I mean it kind of needs to be both. But it’s hard to find a compelling reason why kids need their smartphones fully accessible during class.
Well, you can quickly search up some information. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that once in middle school teacher said something I wasn’t quite sure about, but also I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t more sure. So I looked it up, seeing that I was right, I asked if it rather wasn’t meant to be that other thing, he checked too and indeed he was wrong.
Also, my mind often wanders off. And it may happen that I suddenly can’t remember something. Could just be some word I could look up on my phone in less than a minute. Option B: Keep thinking about it till the rest of the class. I can’t stop thinking about that until I either remember or find it.
Next, spine. I am currently in high school. Phones are allowed here. Any time. So, I utilized my scanner and digitized one 500 or so page book I couldn’t find on the internet, and then used it as PDF instead of a physical book. It is less likely that I would forget my phone. I wish schools would have options for e-ink tablets instead of having to carry many heavy physical books. That used to be problem mostly in elementary school and middle school. Same goes for note taking.
Obviously, the last example can be easily solved by modernization.
Fast talking teachers. I can’t write that fast. I mean, I can, but then I can’t decipher my handwriting, which is already hard anyway. Voice recorder is a quick solution. Obviously, it is easier to look through notes than audio, but IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE A REPLACEMENT FOR NOTES, just a help.
But do take that with a pinch of salt. Especially in elementary school, I used to be one of those weird kids who greatly preferred being liked by the teacher over having friends. So even though I had a phone at the time, I never used it during classes because teachers disliked it.
But at least during breaks it should be allowed. Otherwise kids will find much more dangerous ways to entertain themselves.
… yes, my phoneless childhood was super dangerous. it’s amazing i survived a couple of decades without one!
I mean, comparing class with active kids throwing stuff around and ones just sitting and playing on their phones, I’d take the second. Cyber bullying may be hard to detect though, but it’s not like schools care either way.
Yes, life was so dangerous before the telephone. It’s amazing anyone survived decades without them! 991, phaw, we had a bucket of water and a shotgun.
… in summary. The point should be that the next generation has an advantage over the previous, in all things.
If you want to teach kids how to look up information, you can create spaces for that. They don’t need unrestricted access to their smart phones to accomplish that throughout the day. Hell you can relax your policies as they grow up and show the maturity to handle having a smart phone in the classroom. If schools want to do that, I am all in favor of it. But they would have to start early and build a system, which is a lot to ask of already overworked educators.
I am not talking about unrestricted access either. It depends on age, but they could always just ask the teacher if they’re allowed to look up something. And also I don’t see how disallowing phones during breaks helps education. It’s meant to be a break.
deleted by creator
Option B: Keep thinking about it till the rest of the class. I can’t stop thinking about that until I either remember or find it.
Option C: Write it down.
It’s not like I am thinking about it to not forget what I wanted to remember. It’s that it will keep bugging me until I remember.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
Bugging you until you remember? You write it so that you can’t forget and so it stops bugging you.
Bugging you because you need that info itch scratched right now? Aka instant gratification. Then you have to learn to not need instant gratification. Seriously, it’s another skill.
Another skill is not caring if someone has a solution other than yours. It’d take half the time to write it down as it would just to look up the answer.
half the time to write it down
You’re making my argument for me. Although I’d say much less than half, you already have pen and paper on your desk.
All this is spoken like an entitled bratty immature kid. (No offense, it’s just your age and you’ll grow out of it)
There’s a reason why you can get a ticket or be charged with distracted driving while you’re on your phone and behind the wheel of a car. IT IS A DISTRACTION. FULL STOP.
Stop lying to yourself and to us in the process.
- Using phone while driving is much bigger issue.
- This phone issue has never affected me personally. I am defending OP and others.
- I am not talking about using the phone all the time for some stupid thing. It gives you access to a lot of information when needed.
Also if you trust kids with making life changing decisions, this is unfair.
Also sorry if I sounded as you described. I only started carrying the phone with me since I was 15. I was too worried about breaking it (it’s not cheap thing). That makes finding positive points (that would apply to younger kids) a bit harder.
Edit: Also, don’t be worried, I would almost never voice my opinions in real life.
Spoken like an introverted someone who HAS ALREADY been affected socially in a negative way by their cell phone use.
The entitled and bratty part of your comments = when people tell me not to use my phone I simply DONT use it or bring it. What’s the problem exactly? You want access to an encyclopedic knowledge in class? You don’t have a laptop or computer in the room you can use ?
Maybe you use your phone only for the most strictly academic things, but most people don’t.
Finally, I don’t trust kids to make life changing decisions. See all the high schoolers who got suckered into a worthless degree from the University of Phoenix. It’s very fair to take the reigns from people who can’t control themselves and their impulses.
Spoken like an introverted someone who HAS ALREADY been affected socially in a negative way by their cell phone use.
Can’t disagree with this. I got a tablet when I was 8. With unrestricted access. On the positive note, it did help me learn quite a lot of stuff. Like English.
The entitled and bratty part of your comments = when people tell me not to use my phone I simply DONT use it or bring it. What’s the problem exactly? You want access to an encyclopedic knowledge in class? You don’t have a laptop or computer in the room you can use ?
No problem, really. If someone wanted to search up something during class, teachers could just allow it, and generally they did. Except when I was in grade 9 and the school decided to prohibit even just having them at school, as if it were grenades. Some teacher would always just collect all into a bucket and return at the end of the day.
When we had free substituted classes, sometimes they would tell us something like “Sorry, I’d allow you phones now, but if I did I could have problems from it.” So clearly they would punish teachers for that. That’s just crazy.
And computers aren’t in every class. Even if they are, they might not always work. Now we use our phones even to do exams sometimes. But, yeah, school isn’t even mandatory for me anymore, so it’s already different.Finally, I don’t trust kids to make life changing decisions. See all the high schoolers who got suckered into a worthless degree from the University of Phoenix. It’s very fair to take the reigns from people who can’t control themselves and their impulses.
I wasn’t even talking about such late decisions. For example, when I was 10 I was given the decision between going into class A or class B since I had good enough results for A. A was class for a little more talented kids. They even had some additional subjects. Well, my dad discouraged me from going to class A. He told me “There won’t be any normal kids. I’d choose B if I were you.” So I did. I regret. I could have gotten to a better school later on.
Some explanation of those classes:
A - Talented
C and D - sport classes (basketball and hockey respectively)
B - everything elseNext, when I was 14, I told my psychologist about my living conditions. Including photos of how our home looks like. She told me that she could call social services. Then asked me if I agreed. I was scared, so I said no. I regret, once again.
And something that’s there always, choosing high school when you’re 15.
I am not sure how it works across different school systems. In Slovakia, they are focused just on 1 particular field of study determining where you’ll be for the rest of your life. 3 year fields are without graduation (e.g.: various mechanics and plumbers). 4 year and 5 year fields are with graduation, meaning you can go to college/university.
I’ve had a few classmates who only chose particular field because their friends were going there too, even though they weren’t interested in it.------------------------------
Oof, sorry. I got too much off topic.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Well, by their teenage years, why not all the reasons adults need smartphones fully accessible? Looking up information from authoritative sources? Emergency contact? Coordinating schedules for office hours?
Schools often simultaneously demand more from children than workplaces do adults, and give them less opportunity to excel.
I’m not saying work-inappropriate phone use should be accepted, but taking them away entirely is downright irresponsible. Just like schools who still demand students write on a notebook instead of using a laptop. Raise your hand if you had RSI-related issues for a decade or more after high school? We old people tend to forget how bad school used to be (and can be) for physical and mental health AND for learning.
