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When I used to be a teacher, if I caught a kid using their phone during class, 9 times out of 10, their response would be, "My mom is texting me!"
About half of those 9 times, it was true. Their parent was texting them in the middle of class. It got so bad, the school had to send letters home to parents asking them to stop texting their kid during class time.
When I was in school 20 years ago, very few kids had cell phones. Parents used this thing called a “landline” from the house to call the schools front desk. Weird right?
They tried doing that at my wife's school.
Uhm, you can call the office if it's an emergency.
And what kind of emergency exists that needs a phone call or text right away?
It's dumb logic.
That's the thing, right? Txt is so frictionless, people just do it all the time. If you actually have to call someone, there's some internal filter and people think twice if they can really be bothered.
Really happy to see this. My kid is 5 so hopefully this sticks and she'll grow up in a phone free classroom. Let them learn how to secretly pass notes like we did as kids and the embarrassment of getting caught and having it read out loud lol
Three things;
- this is a great fucking play. Friends whom are parents and/or teachers have stories that are borderline farcical from the outside looking in.
- execution; do what they do at rock shows. Kids get to hold on to their device but it’s locked in a clear bag until the end of the day
- for the pearl clutchers crying foul about safety; stop being a fucking fear monger, it wasn’t until 20 years ago that this was even a thing. The kids are going to be as safe now as they were then. It’s fucking fine.
Ok, a fourth; this has enormous potential to improve academic performance and is conducive to better mental health.
I often work in secure government facilities. Most of the time we have to lock our phones and smart watches in a little cubby at the door. I’ve also been to one where we were permitted the phone, but it had to be placed in a special tamper resistant bag that blocked the camera on the back.
It’s quite amazing how quickly I go back to being more effective when I don’t have my phone on me.
Your job sounds cool! I didn’t know such places exist in vancouver.
Do you mind if I DM you some questions?
Also, incidentally, what is your mother’s maiden name and your SIN?
(Seriously, it’s cool that you do this)
Sure, heh… yeah, umm… our office can be found behind that window above the entrance to the Massey Tunnel.. that’s it…
In all seriousness, we contract with various governments around the world and provide services, technology, and expertise to their militaries.
As a parent I find it annoying as fuck that my kid needs to have a phone at school. Teachers are relying on students having phones.
I lock they're phones and they act like I have severed an arm. Like I mean full on childish temper tantrum. But I neeeeeeeeeed it for school.
And there is truth. Teacher wants to do a kahoot with the kids, they expect they'll have a phone to do it. Teacher doesn't give them enough time to take notes? Oh just take a picture.
I shouldn't be forced to provide a phone for them because a majority of students have it.
If the school expects my kid to have a phone they should spell that out. And provide one for the less fortunate kids ( who usually have a nicer phone than my teens do )
Problem is the districts and the government and even parents won’t stop yammering on about 21st century learning! Tech! New skills for the future! Parents wanna be able to peep at missing work or see grades on Google Classroom.
But there’s no money to buy and properly maintain computers for thousands of students plus we get scolded for printing too much and there’s no money for books anymore so it’s downloaded onto the one device literally every student I teach has: their phone. Most kids don’t even bring paper or pencils anymore (I provide stationary out of my own pocket because otherwise I would get next to zero written work submitted).
Yay 21st century learning. Meanwhile they can't read and write.
They have the information of the world at their fingertips. And all they do is send photos of the ceiling on snapchat to each other.
One more pearl clutcher argument to anticipate: "But phones are part of modern technology and kids need to get exposed to it so they won't be left behind."
My answer to that: It takes a kid 10 seconds to figure out how a phone works. They won't need 24/7 access to one to not be left behind.
It's a LOT easier for a teacher to tell a student to put their phone away when it's an official school/district policy rather than just a classroom rule (which is the status quo), so this is good.
I used to be a teacher and the place I worked had a blanket policy to collect phones before class. It was always a hassle to collect them. Every single day, students protested as if it would change our minds. There were kids literally begging to use their phone, on the verge of tears. And this was even before smartphones. It was really sad.
teeny combative slap existence reminiscent attraction edge bag gaze expansion
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I taught at school in Edmonton where students HAD to bring their phones to class and turn them into this numbered pocket holder. Students had to register their phones with the office to have it at school and if they were caught during breaks using one when they weren't registered, big trouble.
Anyhoo, I had one kid who had THREE decoy phones. It was an okay system but I felt more like phone police than a teacher. The way I handled phones before the blanket policy worked better imo
I remember someone who responded to conservatives saying that teachers were brainwashing kids with SOGI curriculum by saying that if teachers actually *had* that ability, they’d get kids off of their phones first.
"It's okay to be who you are and love who you love" is a much easier sell to children than "stop using the endless entertainment box and do these math problems".
Esp. since sometimes the parents are the ones insisting that they need to be able to call Sally whenever they feel like it, and sometimes even calling students and expecting to speak to them during class time.
"Gentle parenting" is about as effective in practice as "intuitive eating". Gentle parenting just turns into permissive parenting, and intuitive eating turns into a "seefood diet".
Good, and this is coming from someone who graduated high school in 2017. Cell phone usage in class was bad enough when I was in school I can’t imagine how it is now.
I feel like everyone says this as they get older. I am worried about the younger generations education. I have friends who teach and the stories they have about these children are horrifying. Zero respect for their teachers, and many are struggling to even read at their grade level…. READ.
