This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I'm always confused by this as "back in my day" teachers would just take our devices away if they were chasing distractions.
Then again that was back in the 2000s before smart phones and wifi everywhere.
Young people are kinda cooked I guess. Between nic vapes and brainrot they are in for a rough time.
Same, we had texting and snake, but if the teacher saw you doing either (aside from maybe shop class) they would confiscate it til the end of class.
Young people are kinda cooked I guess.
Always have been.
True that, before though I'd say it was a low flame, now it's like medium high, the brainrot is much worse now than ever. If you go into the tech without any guidance you're just fucked.
Yeah, not sure what the bill does when phones are already banned in schools by teachers? (I'm a headline reader so maybe i missed the reasoning)
Young people are either cooked OR the easy access to vast knowledge could help them out. So maybe all we will see is the IQ distribution become much weirder (only people on far sides of the graph, nothing in the middle).
Damn I make good theories.
The problem is just like any generation there's the kids who will take advantage of the resources available to them to better themselves, and then there's the kids that just absorb the brain rot and end up just cooked.
It was fine when they could be contained in factories and kept occupied like the drones they were turned into. Now the drones just wander around causing trouble.
I could see this making sense if the American education system wasn't already broken beyond repair. Otherwise it doesn't improve education. Simply gives more control to corrupt schools.
In my country a similar cellphone ban in schools has been implemented. Except in our schools kids actually learn quite a lot. It's far from perfect, but far from terrible too. It may or may not have a noticeable impact on students' performance. That remains to be seen, since it was implemented fairly recently. Perhaps scores from this year will indicate either an increase or a decrease.
Though of course, politicians are unlikely to care and even if it ultimately leads to a decline, they won't cancel it.
Hot take but phone ban is schools is bad. We ought to teach kids how to use the phones properly as clearly personal computers are never going away and are fundamental part of our existence.
I know it's hard, I know that teachers will struggle but it's clearly an important investment as we're never going back to a pre personal computer world. It might change shape from a phone to a watch or something but it's never going away.
Really a non sequitur. you could have one course "healthy use of new technology" and ban it for the rest of the school day for distraction-free learning.
You could but you could also train real world practice. Example of this I really like is Japans school cleaning structures where kids learn and practice cleaning and taking care of their surroundings - because we all will need environment maintenance skills forever (or until personal robots).
I know it's not a exact comparison but developing crucial skills and more importantly practicing them is what peak education looks like.
For phone example this would be developing and enforcing phone culture so it caries on out of school. Kids can ignore a single class but a culture shaped within the school will stay with them forever.
Texan here, working for a school district where these types of laws have already been implemented: I'm pretty sure it's about controlling narratives, not improving education.
Kids use their phones to fact-check teachers, record teachers improperly addressing students, record fights, and verifiably report on very real issues within the school. I haven't seen any educational benefits from banning cell phones, only that it's been easier to sweep stories under the rug and to refute concerning complaints from children in need.
this is nonsense.
Oh okay, my bad. I guess I'll just change what I see and hear.
I live in CT, and I guess I'll just lie about what I see and hear too?
We mine as well live in different countries tbh
We mine as well live in different countries tbh
I absolutely agree. My nephews went to pre-K in Connecticut, and the opportunities available to them absolutely blew my mind. I genuinely believe that there was a measurable dip in their academic progress when my sibling moved back to Texas.
From the metrics side of things, I work with one of the larger districts in Texas, build a lot of reports for the district, and work very closely with the district directors of communication and other leadership. From this perspective, I can tell you that there are a lot of potentially messy scenarios that were addressed before the public ever heard about them. But after these cell phone laws, the amount of resources that went into "crisis response" have plummeted, and moved instead into marketing. Primarily because it's harder to report and verify incidents without concrete evidence.
Part of these new cell phone laws, and what got a lot of buy-in from districts, was that kids were recording fights in the bathrooms, and that preventing kids from recording the fights would remove the incentive to fight because there wouldn't be video to upload to social media. But, we haven't seen a decrease in the number of kids getting written up for fighting; we've only had a decrease of community outcry, because they don't see the fights anymore.
I argue that these cell phone laws were never intended to modify the quality of education or increase the safety of the students, but that they were always intended to merely take away the kids' ability to verifiably report incidents, or expose issues to the public. Outta sight, outta mind, right? If this were really about getting students to disconnect while they were in school, we wouldn't give every kid a Chromebook, on which they can look up ridiculous shit, send stupid messages, and leverage LLMs to do all their work for them.