Schools should just be one huge faraday cage. Kids have to learn to focus and pay attention.
And they need to learn the curriculum
I mean I’m not that extreme lmao that’s also a safety issue. Kids will be kids, they will not sit quietly all school day and be total lesson sponges lol
How much of a safety issue would it really be? Cell phones didn’t really become a thing for my age range until high school. If there was an emergency, there was a landline in the classrooms.
Right? Somehow schools survived until at least the 2010s without every kid having a cellphone in them at all times.
No kidding. Not to sound like an old fogey but we did really well without them for both “emergencies” and “fact checking”. I can only see them primarily as a distraction.
spoiler
sadfasfasdfsa
Those were tools. Smart phones are a distraction for social media 99% of the time.
spoiler
sadfasfasdfsa
Ban pocket calculators because the abacus exists. Lazy kids aren’t learning how to do arithmetic because of them.
Yeah, it would suck for the staff, but I don’t think it would be that much more unsafe. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I don’t think it’s particularly unsafe.
I don’t think y’all realize that not a single staff member or administrator or any employee of the school would be able to use a phone either (other than landlines I guess?). Schools aren’t just full of students lol
other than landlines I guess?
You mean that thing I specifically mentioned? Yes, I realize that. Would it be inconvenient? Yes, it absolutely would. Would it suck to work in that environment? Again, yes it would. If I’m just thinking about safety, I’m not sure it’s that much more unsafe.
spoiler
sadfasfasdfsa
It’s incredibly unsafe when you live in a society built around smartphones/tablets for health and safety tools to remove said smartphones.
But is it? Landlines can make the same emergency calls. A Faraday cage also doesn’t mean you can’t have an internal wifi that reaches outside that the staff can connect to, or even the students can connect through with a proxy controlling their connection.
I agree it’s impractical. But it doesn’t mean laptops and phones suddenly don’t work. They can still work within the cage and you can poke holes through it with a landline and a proxy to control traffic in and out.
Ultimately, it’s definitely not worth the engineering and the effort. I just don’t think that safety is the reason it is impractical.
School shootings weren’t really a thing until after you graduated you dumb fucking boomer.
Things change, and I’m tired of stupid trogladites inhibiting innovation because it’s different than what they’re used to.
Get with the times, or move the fuck out of the way.
I’m not a boomer. And I’m in no way advocating the use of a Faraday cage. Maybe read what is actually written instead of what you think was written. Hell I work in tech trying to get people up with the times…
No, but the attention span kids have these days seem to be shortening. Phones and the current state of social media intake doesn’t help.
That said, a faraday cage is absolutely too far, but they don’t need their phones when they should be focusing on the course.
No, but the attention span kids have these days seem to be shortening.
I hear this a lot but have yet to see evidence/sources from anyone. It’s just “look around you.” I don’t find it particularly compelling. I didn’t exactly sit quietly as a kid myself.
Quick google search: https://santamaria.wa.edu.au/decreasing-attention-spans-jennifer-oaten/
It’s a pretty well known fact that constant tech decreases attention spans, in both children and adults. How many times have we been on Lemmy/Reddit on the browser and picked up our phone to… check Lemmy/Reddit?
That appears to be a quickly referenced theory by one (yes qualified) person on one blog post without a study behind it. I could also argue that kids generally have short attention spans but social media just allows them to indulge in it more, and they will of course prioritize attention to that over other things. That is not the same as “it shortens their attention spans.” We need at least one study here or at least something more substantive than a one-liner linking social media and decreasing ones attention span. I’m not sure if you noticed, but blog is actually focusing on how to reach kids and strategies to get them to pay attention. It has one throw away non-cited line about social media shortening attention spans.
I should also point out that I also did a cursory Google search before writing the previous comment, and that was the only post I saw as well. The reason you selected it is because there was no other decent hit when you searched I imagine.
Let me be clear here, the only reason I am sort of arguing about this is because there is a really bad propensity for older people to say something is wrong with younger people. We see it over and over again. I think social media is actually very harmful to kids, but I have yet to see anything that shows it actually diminishes ones attention span. And the reason I really don’t like that claim is because it seems to be just another variation of “kids these days.”
Of course not, but I think we should at least act as if they should.
Knowing it’s not possible, though.
My kids are in 5th, 3rd and 1st grade. I wouldn’t want them on their phones during class as they grow up.
Like I said prior, I don’t think kids should be on their phones either.
Schools should be a battle royale, leave them on an island to battle and the last kid standing gets to go home.
How will this plan affect my real estate taxes?
Not well I imagine, but you’ll get to see an epic battle every exam season.
They do that multiple times a week, it’s called “phys ed”
Schools should just be one huge faraday cage.
Not a great idea for schools in the US… second amendment issues…
deleted by creator
The thing about smartphones and the internet in general is that there is a lot of crap out there. Sure kids may read more, but what they read matters. If they’re reading websites that deny the Holocaust or give bogus health advice like bleach curing autism or things like that, that’s not good. Without education, how are they going to know what they read on their phone is garbage?
Stupid.
I will learn the curriculum when the curriculum stops being wrong and occasionally straight up propaganda
Can’t use that to explain Cs in math and physics.
learn to focus and pay attention.
Not all of us have the luxury of that ability
I have very little faith the person you’re responding to even acknowledges the existence of ADHD .
I’m not them, but while ADHD is a problem, social media and the dopamine quick-hit style that internet content has taken has had a noted effect in reducing attention spans.
Source?
I mean, I’m doing quite well having gone though school without smart devices and 100% would have never gotten straight As if I had one when I was a kid. And I’m every type of ADHD you can be diagnosed as…
spoiler
sadfasfasdfsa
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.
Where can I fight this gross fetish porn? I need to, uh, join the fight, too…
Not sure bro, I think he talking about hentai pedos
Oh nvm then.
I just try to blend in
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.
I never thought about that before, but I guess that’s one good thing about having already been an adult by the time the Internet existed.
Wasn’t r/teenagers filled with pedoes?
Plenty, yes. If someone revealed they’re a girl aged 13-16, they’d get flooded with DMs asking for nudes. And dick pics. Always many of such screenshots around.
The annoying children were quarantined on reddit?
Anyway, I’m not leaving this place without a fight
I don’t know about you but /r/teenagers was one of the handful of subs I ever blocked.
Im also saddened that this is at the top of my feed. I want to laugh not be annoyed by some shitpost badly hidden as a meme.
What would you prefer the school do?
How could they motivate you to actually pay attention in class instead of playing with your phone? Honestly ask yourself if this “addressing motivation” would make geometry more interesting than tiktok.
Well said. Social media is designed specifically to hold attention and encourage addictive behavior. There’s no way to compete.
In one episode of hannah montanna they use a song and dance to learn about the skeleton bones. I still remember the song after like 10 years, lol
My school solved it by existing before smartphones did
Maybe if they used blender(the software) to explain it.
If they try to use a blender (the kitchen appliance), I’m sure it will also become interesting.
The blending will continue until morale improves
Blended Learning tho … 😁
“Today in class we will be finding out whether or not triangles will blend. Please put on these safety goggles before sitting at your desks.”
not treat students like indentured servants? productively encourage them to pay attention instead of imposing austere zero tolerance policies? do you really think that people in ancient greece paid attention to every second of lecture because there weren’t any phones?
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to go through school again? to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
school didn’t have to suck as much as it did.
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood or freedom just a few years from being born?
The fuck you think everyone has to go through in their lives prior to being an adult.