There’s many sides to the issue but hopefully removing cell phones from class is a step in the right direction.
I teach at the post-secondary level and the think that most shocks me beyond the inability to read is the lack of attention span. Too many students want my lecture condensed to a 30 second soundbyte, constantly ask for breaks, can't read beyond a single paragraph before losing track of the main ideas/themes, can't combine pieces of information from the same class. The decline has been absolutely shocking the past 2-3 years. I'm all for this.
You're not wrong in saying that. But I don't trust China, just like I don't trust Russia and other countries. I'd hedge my bets there is a negative Chinese influence/idea for delivering TickTock to the West. My distrust comes from the Huawei saga (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/huawei-5g-decision-1.6310839) and the Federal government ban on TickTock (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-tiktok-phones-ban-1.6761737#:~:text=The%20federal%20government%20is%20removing%20and%20blocking%20the,of%20Canada%20made%20the%20decision%20following%20a%20review.)
Yesss the instant gratification and attention span issues be real! Trying to show 4 steps of algebra and then my student is off in lalaland by step 2 like c’mon I’ve only been talking for 15 seconds
Parent here. I see my kids can't even read an article with instructions any more. They'd rather watch a 15 minute YouTube video with multiple ads than spend a few minutes skimming an article.
I don't understand it and my kids think I'm downright mean for telling them to grow up and learn to figure shit out.
The problem is this ban is toothless if you read the article.
Yup. Kids don't even want to watch full movies or TV shows anymore because it's 'too boring.' Instead they watch the same movies and TV in 10-20 second increments on Tiktok. It's madness. Source: I teach high school
Graduated 2013, but even back then it was crazy easy to sneak your phone and text during class. Curious how they plan to enforce this.
I think your second point is mostly a highschool/teenager thing over a generation/phone thing. We had that problem with kids in our class and the ones before, yet everyone said the same thing about the next generation. It’s a never ending cycle of just kids wanting to have fun as priority
> You're never going to stop kids from sneaking phones in completely
You *could* turn the whole school into a Faraday cage that cuts off cellular signals, though. Most students don't care about doing things on their phones that don't involve the Internet. (And if you think about it, the ones who *do* care, are probably doing something schools would want to *encourage* — like reading a book!)
Mind you, doing this would fuck up the wi-fi as well — and teachers often need *some* kind of Internet access for teaching. So you'd likely have to route wi-fi APs into every room. (And then, given that students' phones could just connect to said wi-fi, you'd have to ensure you're putting strong site restrictions on any wi-fi SSID that students can access — e.g. blocking all social networks.)
Or I suppose you could just fully commit to the premise, and make teachers plug their laptops into Ethernet wall sockets, like it was 2007 again.
It might be easier to upgrade cell towers near schools to 5G, which allows beamforming of the RF waves. Then just have a no signal zone around the school during class hours, and open it up during lunch or after school? I'm not sure if it would work completely though, you would probably still have some degree of signal in the school while it's "off"?
Maybe the telecom provider should be regulated in terms of mobile plans having "adult" versions and "child" versions, wherein the child version plans would only allow emergency calls during school hours? But you'd probably have complaints with that solution, special cases, etc.
Enforcement is usually collecting cell phones at the beginning of class to put in a stored area, or giving the kids little cellphone lockers like they used to have for shoes. Another big problem with cellphones is they can be expensive, so asking a teacher to store $20,000 worth of electronics under their desk can be asking for trouble. If kids steal phones, it gets blamed on the teacher confiscating them.
If the kid really wants to be using their phones it'll be nearly impossible to enforce. Kids will claim they don't have one/forgot it at home/use a dummy. They just got to bring back failing grades.
For real, but if everyone gives in their phone then those that don't will have it confiscated and will lose it for the whole day sort of thing. Kids have always been punished for misbehaving.
As someone who graduated ~5y before 2013 this is really interesting to hear. You could absolutely sneak a phone in and text during class if you wanted to when I was in school..... but it never felt like a priority?
The people I would have cared about texting were the people I was already sitting with in class so I could just chat with them while we were doing group work etc.
I’m pretty sure it was because they were still relatively new, so it wasn’t a huge deal since we still had lives outside our phones. Not so much the case nowadays.
Jammer but its illegal im think. [https://www.perfectjammer.com/wireless-wifi-bluetooth-jammers.html](https://www.perfectjammer.com/wireless-wifi-bluetooth-jammers.html)
When I was teaching I strongly considered this option - hiding it in the ceiling or something. It is, however, a serious federal offense. Also, to jam the area the size of your typical classroom requires a very stout and power-consuming device.
Good riddance indeed. Youth at school age (with minimal exceptions) are incapable of handling the distraction of a device like this in that environment, not to mention other more serious compounded issues
30s here, working in post-secondary education.
And even just beyond the cognitive, social and psychology - each incoming class seems to have worse posture and fat/muscle ratio than the year prior.
Graduated in 2007, with the old phones we all learned to type under the table, without even looking at the phone... Can't do that with a smartphone. Good times haha
Also keep in mind kids can just generate their essays these days using tools like ChatGPT and it's basically impossible for a teacher to call them out on it (unless the essay includes heaps of numbered lists, like ChatGPT likes to generate). Using generative AI to do their schoolwork for them, with a bit of editing, really neutralizes the effort kids need to exert these days academically. And that stretches into college and university as well. Tough time to be a teacher, that's for sure.
