this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Middle school removes bathroom mirrors to stop kids from making TikToks::Southern Alamance Middle School in Graham, North Carolina has taken drastic steps to reduce the time kids spend outside of class.

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[–] doylio@lemmy.ca 93 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (19 children)

Why not just ban smartphones in school? There's ample research now that they're harmful to teen mental health

[–] AccmRazr@lemm.ee 49 points 10 months ago (11 children)

I know a few schools in my area tried to institute zero tolerance no phones rule and the screaming from parents was loud enough that they gave up. One of the big sticking points was because of school shootings. Another was that schools have been bad about getting kids on the bus, that kids are getting lost or even ending up in bus depots at the end of the day.

[–] doylio@lemmy.ca 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think a good middle ground might be to ban smartphones but not phones entirely. If you want your kid to be able to call you, buy them a nokia or something without internet capabilities

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 37 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I mean the real reason is that parents are almost as bad as their kids with their phones. They have become accustomed to texting their children throughout the day.

[–] papertowels@lemmy.one 3 points 10 months ago

Wow, that is eye opening. I can't imagine how bad helicopter parents can be these days....

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[–] eruchitanda@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Because no one wants to deal with parents.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The children don't count, clearly. Only adult opinions matter.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

This but unironically. In my neck of the woods, we are hemorrhaging kids to private or charter. That means losing money. Superintendents and administrators view parents as customers. They don’t want a parent to get pissed and move districts because the dollars follow the students. If education is babysitting - if a teacher allows students to do nothing but watch videos on their phone - parents hear nothing and assume everything is fine. If a teacher is calling home about behavioral issues, or a school has “high” discipline rates, then that becomes a visible issue.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You can’t take them, because the district is worried they’ll get sued if one breaks. Your option is to tell the parent, and the parent will 80% come up with some bullshit excuse or accuse you of targeting their child. I worked one district that had a form we could fill out - after getting caught three times they were supposed to turn the phone in. Never happened.

Please. Do. Not. Send. Your. Child. To. School. With. A. Smartphone. DONT.

They are addicted. We’ve given them tech that adults can’t even manage to responsibly use. They don’t know how to be bored or curious. The behavior is just strange - when I’ve been fuck it and just taken a phone - they regress. 15 year olds babbling and throwing tantrums like toddlers.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Id feel safer sending my kid to school without a smartphone if I wasn't scared there would be a school shooting or some other reason my kid would need to call me for help. I get the sense a lot of other parents feel that way too.

My kids are still too young for that but when they are in high school and maybe depending on the middle school I'll probably start thinking about a phone of some kind.

Also my kids are bored all the time haha. Taking away their tablet or games is the best punishment most of the time when they argue. We are big on drawing over here though. Hard to stop a kid from drawing lol.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

In a school shooting situation, cell phones could make things much worse. During my active shooter training, we were told to ask students to turn them off if we were in a shooting. The noise is an obvious danger, but the lines need to be kept clear for communication with emergency response personnel. There would be structured ways that the school would want to communicate with you - they don’t want the chaos of parents showing up to an active scene. I think it would be better to rely on things like the Rave app.

In other situations, the front office is there. That is the function that they have served for generations. Give the office aides something to do.

There’s just little reason for students to have smart phones in school. They cannot control themselves. We are asking them to have more self restraint than most adults do. It is not developmentally appropriate and it is harmful.

[–] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

When I was a kid, there were pay phones so that kids could make calls for when they wanted to be picked up. And we had landline at home so that if you needed to make a call, you could.

Those things don't really exist anymore. And now we have phones with apps that monitor medical conditions like diabetes. Let's single out those kids?

In other situations, the front office is there. That is the function that they have served for generations. Give the office aides something to do.

So make the office staff stay after hours so that the kids with after school activities can make a phone call? Yeah, because fuck the school staff, right?

The horse has already left the gate. You're not going to get it back.

[–] dankm@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

At my school there was an office phone outside the office that anyone could use. No need to staff it.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

504s exist for kids who need them for medical purposes. (Had a diabetic kid - her mom made sure she knew the phone was only for monitoring) While there aren’t pay phones; there is a landline in the office at every school that students will be able to use.

The office workers are hourly and are already scheduled to stay for at least an hour after school. That’s part of their job.

[–] redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Good luck banning them from schools

[–] skulblaka@startrek.website 19 points 10 months ago

I spent 12 years in American public school during which greater than 70% of the student body had cell or smart phones and 100% of them were successfully banned. If the phone is visible during the school day and you aren't currently receiving a phone call from the President or from your parents on their way to the hospital, phone goes in the teacher's desk. You get it back at the end of the day.

Its not that difficult at all.

[–] notasandwich1948@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

they kinda are Ireland, in primary school mostly but even in secondary school teachers are allowed to take your phone for 3 days if they see you on it

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 3 points 10 months ago

What's the difficulty? If they're being used they're out in the open, and if they're out in the open they can be confiscated.

[–] catastrophicblues@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is there research consensus on when children should be given phones? I would personally be very conservative about it, honestly.

[–] doylio@lemmy.ca 8 points 10 months ago

I agree! There's a campaign pushing to avoid giving kids phones until 8th grade, but I think even that seems a bit too young

[–] WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Good luck with that, the highschool I went to had a hard enough time getting students to stop vaping at school and during class, smartphones would be a much bigger battle. I graduated in 2019 and I still remember when they would try to crack down on cell phone use, never really affected me that much cause I only ever used my phone during class if I was done with everything but I still saw it go the same way every time. It would always only ever last for a month or two before the teachers just gave up because in the end if someone doesn't wanna pay attention during class taking away their distraction isn't gonna make them. They'll just find some other distraction like talking to people or just zoning out. The problem is school just isn't engaging and sure you can blame cell phones and social media for making it harder for people to pay attention to things that they don't wanna do. But that doesn't mean the solution is to not allow them during school, cause I've seen from experience that doesn't help even if you manage to take away the phones, which already is really hard without impacting students who are following the rules negatively.

[–] generic1546@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Man I remember being in school and a cellphone or pager was instant suspension.

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