Edit: though
Sounds like everyday work life
This opinion is wild bud. Firstly, I disagree with the every hour of every weekday; once you take into account breaks, lunches, the much shorter working day, sports, and the way classes should usually be front-loaded with information then flipped for engagement, you’re maybe spending 10-15 hours a week “learning” and the rest practicing/applying. In my career I’ve generally had to spend much more than that each week learning.
Secondly you aren’t slaves, you have the option to down tools and just remain poorly educated without ramifications that endanger you immediate life/safety. That you don’t is as much to do with knowing it’s a shit idea, as it is societal pressure.
Thirdly, the people of Ancient Greece didn’t pay attention every second, but when their mind wandered they were at least able to move back to the topic at hand, tbh, if you miss enough context scrolling reels, you won’t be able to catch back up, and so many will just give up and stay on their phones.
Lastly, society around you pays for your education, it’s part of the social contract we live in. The resourcing of schools is already woefully low, please define how stretching those resources to accommodate completely preventable delinquency, is at all worthwhile. By draining time you aren’t only robbing the school, you’re taking from the students next to you who don’t want to spend their time acting like entitled children.
In my career I’ve generally had to spend much more than that each week learning.
Important point. If you’re in a career that’s at all demanding, you are going to be learning for the rest of your life. School prepares you for that. The specifics aren’t important, what you should be learning in school is approaches to research, study, and problem solving. Schools could probably do more to make that clear.
Instead of squeezing school children, we could tax the wealthy at all? That is, if money is your concern.
could you, yes you, in your day to day life, handle being forced to learn something new every hour of every weekday and being given obligatory deadlines, not even being paid for the work, having to be there at like 7:30am, having even less control over your personhood and freedom just a few years after being born?
Bruh, you’re arguing with people who have already gone through school.
Yeah it sucks sometimes, we all know. We did it. The exact thing you’re bitching about and acting like no one else knows how bad you have it? We did it.
When adults tell teenagers that they understand, they aren’t just saying that because they want the teenagers to listen. They’re saying it because they remember when everything seemed so profoundly unfair. We really do understand…but you’re still wrong.
School sometimes sucks, but what you gain from it is remarkable. Take advantage of it, because work load only increases from here. You are at a time of your life where your major duty is to learn stuff and then prove you learned it. You may very well someday look back on this and go, “Damn, wish I’d appreciated it more.”
Are you over 35?
Telling a kid, “Yeah, it sucks and it isn’t going to get any better,” is the last thing you should tell a kid in these modern times. That’s half the reason so many people are suffering mentally. The lack of an ability to affect change because stubborn goons with more power than them assume they know how things should be done.
Are you over 35?
Nope, but not far off.
I will admit that I could’ve added a more of, “but life does get a lot better when you’re the one making choices.” But honestly I think, in the near-dystopian society we labor through, that the boredom of school can be a helpful preparation for the monotony of entry-level work.
I’m trying to commiserate on some level. Life can be hard, I’m not going to lie about that. I dealt with my share of crushing depression in my 20s. But for many it is worth it, and education can help it be less difficult in the long run.
I guess the point I should be trying to make is that finding ways to actively engage with things that aren’t your preferred activity is a vital skill for enjoying life. School becomes less monotonous when you make an effort to enjoy it, not when you rely on your teachers for that and spend your time pining for your dopamine source. The same is true for shitty work. Embracing it and finding ways to keep your mind engaged can make terrible work far better. It’s how I survived years of working fast food, retail, and call centers until I finally got a job I truly enjoy in software.
And of course this carries throughout personal lives as well. Being able to put down the keyboard/controller/phone and clean the house is a necessity, one I still struggle with.
The lack of an ability to affect change because stubborn goons with more power than them assume they know how things should be done.
Yeah but this is, maddeningly, pretty much the way life is.
By the way, the point here isn’t that it would be bad if teachers could make school more engaging than YouTube and TikTok, but rather that it’s impossible for the average teacher to make school more engaging than a student’s phone. So get used to it. Required activities will never consistently outperform entertainment, at any point in your life.
This isn’t meant to be doom and gloom. It’s meant to be honest. Learn to love life, because life won’t always make loving it easy. But it will be worth it, at least in my experience.
Your statement would sound a lot less dramatic if not for the fact that literally everyone goes to school.
“Not being paid for your work” 🤣🤣🤣
My man, your book report is contributing nothing to society. Future scholars will not look upon it with awe. It is purely an exercise to help students as a whole develop as individuals.
Here’s my question - how do you expect teachers, who are actually providing society with a much-needed service, who are already well understood to be overworked and underpaid, to productively encourage students to pay attention?
This is how work operates, except I’m there for two more hours.
You can quit work, and you have rights. Children have neither.
You can quit work and starve. You can quit school and get in a little bit of trouble. I don’t really see the equivalence here.
Children have lots of rights in this analogy, in fact in a great many places, they also have a right to be cared for by the state that adults don’t. Statutory service provision routinely is written in protection of children.
Weirdly, most people don’t have a right to take out and use their phone when working, and given that’s the thread topic it’s a decent sized hole in your argument. I worked a high-wage and technical role, white collar as it gets, and you know where my phone was when I was meant to be concentrating on my work, in my pocket. Know what would happen if I was fucking about on it when I had something important to do? Disciplinary, HR, threatened loss of livelihood. If you’re arguing you’re not being treated like adults, I have bad news for you.
Look, you’re not some oppressed underclass of unperson and your myopic determination to cast yourself as such is a genuine insult to people living under actual hardship.
First, school kids need rules, and school is good.
I also don’t think 1 short comment deserves:
Look, you’re not some oppressed underclass of unperson and your myopic determination to cast yourself as such is a genuine insult to people living under actual hardship.
Most jobs don’t really care if you’re on your phone if you are on break. Some jobs don’t care so long as work gets done. It seems your job or career is less forgiving than most.
I don’t know why you’re acting like a blanket ban is a good thing, and I don’t know why you assume thinking that we should treat children and teenagers with a level of respect means I think that children are being treated like cattle.
Maybe you get off on enforcing broad policies, but I’m not a chud.
“oh no i cannot play on my phone, how could school be so cruel”
I actually doubt that phones are the major reason for a post like this. There are many reasons that you could fill in that only happen to some schools but phones happen to be the only one that applies to nearly every school. For example, at my school, our lunches have been cut down to shit 15 minutes at most, and if you buy lunch, it’s much less. We usually have them call 5 minutes left. Sometimes they will say the kitchen is closed, sometimes they can’t because people are still ordering.
OP take a look back at this in about 5-10 years and realize how monumentally ignorant it is.
Removed by mod
I’m an adult and still kinda feel this way.
I didn’t ask to be here and it just gets harder everyday. Even when I’m doing what I’m “supposed” to do to be happy
I am sorry. I don’t know why. I just felt like I should have apologized to you. Sorry.
They didn’t ask to get born, and you people get all bent out of shape when they kill themselves.
Removed by mod
I don’t think kids are killing themselves because they can’t use their phones in class…
Mostly because the world disregards their concerns. “I was able to go through school with lead paint and leaded gasoline” says the fucking boomer.
“I was able to go to school withoit a cellphone.”
Good job, you survived a time when life was much simpler, and I’m glad you’ll use your experience to shit on the next generation. It’s the same argument against LLMs. They aren’t going away and saying. “No, don’t” isn’t going to change the world.
It’s the same stupid worldview that thinks playing a “gambling is dangerous” warning after a Draft King ad is an effective deterrent.