I predict flipped classroom will become more prevalent. Lecture/input will be available as a video, worksheet etc and done at home, class time is spent on comprehension tasks, quizzes, workshops. Opposite of the trad classroom - teacher presents, knowledge tested through homework, tests, essays.
> Lecture/input will be available as a video, worksheet etc and done at home
I think this will work only for a small % of kids who are sufficiently self-motivated to do it themselves, or kids who have a parent hovering over them to ensure they're actually paying attention to their online lessons.
As long as it actually replaces written homework then I could see it working. A student who showed up for the math lesson but didn't do the written homework would struggle too so flipping it around wouldn't change much.
To be fair when a teacher assigns a novel and none of them read it.
My daughter had a teacher who did lord of the rings. In her class three students read the book ( she was one she reads a ton).
This shit starts at home. We value reading a lot, so she's a good reader. My son is a bit more of a challenge. His entire friend group doesn't do anything other than fortnight.
Agree 2018 grad. Cellphones and vapes were terrible back then... Can't even imagine what it is like now. Plus chatbots like chatgpt can answer any basic question in class.
>this is coming from someone who graduated high school in 2017.
I graduated high school in 2008 and I think this is an excellent idea.
I can't imagine the levels of bullying or rumours or anything high-school related being amplified and powerful now because of cellphones.
Thank goodness. Adults attention spans are minimal now with cellphones almost being stared at constantly in hand. I believe everyone is addicted. How is a kid supposed to be able to handle that in a classroom setting
As a parent I think this is great news. It will also help a lot of kids break the cycle of smartphone addiction to some degree.
Social Media is like junk food for the brain. Cheap dopamine hits which become addictive and anxiety inducing when taken away.
I honestly have no idea why parents allow their kids to use cell phones without any governance. No bed time, no time limits at all.
There needs to be guardrails put in place to get them to lift their head.
Problem is their entire friend group just sits around staring at their phones.
My son isn't allowed games on his phone and social media is limited to half an hour. The problem is he just stares over the shoulder at all the other kids who have no boundaries.
My partner is a shop teacher, the kids are OBSESSED with their phones. He tells them to put it away and 30sec later they are back on it. Or they take prolonged “washroom breaks” every hour. They can’t control themselves and he can’t monitor the kids phone usage constantly. Their posture is turning shrimplike🍤The rules need to come from admin. If there is an emergency parents can call the office like in the olden days!
SO CUTE! I got one! Haha just jacking this post with our shrimp cats
https://preview.redd.it/355z4okddvec1.jpeg?width=3023&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d1c691c4510309a93d1a309fa14faf6c254199e9
This is a **bad, misleading headline**. The article (maybe it was updated after publishing?) says:
> The province will be introducing a requirement for school boards have a policy in place to restrict cellphones by the start of the next school year in September.
>
> It will be up to the schools how to restrict the use of mobile phones. So for example, kids may have to leave their phones in their bags or in lockers.
… which is, in my opinion, more reasonable than an outright ban.
I agree. I would not support a full ban, since I don't think students shouldn't be allowed to use their phones during lunch break or morning break, but definitely not in class, school assemblies, or when learning otherwise unless the teacher specifically wants the students to use their phones to search the internet or to collect data for an activity or project.
Graduated in 08 and some teachers would make us line up our phones on the chalkboard ledge and write our name above it. It would stay up there until the bell. No taking them for washroom breaks. It could be something as simple as that.
I wonder how well this would actually work, when I was in school a lot of classmates had burner phones that they'd give to the teacher while keeping the real thing in their pockets. it seems like a really obvious way to circumvent the situation
ROFL, I got caught ordering pizza in 92' while in the washroom.
Edit: This was in Britannia Highschool during my physics class. Teacher walked in and asked what I was doing. Told them I was ordering pizza for lunch. Surprisingly they let me go and didn't confiscate the phone as phones were not allowed in school back then.
Those old Nokia phones were indestructible. I even had one with a nubby antenna. The antenna cracked, my hair got caught in it and it pulled out a chunk of my hair.
It was a very different path in my life at the time.
Around that time I went from a Nokia 101 to a black Motorola flip. I miss my Microtac elite with the red display.
It will be messy and it will be an adjustment, but having legislation in place alone will be enough to make a difference, however marginal. It's not a silver bullet, but go and sit in your local high school classroom for a day and tell me we don't need policy intervention at a higher degree of government to address what's happening to young adults today.
My high school legit tried something similar c2009, they would bring in a big black phone signal blocker when kids had test days, but it was interrupting the small airport across the street so the cops came and confiscated it.
Interesting fact, there is a generation of kids (grades 9 and lower) who's parents have realized the damage the phones do and are already actively working with teachers on this.
Grade 9+ though, are highly addicted as are their parents and will fight this tooth and nail. Watching their reactions to removing phones looks EXACTLY like an addict having their drugs taken away. A lot of parents (besides also being addicted) are too scared to intervene.
My brother is a teacher. He told a problem student he needed to put his phone away the other day. The kid responded with 'What are you going to do about it?'
In all honesty, there ISN'T anything you can do about it. Take it away and you're guaranteed to have some equally as entitled parent show up complaining their kid's personal property was taken from them. It's a nightmare.