I don't think that the communities in Texas nor in Connecticut support these laws with the intent to silence their children, and to have blinders put on them. And even if the educational boards and lawmakers in Connecticut aren't as malicious as the ones here in Texas, they'll still unintentionally muzzle the students as a side effect.
I lived in Dallas for 3 years while I was doing a postdoctoral fellowship. Kids in Dallas were going to class in trailers. I was also moonlighting doing curriculum design for TX state testing. I would have to grade sample questions answered by students, and like 90% of the responses I got from high schoolers indicated they were barely literate. (FWIW my background is in neuroscience/cognition, not education, and I was developing science test questions for standardized tests.) I opted not to have my family move down to Dallas during the fellowship after seeing how bad education was there.
There are lots of areas like that throughout Texas, unfortunately. In a disappointing number of the campuses in San Antonio, some of the lowest performing schools are the only place where many students get to eat, get new clothes that fit, enjoy HVAC, and not get assaulted by family or neighbors. Many of those schools have unofficial metrics that they prioritize: were the kids safe, did they eat, did they talk to someone if they needed help? What is considered a monumental success in those schools is if the teacher says something that low-performing students find engaging enough to write down.
These are the schools that the state is shutting down. Many of the students are left in a lurch without a safe way to get to their new school. These are generally in areas with high minority representation. It's almost like Texas's goal is to fail specific groups of kids.
I read all this, and I can only think about my time in school pre cell phone.
I think about how today, there are in house couselling service centers in nearly every school in the state, staffed by mandated reporters. My school counselor is the reason my abuser went to jail, she helped me.
I dont believe they are taking away thier voice. We all have that. I teach my kid to use his, he's not muzzled.
We can disagree, we do, and that is okay. I just think the positives outweigh the negatives. Phones were banned in High school when I went (grad. '06) and theyve been banned at my sons school already for years.
The state is just aligning with what most districts have already done here. I appreciate you saying you dont think lawmakers intend to harm children (but they are). least we agree half way?
i suspected it as much. teens have been recording inappropiate behaviour by school admistrations. any statutory rape, relationship they dont want that to hit neews. before cellphones, i caught 1-2 professors/instructers using outdated or misinformed facts in bio. this probably where its good to fact check
There's ample evidence that social media and smartphone addiction affects developing brains significantly worse than it affects fully-developed brains.
Banning cell phone use in school is a good thing.
This take is giving: 🙈
"If we don't see it, it's not happening and yay we saved the kids!"
Fuck that. If you can't stop schools from getting shot up, banning phones is the wrong move.
STOP ARGUING. DO AS I SAY.
NO, YOU CAN'T HAVE A PROTECTIVE BALLROOM!!
There's nothing new about children and adults being treated differently.
It’s not about role modeling. It’s about learning and attention spans.
Yeah, but explain that to the children, especially young ones.
I do teaching, and when I set rules about not using phones during class - I put mine to the pile too. You can present the most compelling argument ever, but there's a much higher chance it's gonna reach fifth graders if you actually practice what you preach, and show the example of self-discipline, otherwise it will feel dishonest or unfair to kids, because they're kids.
Sure, we give the kids alcohol, let them drive, let them vote- wait we don't!? What do you mean there's always been these kinds of differences!?
I'm sorry, is there a massive problem of adult teachers and staff at school being constantly glued to and distracted by their phones such that it prevents them from teaching and doing what they are otherwise there to do?
No?
... Maybe the critics can ask ChatGPT what a false equivalence is.
We had early smart phones back I was in high school.
We also had this rule.
Its fine.
If its not fine, you have an addiction problem, and should seek help.
Yeah! Kids shouldn't have different rules than adults! Same rules for all ages!
Sincerely,
The Pedophiles
Yeah wtf? TONS of things have a set of rules for adults and kids, that’s literally what being a minor means… how is this a bad thing? Adults aren’t kids, kids aren’t adults… why should they be treated the same?
Sounds good, we should let kids drink and smoke pot then right. You can drive a car at any age, any age person can buy cigarettes. No more age restrictions on games and movies...
Staff at schools are adults, many of which are responsible for the lives of other living humans. The critics must all have the maturity of school children.