I don’t think OP is thinking that far into their future. I don’t think OP has any plans for higher education either. It’s been a few decades for me, but when I was an undergrad, if your pager went off in class --cell phones weren’t really a thing yet-- most professors would ask you to leave, which was not a good thing in the small upper division classes as they were very difficult and you had to pass with a B or better to move on in my major.
I just wanted to be able to listen to my music while doing work.
I can try to make the material interesting and be engaging but if you’re watching Overwatch on your phone all of that is a moot point.
but if you’re watching Overwatch
You can just take away their phone in that case, no?
Not sure about OP, but my point is that phones can be useful. But if they’re clearly not…That means teachers would have to discipline, which means that the superintendent or school board would have to pay a fair salary and give fair tools, which means the state or city would have to up the budget, which means that we wouldn’t be able to repave the roads in the nice part of town next spring.
having to look at what the kid is doing and judge things on a case by case basis would eat into lesson time which is already stretched thin with class management as it is
You can just disallow phones during classes.
If schools only focused on what students were motivated to learn, I’m not sure schools would really be accomplishing much. Not to say that schools shouldn’t foster motivation in students. Just that technology, especially social media, is very effective at distracting people.
You can increase motivation to learn by making lessons more engaging even if it’s a subject they’re not personally interested in. But making lessons more interesting and engaging is not easy and we can’t expect all teachers to have the skills and resources to do the research and development needed to produce lesson plans that are really interesting. I think it could be improved by putting more money into developing interesting lesson plans centrally and distributing the materials to teachers to follow instead of just producing dry curriculums. Teachers need support.
I have literally built a dungeons and dragons campaign to learn statistics, and had some students on their phones. I’m not a dancing bear, and having a dopamine panic-button makes it near impossible to engage with anything challenging (I struggle with it too and know it’s an anxiety crutch, but it’s super maladaptive).
I fully support kicking kids off their phones in class, I don’t think any lesson no matter how engaging can compete with that. I’m not supposed to be on my phone during meetings, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to ban phones from class. I was just commenting that work can be done to make lessons more engaging when phones aren’t involved. There’s of course a limit to what you can do, and some subjects are just inherently harder to get kids into, like statistics. But seriously good on you for doing that. I’m sure that while it didn’t have perfect engagement, it was far better than just teaching it to the book.
Just curious, is there a place you can share that lesson plan to other teachers? It’d be a shame for all that work you did to not get to be used in other classrooms as well.
But also, screen addiction is very real
Agreed. I’m not defending phones in class, just pointing out that there’s more work that can be done with lesson plans as well.
That aren’t motivated and are bored as hell; the average motivation level for schools where I live is a 2.9… out of 10. If kids aren’t motivated and they have devices on them, what do you think they would do in class?
deleted by creator
You’re not supposed to have fun. You’re supposed to learn so you can get a job that you enjoy.
Hi, elder leftist here. The whole education system is already set up to produce obedient workers. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself how much time is spent teaching kids to organise effectively, or advocate for issues they care about. Or even just build good communication with their classmates, like how to react to bullying.
All that matters is to follow the authority, don’t question the rules, put the things in your head that they give you and nothing else.
The reason kids are bored in school is because the current system doesn’t address the real problems they have, so why should they care about the system.
deleted by creator
What about during breaks? They’re doing that as well.
Just pay attention in class, bro
Because during breaks is the time to either get some energy out or go socialize. A TON of social cues are learned during these breaks. And if they’re getting their dopamine fix from their phones during the breaks, you think that they will be MORE inclined to pay attention in class? The answer is no.
Like the other guy said, pay attention in school. More is learned in school than just the course work.
Take it from an old man, as you grow up friends drift apart. People change, you meet new people. You’ll always cherish those friendships you had back then, but you will never all be together in one place like you are now. People will have jobs, families, girlfriends, spouses, commitments. I love my best friend to death, we’ve been friends since jr high, but I see him once a year now.
Take advantage of the time you have with them. Go to the gas station and get a soda that’s too big, walk around town aimlessly, do boring kid stuff. You’ll have all the time in the world to be online here later, late nights writing comments at 10pm, thinking fondly about doing stupid teenager stuff with your friends 20 years ago
Yup, I haven’t seen one of my friends in person in years because he’s in the army. Another one lives right here in town but has a whole family to take care of, but every single time he’s asked me to do anything with him has been a bad time, and I kinda feel bad about it. The rest of my friends have mostly either moved elsewhere or I’ve just not kept in touch.
So yeah, even people that I kept in touch with for some time after I got out of school have basically not been in my life for some time now. I’ve got a few friends that I usually hang with online, but all my school mates have basically gone their separate ways.
I won’t say whether it’s better or worse to ban phones during break, but I do think it is worthwhile to point out something that you might not know, given that you’re still in school.
School is most likely the last time in your life to have actual, true friends. In college, and especially in work, your friends will almost certainly be fair weather friends, friends made out of convenience rather than anything substantial.
I get that school sucks. I still think so. But there’s some benefits to how schools are run that you won’t recognize until you’re already out of school. Your social life will absolutely get tougher and you’ll be more isolated. So, my advice is to take the bad with the good. Have some fun with your friends in-person, because that’s really never going to happen again. Please don’t waste your school life on your phone.
Nice reply. You made me reconsider that part about phones during breaks.
It is too late for me, but I believe it is for the better. If I made friends with the kind of classmates I always had, I believe they would have bad influence on me. For example, last year the class’ main character, 17 at the time, found someone’s shoes in locker room, unattended. He decided to piss into them. Also popular is weed, vaping, alcohol, making mess in places like McDonald’s (like mixing a burger with cola and spilling it all over the table…), damaging school property on purpose, etc…
While not friends, I do have good memories about some teachers that will last. My elementary school teacher was quite nice. She would always listen if I wanted to talk about something, even if it was relatively nonsense. If I found something interesting, I was always hyped to tell her. Basically like a mom should be.
In middle school, my physics, chemistry and math teachers were nice.
You could always have some conversation with physics teacher, whether school related or not. He always kept happy mood, at least on the outside.
The math teacher did similarly, but I also appreciate how hard he tried to get us to learn at least something. He got to the point where he shown us the exact questions that were to be on exam. It didn’t help. Now I feel quite sad about him, you could sometimes see him on the verge of crying. Especially during and after the COVID-19 lockdown. He tried hard to make math more interesting.
Chemistry teacher was also nice. I could talk with him about problems I had at home. Being able to tell about your problems to someone is nice. Also, when the COVID-19 lockdown came, we had online learning. I didn’t have internet access, and only got an old laptop with broken keyboard from neighbor and I didn’t have money for a replacement keyboard. It really surprised me, but he gave me money to fix that laptop. I don’t know if he also intended that, but it made me feel like I had to put more effort into studying. I won’t forget that.Most of my high school teachers are nice though. Actually there’s just 1 I don’t like. That is a nice change since till high school it was just the 4 aforementioned that I liked.
They would probably be more likely to stare at their phones instead of learning if they did.
I do think that having students sit at desks for hours at a time is not an effective way of teaching. Giving students different ways of learning is beneficial and more likely to motivate them. But that usually is more work and more expensive to do.
In an ideal world, every student would have an individualized, self paced learning program with a dedicated teacher. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for nearly any student.
I would be interested to see how a self paced learning program with a dedicated teacher would end up if it was focused on embracing getting sidetracked. I know I’ve sat through history classes in the past and had semi-unrelated questions I wanted to research or ask about but didn’t want to waste people’s time. In situations like that I would prefer to have a computer to get a quick answer versus pondering it in the back of my head.