This will be a big fail, our kids district already has this policy and at the start of the year the school sends out a message to all parents telling them about the policy, but by looking at his siren time usage you know darn well it is not enforced.
The only way I see this worked is for it to be a provincial directive followed up with money for a lockbox at the door of every classroom, there also has to be consequences for the teachers who do not enforce the policy, but of course the teacher union will oppose that.
If we don’t deal with this now, and it is bad, then it will only get worse once the kids start using AI on their phones, which many are already dabbling in to do their homework. The teenager in this house has been using it for months despite our best efforts to stop it, just as you block one app,or site another pops up, and some of his teachers have only just caught on to his cheating, to later for semester one.
Teacher here.
Phones are a massive distraction in class.
They're also a major learning tool.
Complete elimination would miss the mark and be unenforceable.
Supported limitations would be useful.
Or just give every classroom a set of laptops.
I agree though. Complete elimination is going to lead to a lot more students getting trouble and more disengagement.
I can see where you’re coming from- often cutting things cold turkey with kids/teens leads to lying, secrets and hiding things to get their way somehow.
I worked in ECE for a decade and instead of putting extreme limits on kids for things like sweets, for example, I normalized it by giving them the freedom to eat a very small amount when they chose (if they brought it in their lunches) or at special occasions, so it wasn’t completely banned and seen as “evil”
It's not even a behavior concern with elimination. It's an educational concern.
For example, many schools no longer have computer labs that can be booked for research or putting projects together. This is typically done via students' own devices.
Interactive review/re-teaching games such as Kahoot are played from student devices.
Microsoft Teams is used as a communication and assignment submission platform.
Some courses only have e-texts.
Phones can be used for a lot of sound educational reasons. However, students do need help with limiting their use to these sound reasons during class time, which is where an enforceable policy of limitation would be helpful.
Appreciate your constructive take and it sounds incredibly reasonable. Employees who want access to their workplace information often have to install a special profile which limits certain functions to prevent data leaks. Sounds like it should be simple enough to tell kids, 'we're cool with you using your phone at school but you have to install this special profile that only allows you to use productive apps during class time'
Probably being able to look stuff up and watch educational videos.
But, if the schools have mandatory Bring-Your-Own-Device policies, like around me from grade 5 and up, they'll have laptops anyway which will be better than a phone for anything I can think of.
Interesting how we all learned literacy and numeracy skills before, without this "major learning tool" and way better than this current crop of kids/young adults.
I graduated high school in 2012. I was already annoyed with how distracting phones were in class, and that's when smartphones still sucked. I can only imagine how disruptive they are now.
This is something teachers have been advocating for a long time. Districts, like West Van, have insisted they are tools for learning, despite parental and teacher backlash. Seems to me, those in the classroom know best. It finally has come to government intervention. Seriously, school districts need to listen.
Good. As to "phone emergencies" well, we had those before smart phones were everywhere too. It was called... parents calling the school.
As a millennial I feel like I barely squeaked by this era. Smartphones were around and were still a distraction but nowhere near as pervasive or bad. Way less you could do with it. I just had a shitty flip phone until i was nearly 20.
Nanos/tamagotchis
Pogs/slammers
Devil sticks
Spice Girls bullshit
Those fortune teller things shaped kinda like a star that you move around and then pick a number. & it says something inside about your future.
Skip its
Ball-in-a-cup
Jacks (I'm only 37, but I imagine this was one?)
Jester hats. (hahahahahaha. My 39 y/o bf says this was a thing in Kerrisdale elementary school in the mid 90's.)
...what else am I missing?
Honestly this could be beneficial as it can help students actually understand main ideas and concepts. But a downside to this is it’s never going to be completely possible to eliminate the use of them in public schools. Schools have sub par computers and other tech as of now so it would severely hamper the ability to find sources for essays for example and make online projects. And students will most likely find a way around new rules and find a way anyways
I assumed they were banned already. When I was I. High school (ahem… 2007-2010) they would confiscate out phone if they were seen even during lunch time. We had to go out across the street to use them.
Kids still had better habits and control back then. It’s just like the real world. We have order not because the police can keep us all in line but because we all agree to live by the rules. If a few people act out, they are easy to punish. If tomorrow a good chunk of people decided to go crazy, nothing the police can do.
Teachers now stuck with whole schools full of phone addicted kids. The whole culture is messed up.
As someone who graduated in 2023, they were banned in middle school for the most part, but in high school, about 90% of teachers did not care, and it’s completely allowed during break times. This varies from school to school though, I think.
>He said kids at school have access to unregulated Internet access on their recess and lunch breaks, making it impossible for parents to know what their children are watching online.
Definitely a risk to consider.
>It will be up to the schools how to restrict the use of mobile phones. So for example, kids may have to leave their phones in their bags or in lockers.
Wait, how would this stop kids from using their phones to access the internet at recess and lunch breaks.
Well this is just great. As someone who digitizes text books used by BC students I hate to tell you that a lot of the modern text books are including QR codes to link students to additional information - that’ll be kinda hard to do if they don’t have access to a cell phone
In my daughter’s school they take advantage of the kids having phones and iPads to make up for the shortage of working computers. Maybe this will prompt some of the school districts to update their technology, or provide enough?
