about whether or not teachers should have smart phones is a separate issue. It has a totally different pros and cons, benefits and challenges.

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0 points

Lol yeah criminals are going to raid schools to grab a couple of phones, sure buddy, take your meds now

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3 points

If they have to hide their phones now, they won’t be using them as much, which is The end goal.

You might be living proof that not using tiktok does not necessarily make you smart, I’ll give you that point.

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0 points

They already had to “hide the phones”. Literally France already passed a law stating that phones aren’t allowed in elementary and middle schools for students. Those phones previously had to be kept in a backpack or pocket and weren’t allowed to be used on the premises.

This new law does one singular thing, so far as I can tell (which isn’t made clear in either of the articles I read). It actually actively makes students surrender phones at the beginning of the school day and locks those phones away in a centralized location the students don’t have access to.

The problem with that is what I have been saying in subsequent comments. There are protocols in place for what happens when a student breaks the rules. But A. They mention nothing at all about how they will know a student is carrying around a phone in their pocket or using it in the bathroom. And B. they mention nothing about the repercussions for skirting such rules and regulations.

Additionally, if this is about student mental health (as they claimed), it does absolutely nothing to teach them about the dangers of cell phones, nor does it even remotely teach them to moderate cell phone use.

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24 points

What’s funny is all the rich tech elite send their kids to schools that don’t use tech to the same degree as public schools. Wonder why.

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11 points

Because personal tutors are engaging directly with the student the whole session?

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11 points

Probably because elite schools have smaller class sizes or teacher/student ratios thereby making it less necessary to have the ability to disseminate information via mass means with technology. Put it all up on a big screen where 30 kids can see it, send the assignments out to 120 kids via google classroom on school issued chromebooks (because there are plenty of kids from families that cannot afford computers), and do all the grading and review digitally. I’d be willing to bet those expensive private schools use plenty of tech, maybe kids carry Macbook Airs instead, but there’s no escape from tech in schools.

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