There must be some truth to an idea that you don’t learn as much from an answer from a question you didn’t ask.
Man, I remember a couple teachers that encouraged randomly asking questions like that, and the whole class was really engaged. It was very rare but an amazing environment to learn in. I feel bad that there’s so many people that never got to have those sort of teachers.
It’s like the educational equivalent of a gateway drug. Some of the electives I took like programming really encouraged it and that’s what kept me interested even afterwards with subpar instructors.
I think at a certain point, you should be able to drop math as a subject and take programming instead. There’s no shortage of math concepts in programming that still require understanding of underlying concepts, but I can easily say if I had that option in school, I’d have learned way more in a programming class than I ever did in math.
I mean programming is a way to get someone engaged and to some degree there can be creativity. It would almost be like a more topical and realistic version of a word problem
I had a history teacher in school that liked me even though I barely paid attention in class. I was bored in the class itself, but loved history and would spend the entire period just reading the textbook because I found it interesting. So even though I didn’t pay attention I would still ace assignments like nobody else in there.
I was usually a couple chapters past the class at any given time.
Wrong. Get off the phone.
Says the neurotypical teacher to the kid who can’t concentrate without music during study time.
How you going to hear what the teacher is saying when listening to music?
during study time
Wait you mean like you have time at school where you’re not being actively taught? At my school and in the uk in general (i think) that was never a thing for us, studying was something we were meant to do in our own time
Slovakia here. The school is kinda crap. 2 times each week the whole day is subject called “Professional training”, but we almost never do anything at all in there. Whole 2 days of nothing, I am being serious. It’s basically just for attendance, and even that just partially. If you arrive 4 hours late, the teacher will sign you off as if you were there the whole day.
I hope it changes this year. I hope.
Also, math teacher allows us to listen to music during exams. That was her idea, actually.
But we have also integrated the phones into the process. Teachers send us notes we’re meant to work with during classes, on our phones. Likewise we do exams on our phones. Adapt and overcome. This is already high school though. Only the first hear of high school is mandatory, now I am here because I want to study, not because I have to. I could leave anytime if I wished to do that.
That seems like a far more reasonable idea to me. You can’t fight change. You have to adapt it to an achievable goal.
Nearly half of my time in public school (depending on the class) was time spent independently working on things. Time that the only thing between me and completing a task was disregarding the various noises my classmates were making.
They just threw pencils and erasers at me if they needed me to listen. Most of what they were talking about was covered in the book so they just let me read it. The only exception was math.
Did you read the “during study time” part of the comment. I certainly don’t think student’s shpuld be listening to music when a teacher is actively teaching.
This has been an awakening to Lemmy’s philosophical and literate ideals.
Can you not pair Bluetooth earbuds to your school laptop?
Oh, so laptops are okay, but phones aren’t?
many schools provide laptops (such as Chromebooks) for studying and completing assignments
many entire generations of people did not have this luxury
Many generations of people didn’t have the luxury of an MRI machine. Are you going to deny people that because of it?
not a great comparison
It’s your argument.
I’m not arguing anything I made a statement
Just do what I did in school and put an earphone down your sleeve. Rest head on hand. Listen to music. It’s not difficult, I got away with it in exams ffs (I dont recommend that last bit btw, that was young stupidity in hindsight)
You aren’t wrong, but I’m hoping for more institutional changes to the way we determine what helps the next generation learn.
During class. You made up “study time”. No one cares if your on your phone studying during “study time” in the library. But if someone is lecturing you shouldn’t be on your phone or have earbuds in.
School will never be as interesting as a phone. Your teacher will never be as entertaining as an influencer. Your textbooks will never be as entertaining as your feed. What families and teenagers have to understand is that education is a choice. If you want to learn, you’ll probably have to put your phone down for long periods of time to actively listen and learn. It’s difficult. It tires you out. It’ll frustrate you. But you will eventually learn.
Then again - when I look at home prices and inflation, I understand young people’s feelings of futility.
Good luck young people. I’m really rooting for you to figure this out.
Yeah, the second one will directly affect the first one positively. Essentially, school work needs to be the most interesting thing you can do in school, otherwise you will have low motivation. It’s not the job of the the school staff to make the material extremely interesting, it’s their job to remove every more interesting thing from the reach of students.
Read up on dopamine if you didn’t understand that.
(And yes, this affects adults too)
read up on dopamine if you didn’t understand
While you’re on that, you could research how things don’t become more interesting by the absence of more interesting things and how dopamine is required for attention and information retention.
Doing nothing to motivate except removing potential distractions from unengaging school work doesn’t work and can even hurt students’ mental health as they experience issues of guilt and inadequacy from being unable to do what’s required of them.
What exactly should be done to motivate?
I ask because schools do a lot to motivate but kids often dismiss it as lame or complain about the efforts. It’s very easy to say “motivate kids” but actual ideas aren’t common.
Let me give you an example, everyone has heard “when will we use this in real life?” in math class. The same people asking those questions are the same that groan at word problems. So you have kids complaining that won’t be able to use something in real life, and upset when they have to solve a real life problem. What’s the real complaint the student has? They have to try.
I agree that so much more can be done to make school fun, but it’s not all on the teachers. Students have to be present, participate and willing to leave their comfort zone in order to have better results.
What exactly should be done to motivate?
Great question. And a hard one. But knowing a proposed solution will worsen the situation is an important step in it.
It’s like every time a person says “see, this is what happens when you don’t hit children” at every behavior issue. Even though we know that hitting children objectively worsens behavior over doing nothing, but they insist that doing the only thing they know, even if harmful, is better.
Let me give you an example, everyone has heard “when will we use this in real life?” in math class. The same people asking those questions are the same that groan at word problems
I had a math teacher that helped us see which math we would use in real life, and which math we wouldn’t, and helped us understand why the latter was still important for us to know. Everyone paid attention to her.
What’s the real complaint the student has? They have to try.
When you have a room of 30 students and 29 of them are complaining about something, we need to remind people that one of the real life uses of math (stats & probability to be precise) is to point out how unlikely it is that those 29 students are the causal variable.
I agree that so much more can be done to make school fun, but it’s not all on the teachers. Students have to be present, participate and willing to leave their comfort zone in order to have better results.
“Personal Responsibility” attitudes just doesn’t work for crowd dynamics, especially with regards to children. The way a group behaves is nearly 100% predictable from the balance of outside human factors. In this case, the outside factors are parents and teachers. That’s it. Either there is something that all the parents are doing wrong, or the teachers.
Since there are some teachers who have far more success than others (common “favorite subjects” based on school), that means the most likely cause, and mechanism for improvements, are the teachers.
It’s like every time a person says “see, this is what happens when you don’t hit children” at every behavior issue. Even though we know that hitting children objectively worsens behavior over doing nothing, but they insist that doing the only thing they know, even if harmful, is better.
But we know children learn better without phones https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/the-evidence-is-clear-students-learn-better-without-mobile-phones-in-class/276071 You are the person insisting on hitting the child here.
Putting phones in school makes learning harder.
When you have a room of 30 students and 29 of them are complaining about something … point out how unlikely it is that those 29 students are the causal variable.
You are saying 29 out of 30 people can’t be right, which is very wrong. But what you miss is that it’s really 3-4 kids disrupting and the rest going along because it’s easier.
It’s the path of least resistance, and people will jump onto the easy path.
“Personal Responsibility” attitudes just doesn’t work for crowd dynamics,
Except they do. Look at all the examples of Japanese fans cleaning stadiums.