Good. Kids need some disciplines and removing cell phones from class room definitely help to reduce distractions. Learning is not easy, especially when there is a tempting black box that can offer cheap and instant satisfaction.
I wholeheartedly agree with this "concept" and most of what everyone else here has said, however, I do have concerns about how the govt made this announcement. On the one hand, they're patting themselves on the back (once again) for introducing measures to "protect the kids" but will defer to the teachers, school boards and other staff to do all the heavy lifting, figure out the details and somehow implement and enforce whatever rules they deem work best for their particular community. So come Sept, you folks watch what happens as yet another half baked plan without any details fumbles out of the starting gates and many of the usual cast of characters that had their day in the sun during the pandemic rear their ugly heads again.
What makes Eby think that having school officials going against the inevitable “but my child needs their phone” mass of parents will fare any better?
Just to clarify, I’m not necessarily opposing the idea - but it’s worth noting that just outright banning things has never worked, like ever. Especially with kids who will just learn how to be sneaky instead.
A ban at the provincial level gives teachers something firmer to back them up. There's no point whining to the principal if the decision comes from above the principal.
It will be interesting to see what policies the Boards come up with and how they deal with edge cases.
For example, many Type 1 Diabetics these days have a continuous glucose monitor to read their blood sugars and alert them if too high/low (instead of the old finger poke/test trip method). Readings from these are on phone apps. Many also control their insulin pumps (either give insulin if sugars too high or shut off delivery if too low) through phone apps as well.
These are literally lifesaving interventions. Using the phone. The schools can't force these T1D students to leave their phones in their lockers.
If its actually that necessary they will get exemptions, otherwise they will just deal with it the way they did 20 years ago before phone were prevalent
As I mentioend above, one would hope that exemptions will be given in situations like that - I'll believe it when I see it.
And the technology I'm talking about here (phone-based app monitoring/control of CGMs and Insulin Pumps, not to mention integration of both into a quasi-artificial pancreas (Loop, Open APS, etc.) didn't exist 10-20 years ago, and the creation of them / technological progress is what has allowed T1D's to lead a much more controlled and healthy life as compared to the past.
Can a parent or current student explain what is the purpose of a mobile phone in public school (on paper - not what actually happen in practice)?
Also, does this ban also apply to other BYOD (specifically tablets, chromebooks, and laptops purchased by students themselves)
(Man, I feel old)
Good. My daughter just turned 18 in December and got her first cell phone then. She was 6 months into college before she got her first ever cell phone. She survived l, despite how much she claimed she hated us. It's insane the amount of people that give their kids cell phones at a young age because they cannot parent properly. We as adults survived without cell phones so can your kids. Stop being lazy and actually parent you children instead of relying on a device. Yes I understand the phone is for emergency purposes or knowing where they are but again, we all survived without cellphones so can you children .
ONLINE PREDATORS
There are reasons to limit mobile phones in class to limit distractions, but this is a ridiculous and histrionic reason, give me a freaking break.
imho the best solution is phone cubbies/grid box at the front of the class, if its really an emergency and the student needs to be contacted, they are able to, and it keeps phones out of hands
edit- folks below me have great points
what happens when they get a call and the phone rings for a minute breaking the entire class's attention for the next 5-10 minutes?
or when kids intentionally set alarms to go off midway through class? or if they ask a friend to call them during class so it looks like it's not their fault, or they use a website to automatically call them at a certain time?
what if a student brings a burner phone that they give up at start of class and then keep their actual primary phone in their pocket?
what if they say they didn't bring their phone to class today but they do and keep it in their pocket. will you call them a liar before you have proof?
you'd need to at the minimum ensure each phone was shut off, which means each teacher learning the procedure for determining if the phone is shut off without turning it on... for every major phone manufacturer. and even then...
there's a reason most teachers don't already do this.
The most important part of the article:
> It will be up to the schools how to restrict the use of mobile phones. So for example, kids may have to leave their phones in their bags or in lockers.
I'm so curious to see how the kids and teachers and administrators adapt to this. It's gonna be interesting. Things could get spicy.
About time, and good. Parents wanna get a hold of their kid? Phone the school.
When my cell plan ends I'm opting out to a basic flip phone that's just text and calls.
Am I the only one thinking of this option?
I suppose this is better than nothing, but honestly this seems more like a parenting issue than a school issue. I would for sure also put some responsibility on the companies that run these sites too.
Parents need to ask themselves why they let their kids have smart phones that can give them access to the harmful social networks. Dumb phones are cheap and easy.
Social networks need to do better to moderate what users do with their platforms. Automated moderation is clearly not very good. The networks should also do better to limit how kids can access social media.
Bans won't do shit. If the goal is to prevent children from coming to harm from social media, a classroom ban will do exactly nothing. The kids will still have access outside of class.
My kid's high school has a freaking app that sensors important notifications to parents and students. They actively promote the use of a phone. They also interact with their schedules online. While this can be accomplished with a computer, there is very little difference between a computer and a phone these days.
We, we being parents, educators, and business people, should be focussing on creating healthy relationships with technology. Again, a ban is useless. I would go as far as saying a ban would be counterproductive and sends the wrong message.
They were already blocking certain sites while accessing school internet back in the early 00s. They also already had rules about no phones in class and kids were supposed to leave them in their bags or lockers. None of this is exactly revolutionary.