In a crowd most people will follow the norm. If the norm is playing on your phone and not listening, the you have a bad time. It’s not punishing kids because teachers are bad at their jobs, it’s setting a behavioral norm.
Next time you dislike your teacher think about when you got stuck in a group with people who wouldn’t do anything. Now imagine a class full of them. If just one or two more people put in a little effort good things would happen.
But we know children learn better without phones https://www.theeducatoronline.com/k12/news/the-evidence-is-clear-students-learn-better-without-mobile-phones-in-class/276071
I disagree. For two reasons. First, there is only a couple studies in your link, and its “difference-in-difference” strategy does not seem (at least prima facie) to shown effective isolation to only a single variable. Second, it seems to be making the same mistake previously made by Psychologists in the “hitting children” debate, making unsubstantiated (or “common sense”) conclusions about the gulf in the middle after only doing a quick analysis of the two extremes. Further, your link also calls question your claim by pointing out Switzerland did not find any effectiveness in banning phones.
And the “hitting” reference was intended to point out the concern against positive advancement. There was a time where psychologists thought hitting was better than nothing even when they knew it was net harmful and so did not strongly discourage it when parents could not or would not embrace more modern parenting strategies. The same is true of phones in school (and, per your link, laptops in college). Looking at the laptop studies I could find, they have the same methodological problems the phone studies have. They’re looking presumptively at distraction, and setting up an experiment where distraction is more pronounced.
Yet laptops have a lot more research than phones. Studies mentioned above compare ubiquitous laptop use and scores, while failing to address that each individual that uses a laptop averages higher scores than individuals who do not. What studies I could find with phones could be moving in the direction of that same dynamic that shows missing understanding of how to be use technology in learning.
Let’s look at the other side of things. Another study (again, possibly flawed…I don’t trust either side’s phone studies much yet) found that removing a phone ban in NY caused an increase in overall student obedience and educational productivity, at the cost of “school culture”. As someone who grew up as a victim of “school culture” in a world where teachers supported bullying (and in many places they still do), I have no problem with that trade-off. Of course, this study does directly contradict your educatoronline article.
From this fairly balanced piece (which agrees with both my article and yours in some ways):
“If educators do not find ways to leverage mobile technology in all learning environments, for all students, then we are failing our kids by not adequately preparing them to make the connection between their world outside of school and their world inside school”
…which is more important than test scores.
You are saying 29 out of 30 people can’t be right, which is very wrong. But what you miss is that it’s really 3-4 kids disrupting and the rest going along because it’s easier. It’s the path of least resistance, and people will jump onto the easy path.
Is that something you can cite, or just your own personal “pick em up by their bootstraps” opinion? Do you have any experience with crowd simulation? Can you show any evidence that your explanation is likely, or even reasonably possible?
Except they do. Look at all the examples of Japanese fans cleaning stadiums.
That’s… not an effective or topical rebuttal at all. Did you misunderstand what I meant by “Personal Responsibility” attitudes? I referred to blaming the individuals in a large group for their failure instead of blaming the causal elements of the group. I have to deal with that type of problem regularly, where a manager tries to blame a majority of his reports (all capable and talented) of being the problem when something goes wrong. Guess who I ultimately find responsible?
Next time you dislike your teacher think about when you got stuck in a group with people who wouldn’t do anything.
Thankfully, I’m decades out on that. From the kinds of things I see and read about education, I’m grateful I don’t have to go back. But then, my education started after school anyway.
It’s concerning that you think the absence of a device is comparable to the presence of a action, in this case hitting.
It’s concerning that you think the absence of a device is comparable to the presence of a action, in this case hitting.
I’m genuinely lost on how you think the only variable here is whether something is being banned or being encouraged. Or should I say, it’s “concerning”. Did you have a smartphone in school?
I disagree.
Great! But you have no evidence to support your argument. Your apples to oranges comparison of laptops isn’t compelling. Nor am I compelled by your methodology argument, which seems to take issue with testing a hypothesis that phones are a distraction.
thought hitting was better than nothing even when they knew it was net harmful
Once again, we know cellphones are detrimental to learning. This is not a matter of schools failing to adapt to new technology. Tablets, computers, interactive software and more are used. It is about unrestricted cell phone use, which studies have shown hinders learning.
a phone ban in NY caused an increase in overall student obedience and educational productivity, … Of course, this study does directly contradict your educatoronline article.
No it doesn’t. It says that no phones mean better learning. You are missing the forest for the trees.
Crowd dynamics
Lots of research has been done on this, and a small number of people can influence a large group. Look at “wave” studies for more info.
Calling minimum acceptable classroom behavior “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” is absurd. It’s like saying that you can’t expect people to not talk at the theater because that’s just asking too much of people.
Great! But you have no evidence to support your argument
I cited two pieces of fairly substantive evidence in reply to someone who cited a single article. If you don’t think that is reasonable escalation of evidence, we can stop now.
Once again, we know cellphones are detrimental to learning. This is not a matter of schools failing to adapt to new technology
My cited references contradict that. More importantly, your article contradicts the “we know” part. Let me quote your reference: "Research from Sweden, however, suggests little effect of banning mobile phones in high school on student performance. "
My references made clear argument that this is indeed a case of schools failing to adapt to new technology. I even quoted a relevant quote to you.
No it doesn’t. It says that no phones mean better learning. You are missing the forest for the trees.
“My findings suggest an improvement in educational productivity due to the NYCDOE’s ban removal”. I understand there’s a double-negative in that reference, but the cited study’s findings suggest that “yes phones mean better learning”. You might disagree with it, but please reread it so that you do not misrepresent it.
Lots of research has been done on this, and a small number of people can influence a large group. Look at “wave” studies for more info.
Sure. Please demonstrate that your claims are correct. Until then, and especially because you seem to have failed to comprehend the involved references, I will wish you luck.
Calling minimum acceptable classroom behavior “picking yourself up by your bootstraps” is absurd. It’s like saying that you can’t expect people to not talk at the theater because that’s just asking too much of people.
I’ve lived an entire life of watching people blame the bulk of individuals for failures by authorities. I have become reasonably skeptical of any claims that “it’s everyone but…” the decision-maker.
It’s not the job of the the school staff to make the material extremely interesting, it’s their job to remove every more interesting thing from the reach of students.
And this is how we reached the point where sleep is more common in a classroom than anything else. They should make the material interesting enough that people won’t have to resort to other stuff
Read up on dopamine if you didn’t understand that.
I know what dopamine (the joy hormone which the body uses as a “reward”) is. Since the body uses it as a “reward” if school gives students that, then students will like school
They should make the material interesting enough that people won’t have to resort to other stuff
Nope. It’s all relative. Compared to what’s available via the phone and internet, 90% of school material is fundamentally more boring, because important things are often boring – and there’s almost nothing you can do about it. I mean sure, an incompetent/unmotivated teacher can make the material even less interesting, but that’s also why we need competent teachers. That’s a separate problem.
So the quest to make school material more interesting than the Internet is a dead end – it’s just impossible. So they need to make everything else less interesting. Which means that phones and computers can fuck right off. If there are kids for whom this is a difficult situation and they’re unable to cope, such kids will need intervention. I.e. restrictions in free time as well.
Did you hear what I said about dopamine being the “joy hormone” and used as a “reward”. Your body gives out happy hormones like this after an exercise and other good stuff for you (including school work if it is interesting)
And don’t you tell me that knowledge isn’t interesting. For something to be interesting (by my definition) it must give you knowledge.