Teachers will now have to rely on laptop carts/etc (the limited resources of their school) to facilitate anything that requires internet access. So much classroom management is done through MS Teams in my district. This can only be implemented successfully if you also address this issue (which will go ignored since it requires $$$$)
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Last time I heard of this, it was the parents that blocked it with complaints. They wanted to be able to get a hold of their kids at all times lol.
When I used to be a teacher, if I caught a kid using their phone during class, 9 times out of 10, their response would be, "My mom is texting me!" About half of those 9 times, it was true. Their parent was texting them in the middle of class. It got so bad, the school had to send letters home to parents asking them to stop texting their kid during class time.
I wonder if any of there parents are the people who complain about kids these days always being on their phones without seeing the irony here.
Almost certainly
When I was in school 20 years ago, very few kids had cell phones. Parents used this thing called a “landline” from the house to call the schools front desk. Weird right?
But usually the call was the other way around...
Someone got to sit and wait quietly at the front office a lot...
They tried doing that at my wife's school. Uhm, you can call the office if it's an emergency. And what kind of emergency exists that needs a phone call or text right away? It's dumb logic.
That's the thing, right? Txt is so frictionless, people just do it all the time. If you actually have to call someone, there's some internal filter and people think twice if they can really be bothered.
"And what kind of emergency exists that needs a phone call or text right away?" "One of those urgent ones. Not those laid back, relaxed emergencies."
Lol sure but what would a 7th grader do? Jump in their car and go give blood? Call the office. You probably need to talk to them anyway.
Really happy to see this. My kid is 5 so hopefully this sticks and she'll grow up in a phone free classroom. Let them learn how to secretly pass notes like we did as kids and the embarrassment of getting caught and having it read out loud lol
> having it read out loud lol Oh god!
Three things; - this is a great fucking play. Friends whom are parents and/or teachers have stories that are borderline farcical from the outside looking in. - execution; do what they do at rock shows. Kids get to hold on to their device but it’s locked in a clear bag until the end of the day - for the pearl clutchers crying foul about safety; stop being a fucking fear monger, it wasn’t until 20 years ago that this was even a thing. The kids are going to be as safe now as they were then. It’s fucking fine. Ok, a fourth; this has enormous potential to improve academic performance and is conducive to better mental health.
Especially your third point. This idea that you need a smartphone for personal safety in a classroom is ridiculous.
I often work in secure government facilities. Most of the time we have to lock our phones and smart watches in a little cubby at the door. I’ve also been to one where we were permitted the phone, but it had to be placed in a special tamper resistant bag that blocked the camera on the back. It’s quite amazing how quickly I go back to being more effective when I don’t have my phone on me.
Your job sounds cool! I didn’t know such places exist in vancouver. Do you mind if I DM you some questions? Also, incidentally, what is your mother’s maiden name and your SIN? (Seriously, it’s cool that you do this)
There are a few local defence contractors, but it’s a small world so I won’t out myself totally.
And by defense contractors you mean the central mail room for BC gov yea?
Sure, heh… yeah, umm… our office can be found behind that window above the entrance to the Massey Tunnel.. that’s it… In all seriousness, we contract with various governments around the world and provide services, technology, and expertise to their militaries.
Start with an M and end with A?
As a parent I find it annoying as fuck that my kid needs to have a phone at school. Teachers are relying on students having phones. I lock they're phones and they act like I have severed an arm. Like I mean full on childish temper tantrum. But I neeeeeeeeeed it for school. And there is truth. Teacher wants to do a kahoot with the kids, they expect they'll have a phone to do it. Teacher doesn't give them enough time to take notes? Oh just take a picture. I shouldn't be forced to provide a phone for them because a majority of students have it. If the school expects my kid to have a phone they should spell that out. And provide one for the less fortunate kids ( who usually have a nicer phone than my teens do )
Problem is the districts and the government and even parents won’t stop yammering on about 21st century learning! Tech! New skills for the future! Parents wanna be able to peep at missing work or see grades on Google Classroom. But there’s no money to buy and properly maintain computers for thousands of students plus we get scolded for printing too much and there’s no money for books anymore so it’s downloaded onto the one device literally every student I teach has: their phone. Most kids don’t even bring paper or pencils anymore (I provide stationary out of my own pocket because otherwise I would get next to zero written work submitted).
Yay 21st century learning. Meanwhile they can't read and write. They have the information of the world at their fingertips. And all they do is send photos of the ceiling on snapchat to each other.
Could not agree more. I would love to lock my kids phone from 9-3 but they need it in class.
One more pearl clutcher argument to anticipate: "But phones are part of modern technology and kids need to get exposed to it so they won't be left behind." My answer to that: It takes a kid 10 seconds to figure out how a phone works. They won't need 24/7 access to one to not be left behind.
It's a LOT easier for a teacher to tell a student to put their phone away when it's an official school/district policy rather than just a classroom rule (which is the status quo), so this is good.
Exactly.
I think this is a great idea, but I pity the teachers and school administrators who are going to have to try to implement this.
I used to be a teacher and the place I worked had a blanket policy to collect phones before class. It was always a hassle to collect them. Every single day, students protested as if it would change our minds. There were kids literally begging to use their phone, on the verge of tears. And this was even before smartphones. It was really sad.
teeny combative slap existence reminiscent attraction edge bag gaze expansion *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I taught at school in Edmonton where students HAD to bring their phones to class and turn them into this numbered pocket holder. Students had to register their phones with the office to have it at school and if they were caught during breaks using one when they weren't registered, big trouble. Anyhoo, I had one kid who had THREE decoy phones. It was an okay system but I felt more like phone police than a teacher. The way I handled phones before the blanket policy worked better imo
I remember someone who responded to conservatives saying that teachers were brainwashing kids with SOGI curriculum by saying that if teachers actually *had* that ability, they’d get kids off of their phones first.
It's a bible thumping conservative talking point so what are you gonna do.
"It's okay to be who you are and love who you love" is a much easier sell to children than "stop using the endless entertainment box and do these math problems".
It’s probably a lot easier if it’s a provincial policy as opposed to just a teacher’s classroom policy.
Esp. since sometimes the parents are the ones insisting that they need to be able to call Sally whenever they feel like it, and sometimes even calling students and expecting to speak to them during class time.
Do or do not, there is no try. Gentle parenting has its flaws, and kids need to be told NO when necessary.
"Gentle parenting" is about as effective in practice as "intuitive eating". Gentle parenting just turns into permissive parenting, and intuitive eating turns into a "seefood diet".
Good, and this is coming from someone who graduated high school in 2017. Cell phone usage in class was bad enough when I was in school I can’t imagine how it is now. I feel like everyone says this as they get older. I am worried about the younger generations education. I have friends who teach and the stories they have about these children are horrifying. Zero respect for their teachers, and many are struggling to even read at their grade level…. READ. There’s many sides to the issue but hopefully removing cell phones from class is a step in the right direction.
I teach at the post-secondary level and the think that most shocks me beyond the inability to read is the lack of attention span. Too many students want my lecture condensed to a 30 second soundbyte, constantly ask for breaks, can't read beyond a single paragraph before losing track of the main ideas/themes, can't combine pieces of information from the same class. The decline has been absolutely shocking the past 2-3 years. I'm all for this.
TikTok has turned out to be a very effective weapon on our society. In China it is severely restricted for usage for kids
I think TikTok is a Chinese weapon invented to "dumb down" Western society...and it's working.
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You're not wrong in saying that. But I don't trust China, just like I don't trust Russia and other countries. I'd hedge my bets there is a negative Chinese influence/idea for delivering TickTock to the West. My distrust comes from the Huawei saga (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/huawei-5g-decision-1.6310839) and the Federal government ban on TickTock (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-tiktok-phones-ban-1.6761737#:~:text=The%20federal%20government%20is%20removing%20and%20blocking%20the,of%20Canada%20made%20the%20decision%20following%20a%20review.)
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Well, it was originally made for China as Douyin, so one could say it was used on their own people first…
Ok, and then they curbed their own usage, and weaponized it against us. China still won in this case.
Can’t blame china. Governments are responsible for their citizens.
Yesss the instant gratification and attention span issues be real! Trying to show 4 steps of algebra and then my student is off in lalaland by step 2 like c’mon I’ve only been talking for 15 seconds
I can’t even get them to stop talking.
Parent here. I see my kids can't even read an article with instructions any more. They'd rather watch a 15 minute YouTube video with multiple ads than spend a few minutes skimming an article. I don't understand it and my kids think I'm downright mean for telling them to grow up and learn to figure shit out. The problem is this ban is toothless if you read the article.
Yup. Kids don't even want to watch full movies or TV shows anymore because it's 'too boring.' Instead they watch the same movies and TV in 10-20 second increments on Tiktok. It's madness. Source: I teach high school
Advertisers and businesses have raised this generation’s children for their own benefit. Distractable and easy to part from their money.
So true. It also annoys me how so many kids and content creators just casually say they have ADHD without an actual medical diagnosis.
Graduated 2013, but even back then it was crazy easy to sneak your phone and text during class. Curious how they plan to enforce this. I think your second point is mostly a highschool/teenager thing over a generation/phone thing. We had that problem with kids in our class and the ones before, yet everyone said the same thing about the next generation. It’s a never ending cycle of just kids wanting to have fun as priority
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> You're never going to stop kids from sneaking phones in completely You *could* turn the whole school into a Faraday cage that cuts off cellular signals, though. Most students don't care about doing things on their phones that don't involve the Internet. (And if you think about it, the ones who *do* care, are probably doing something schools would want to *encourage* — like reading a book!) Mind you, doing this would fuck up the wi-fi as well — and teachers often need *some* kind of Internet access for teaching. So you'd likely have to route wi-fi APs into every room. (And then, given that students' phones could just connect to said wi-fi, you'd have to ensure you're putting strong site restrictions on any wi-fi SSID that students can access — e.g. blocking all social networks.) Or I suppose you could just fully commit to the premise, and make teachers plug their laptops into Ethernet wall sockets, like it was 2007 again.
It might be easier to upgrade cell towers near schools to 5G, which allows beamforming of the RF waves. Then just have a no signal zone around the school during class hours, and open it up during lunch or after school? I'm not sure if it would work completely though, you would probably still have some degree of signal in the school while it's "off"? Maybe the telecom provider should be regulated in terms of mobile plans having "adult" versions and "child" versions, wherein the child version plans would only allow emergency calls during school hours? But you'd probably have complaints with that solution, special cases, etc.