Girls twerking on TikTok is not interesting - the way Hitler died is
Memes are not interesting (unless they contain important info)
These may produce dopamine in other ways but they are not interesting
Which means that phones and computers can fuck right off.
I could be considered “tech savvy”, I know a bit of C/PHP and a lot of shell script. Explain ro me how I could learn that without a computer (I’m also self-taught)
So they need to make everything else less interesting.
As I said, sleep is something that pupils prefer to schoolwork. Get schoolwork above a bar that low and then we can talk. Amyway, it just needs to be interesting enough that students won’t feel a need to check social media
I could be considered “tech savvy”, I know a bit of C/PHP and a lot of shell script. Explain ro me how I could learn that without a computer (I’m also self-taught)
By using the computer or phone at home. Roughly half of the programmer workforce currently alive went through childhood without a mobile phone, because they didn’t exist for regular consumers. And personal laptops for children would’ve been perhaps an option for the top 1%, but probably not even them. Since you just didn’t have electronics in school.
Way more than half. Let’s separate dumb phones from smart phones. Even smart phones weren’t all that capable for a long time.
Please don’t learn about how Hitler died through Tiktok. Befriend your librarian and read it in a book.
I dont use tiktok, I hate the app
You used Tiktok as an example for something that is more interesting than learning. (Of course it’s more interesting than learning, it’s digital crack cocaine.)
important things are often boring – and there’s almost nothing you can do about it.
That’s downright ridiculous. The most important skill for a teacher is an ability to effectively impart knowledge and in order to make students listen and remember, you need to make them interested.
So they need to make everything else less interesting.
No, they ABSOLUTELY don’t. If I’m watching a fascinating TED Talk at home, I don’t need anyone to make my favourite tv show boring in order for me to pay attention. That’s not how attention works. For someone who seems at least dimly aware of the existence of dopamine, you seem remarkably confused about the effects of a lack of it.
If there are kids for whom this is a difficult situation and they’re unable to cope, such kids will need intervention. I.e. restrictions in free time as well.
So restrictions are your only tools? I really hope you’re not a teacher or a parent, because your ideas seem not just ineffective but actually borderline abusive.
If I’m watching a fascinating TED Talk at home, I don’t need anyone to make my favourite tv show boring in order for me to pay attention.
You’re comparing a TED Talk that you chose to watch to school curriculum.
I really hope you’re not a teacher or a parent, because your ideas seem not just ineffective but actually borderline abusive.
I’m a parent who has witnessed the effects of smart devices on children, and I have made serious mistakes in this area. Those mistakes are from being not restrictive enough. I believe the society has made similar mistakes, but is slowly turning to facing and understanding those mistakes. A generation has been lost, though, and some people (like yourself it seems) are still fighting against countering these problems. I hope you’re not in any role where you can decide these things, because I think your opinions around this seem very harmful to both individuals and society.
I hope you’re not in any role where you can decide these things, because I think your opinions around this seem very harmful to both individuals and society.
Ignoring what we’re fighting about, just think of what you said there. You are saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that we should just not allow people with opinions that contradict you to not have any power
Sorry if I came off rude or I’m putting words in your mouth but stuff like that is not ideas I take lightly. I think it’s a threat to democracy
EDIT: I also hate stuff like this that directly attacks the person with the ideas. I have noticed that the replies to you became a lot ruder after you said that (probably it rubbed off.) I thing it is important to be calm in a discussion
Back to the topic
You’re comparing a TED Talk that you chose to watch to school curriculum.
Teachers regularly put informational videos (including TED talks) on in the classroom. It never becomes less interesting because it’s forced upon me - if anything their a nice change of pace
Those mistakes are from being not restrictive enough
Can you please elaborate. What “mistakes” did you make and what do you do now (also please elaborate on the “mistakes” society made)
Also please elaborate on the “effect”
Ignoring what we’re fighting about, just think of what you said there. You are saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that we should just not allow people with opinions that contradict you to not have any power
No one should be basing policy decisions on opinions anyway. Those should be based off facts and data.
Ignoring what we’re fighting about, just think of what you said there. You are saying (correct me if I’m wrong) that we should just not allow people with opinions that contradict you to not have any power
That was a reaction to them saying that they hope I’m not a parent. Which I am. Obviously not a good reaction, but it happened.
EDIT: I also hate stuff like this that directly attacks the person with the ideas. I have noticed that the replies to you became a lot ruder after you said that (probably it rubbed off.) I thing it is important to be calm in a discussion
I feel that I was attacked first and replied with similar energy, but oh well. That’s how everyone feels in these things, right?
You’re comparing a TED Talk to school curriculum.
It was supposed to be an easy to understand example of information being imparted in a more efficient way because it’s made interesting, not a one to one comparison. I felt that “listening to the teacher explain passionately and engagedly about the industrial revolution” was a bit clunky and on the nose.
I guess I underestimated how literal I have to be when dealing with someone who can’t even imagine that pedagogy other than deprivation works.
I’m a parent who has witnessed the effects of smart devices on children, and I have made serious mistakes in this area. Those mistakes are from being not restrictive enough.
No, those mistakes have likely been mostly from increasing the temptation to goof off on their phones by boring them.
Hey, I fell asleep halfway through your comment. Can you make it more engaging for me?
deleted by creator
I apologize, but your comments started stuoid and the devolved into ignorant nonsense, and thus poor other fella keeps engaging you like you’re capable of honest debate.
Education has never been about being more interesting than games or entertainment, and you sound like a nitwit for even suggesting it. Teachers are tasked with educating, and the #1 preventable reason for kids falling behind isn’t “entertain me more!” . . . it’s shit parenting and upbringing.
Kids lack impulse control worse than anyone – taking away cell phones is an absolute no-brainer.
in order to make students listen and remember, you need to make them interested.
You said it better than I could
Make the material more interesting? Buddy, it’s school not Qanon.
I find a lot of knowledge interesting. Being interesting involves knowledge
And this is how we reached the point where sleep is more common in a classroom than anything else.
I think this has more to do with sleep deprivation. I can probably count the number of days I got a full night’s rest while in high school and college on one hand. Rather than making classes more interesting (though they could do this as well I guess), they should focus on not completely overwhelming the students with homework, although I’ll admit that was more of a college thing.
staring at a wall is more interesting then (badly done) school
Hey at least they give you some books to read if you’re bored. They’re heavy as hell, but you might learn something and get a well needed break from the phone.
The amount of times I told my students they can use their phone for certain exercises, then 90% of them just went on Tiktok or played Clash Of Clans, is why is started not allowing phones.
I get that to the 10% it was super helpful but it’s just easier to not allow everyone.
Well, at least you gave them a chance. Thank you.
I’m all for giving them a chance to prove they’re able to be responsible. Especially the kids that always try hard and deserve to be trusted.
I found that a lot of kids struggled to accept any consequences of their actions, though taking their phones off them for playing games was pretty clear to them.
It would be funny if people were forced to do something akin to mandatory military service but for working at a school as a paraprofessional or other aide for a little while. I feel like most people really have no idea how much teachers have to juggle and deal with on a daily basis. Come see how my kids behave when left to their own devices and then judge me.
Everyone should have to work a retail/customer service/care/teaching job, its eye opening the way people treat those they see as in their service.
For sure! A lot of parents don’t really understand the amount of stuff teachers have to go through either, and we don’t get paid for the hundreds of hours we do outside of teaching hours.
It’s why I had to quit in the end. Felt like I couldn’t give it my all because I was mentally and physically exhausted.
Like flight mode there should be school mode where students can only use a provided wlan that comes with content filters.
Block cellular with thick walls, then only allow them through wifi. Things like youtube can only be acces with a cabled connection. Something like this seems like a good start.
100%, if the schools were funded well enough, issuing school phones would be amazing!
School computers work well because they block most of the distractions but ofc students have 1001 distractions in their own!
I agree that the school environment should be more motivating, but there’s no way to compete with apps and games designed to be addictive, even adults have trouble avoiding their phones at work.
it’s called having discipline
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.
Does it though? That kind of sounds like buzzword science to me. Especially since I can’t find anything that actually says that it is technology being at fault here.
Yes, it absolutely does. We have a finite limit of attention / emotional energy / etc and most of the stuff on your phone is tailor made to try and monopolize it.
Have a source?
Watch The Social Dilemma on netflix, it will give a better and more compelling argument than an online article explaining it, however, I worked at facebook and I’ve seen the internal market research around boosting “engagement”. They’re all playing a zero sum game and know that they’re trying to maximize your engagement at the expense of everything else that might possibly be engaging (including other apps, games, media content, and incidentally useful stuff like work and school).
We have a finite limit of attention / emotional energy
I meant a source on this
Life? The fact that time is finite? The fact that if it wasn’t finite they wouldn’t have to compete for it?
Oh I understand what you mean now
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 think the biggest issue isn’t letting kids use a tool, it’s getting kids to do the work.
I recently worked with a bunch of kids in college, all stem majors, who couldn’t Google effectively or do basic math in their heads. It’s not a matter of “don’t let them use a resource” it’s that many people won’t try.
Limiting technology isn’t cruelty, it’s vital for learning many skills. Number sense can’t be taught by a taking a picture and writing an answer.
I agree whole-heartedly. As someone who needed to learn the hard way that knowing the shortcut doesn’t always help with the work, I’m very much in favor of teaching kids the proper way first.
Also, if kids need to be “fact-checking” their class, that’s indicative of a whole different issue.
Because I don’t think most kids have learnt even the smallest bit about proper research methodology to be able to fact-check things. If that little bit they know is enough to disprove something in class, that teacher needs a stern talking to about the bs they peddle.“fact-checking” was a bit of a crude way of putting it on my part. I’m not native, so there could’ve misused it.
(Went a bit overboard with a wall of text again, but of well)
Although it wasn’t without the fact-checking in it’s normal sense. Take “English as a foreign language”, for example. One teacher will say the word is pronounced one way, the other will say its different. Who’s right? Let’s check Cambridge dictionary. Although it isn’t always teacher’s fault as a professional. Sometimes you just forget things no matter how well you know them.
The other part that I may have failed to convey is looking information up, be it a math formulae, a word, some sort of rule, name or a date.
It’s way quicker than going through your books and is actually not a bad way to remember something. You either have a tab left off or you’re seeing it when using the search, which makes you remember that you did look that up a while back. It’s very minor, but because you’re still being reminded about it from time to time, the information sticks. Essentially you’re doing unintentional passive memorisation.
That’s why I think that maybe not in primary, but definetly in secondary and high school banning technology is not the way to go about it. If the student uses it for entertainment during class, they won’t suddenly start studying if you prohibit them from usining it. You’re essentially solving a non-issue, because the majority of students aren’t even using phones during classes (Well, maybe to cheat on tests, but that’s hurting the quality of assessment and not education itself).
Banning phones is easy, but it’s also the least impactful thing you could to to “improve” educational system. It would be of more sognificance you were to reduce classes to 8 pupils, lessen teacher’s paperwork, introduce new active teaching practices, reward students for persuing their endevours and so on. But that’s difficult, banning phones is easy and brings you more polical approval.
Are there schools that don’t teach calculator usage? Even 10-15 years ago German schools (at least in the states I looked at) had the option to teach math with either basic calculators, scientific calculators, or computer algebra systems in grades 9-13 (I think) with most schools picking scientific calculators even back then. I would expect that to have moved into earlier grades and more advanced devices nowadays.
I meam, i remember even in 5th grade nearly 20 years ago them telling us “you wont always have a calculator in your pocket” and this was happening when vell phones were becoming mainstream enough that some of us did have flip phones
I don’t carry a calculator in my pocket, just a device that has access to the sum of all human knowledge.
And a calculator.
I second this.
How do I motivate my students? I’ll need to know by 7:30 am PST tomorrow.
Thanks!
Obviously by letting them use computer and mobile phones
Heh, “Motivate”, sounds mostly impossible. At least with some subjects. But maybe there could be some improvements. Here’s some of my dumb and likely useless thoughts:
- If it’s in your competence, allow phones during breaks. I believe that could make classes without them much easier.
- Fresh air: Helps alot. I don’t know why some teachers absolutely hate open windows. All you can do on those classes is try to not fall asleep with your heart pounding.
- Allow water during classes: Similar to above, dehydration helps no one.
- Engage with students: Try to have conversations with them, give them questions, let them give questions to you (on topic). I’ve had a few teachers that would just do 45 minute monotone monologues.
- If possible, give some demonstration or real life use examples. This works well especially with chemistry and physics.
- Positive and negative points: For example, 5 pluses may be A, and 5 minuses F. I prefer the system where pluses and minuses null out each other, otherwise a plus may make your grades worse, leading to lack of activity. Someone not paying attention or not knowing answer to questions, minus. Someone being positively active during classes, answering questions, plus. You can decide what makes plus and what minus and how many are needed for the grade.
- Quick activities (like optional tests): Math teachers did this since elementary school. Teachers would give a math problem and some time to solve it. First x students to solve it correctly got a good grade, others could get pluses. For example, first 3 students to solve a math problem within 15 minutes get A, the next students get a plus. Those who did nothing get nothing. Like a small optional exam. It makes it worth being prepared. Just don’t make the window too small, like “First student to solve this within 5 minutes gets A, next ones get nothing”, because most will just give up.
- Announce exams in advance: This gives students time to study before each exam. The likelihood that someone will study AFTER a surprise exam is quite low.
- Give option to re-do an exam: Got a bad grade? Don’t give up yet. Put in some more effort to get a better grade. I’ve seen different approaches on this. Sometimes it would replace previous grade, sometimes you’d just get another. Sometimes unconditionally, sometimes only if it’s better. I’d choose a second grade conditionally. If it replaced the grade, you wouldn’t see as many studying for first exam, relying on “fixing it later”. Conditionally because if there’s a chance of getting worse grade, I may just as well not try, just in case.
- Movies or shows: Applies to foreign language classes. If it catches their interest, they may not even realize they’re learning. You could occasionally do that as a reward. Reward = motivation. Tip: Subtitles may be helpful. The problem with this is finding something universally interesting.
- Try to not treat the whole class as 1 person: Punishing whole class for actions of 1 student will make YOU more disliked than that student.
- Respect: I don’t know how you could do this. But some teachers may gain respect among students. I believe this is more valuable than using power. But again, no idea what you could do for that.
- Outside?: My middle school geography teacher did her classes outside during summer. Nothing changed about those classes, it was just outside. Better environment.
- Minimize homework: Homework is one good way to absolutely hate a subject. This could be partially replaced with optional projects. If it’s optional, it doesn’t feel as bad anymore.
- Ask students for feedback: There’s a small chance you may get some useful answers.
But you probably can’t do much past trying to be nice. Biggest problem is the extra unnecessary information being taught, but if you can’t determine what precisely will be useful in the future, you can’t know what to omit. Missing knowledge is probably worse.
Edit: Fixed some typos