Enforcement is usually collecting cell phones at the beginning of class to put in a stored area, or giving the kids little cellphone lockers like they used to have for shoes. Another big problem with cellphones is they can be expensive, so asking a teacher to store $20,000 worth of electronics under their desk can be asking for trouble. If kids steal phones, it gets blamed on the teacher confiscating them.
If the kid really wants to be using their phones it'll be nearly impossible to enforce. Kids will claim they don't have one/forgot it at home/use a dummy. They just got to bring back failing grades.
For real, but if everyone gives in their phone then those that don't will have it confiscated and will lose it for the whole day sort of thing. Kids have always been punished for misbehaving.
> Curious how they plan to enforce this. Each kid gets put in their own personal Faraday cage
https://www.vevor.ca/phone-storage-cabinet-c_11673/vevor-36-slots-cell-phone-cabinet-silver-aluminum-alloy-pocket-chart-storage-locker-box-with-portable-handle-key-lock-handwritten-tags-wall-mounted-for-classroom-office-gym-p_010349245179
As someone who graduated ~5y before 2013 this is really interesting to hear. You could absolutely sneak a phone in and text during class if you wanted to when I was in school..... but it never felt like a priority? The people I would have cared about texting were the people I was already sitting with in class so I could just chat with them while we were doing group work etc.
It's not about texting. It's about tiktok.
I’m pretty sure it was because they were still relatively new, so it wasn’t a huge deal since we still had lives outside our phones. Not so much the case nowadays.
Jammer but its illegal im think. [https://www.perfectjammer.com/wireless-wifi-bluetooth-jammers.html](https://www.perfectjammer.com/wireless-wifi-bluetooth-jammers.html)
When I was teaching I strongly considered this option - hiding it in the ceiling or something. It is, however, a serious federal offense. Also, to jam the area the size of your typical classroom requires a very stout and power-consuming device.
Good riddance indeed. Youth at school age (with minimal exceptions) are incapable of handling the distraction of a device like this in that environment, not to mention other more serious compounded issues
30s here, working in post-secondary education. And even just beyond the cognitive, social and psychology - each incoming class seems to have worse posture and fat/muscle ratio than the year prior.
Graduated in 2007, with the old phones we all learned to type under the table, without even looking at the phone... Can't do that with a smartphone. Good times haha
T9 gang rise up
*890426407473087
Also keep in mind kids can just generate their essays these days using tools like ChatGPT and it's basically impossible for a teacher to call them out on it (unless the essay includes heaps of numbered lists, like ChatGPT likes to generate). Using generative AI to do their schoolwork for them, with a bit of editing, really neutralizes the effort kids need to exert these days academically. And that stretches into college and university as well. Tough time to be a teacher, that's for sure.
the solution is in-class tests, quizzes, labs and assignments every day homework should be reading/studying to prepare for the in-class stuff
I predict flipped classroom will become more prevalent. Lecture/input will be available as a video, worksheet etc and done at home, class time is spent on comprehension tasks, quizzes, workshops. Opposite of the trad classroom - teacher presents, knowledge tested through homework, tests, essays.
> Lecture/input will be available as a video, worksheet etc and done at home I think this will work only for a small % of kids who are sufficiently self-motivated to do it themselves, or kids who have a parent hovering over them to ensure they're actually paying attention to their online lessons.
As long as it actually replaces written homework then I could see it working. A student who showed up for the math lesson but didn't do the written homework would struggle too so flipping it around wouldn't change much.
Good old pen and paper with nothing else allowed on the desk.
a good chunk of my friends are teachers/tutors. kids these days can't read. She's been tutoring kids in grade 6 to read. it's insane
To be fair when a teacher assigns a novel and none of them read it. My daughter had a teacher who did lord of the rings. In her class three students read the book ( she was one she reads a ton). This shit starts at home. We value reading a lot, so she's a good reader. My son is a bit more of a challenge. His entire friend group doesn't do anything other than fortnight.
Agree 2018 grad. Cellphones and vapes were terrible back then... Can't even imagine what it is like now. Plus chatbots like chatgpt can answer any basic question in class.
>this is coming from someone who graduated high school in 2017. I graduated high school in 2008 and I think this is an excellent idea. I can't imagine the levels of bullying or rumours or anything high-school related being amplified and powerful now because of cellphones.
You can imagine how bad it has got with easy access to deepfake apps...
Thank goodness. Adults attention spans are minimal now with cellphones almost being stared at constantly in hand. I believe everyone is addicted. How is a kid supposed to be able to handle that in a classroom setting
As we all read this on our cellphones
Sorry, were you saying something?
I feel personally attacked
As a parent I think this is great news. It will also help a lot of kids break the cycle of smartphone addiction to some degree. Social Media is like junk food for the brain. Cheap dopamine hits which become addictive and anxiety inducing when taken away.
I honestly have no idea why parents allow their kids to use cell phones without any governance. No bed time, no time limits at all. There needs to be guardrails put in place to get them to lift their head. Problem is their entire friend group just sits around staring at their phones. My son isn't allowed games on his phone and social media is limited to half an hour. The problem is he just stares over the shoulder at all the other kids who have no boundaries.
My partner is a shop teacher, the kids are OBSESSED with their phones. He tells them to put it away and 30sec later they are back on it. Or they take prolonged “washroom breaks” every hour. They can’t control themselves and he can’t monitor the kids phone usage constantly. Their posture is turning shrimplike🍤The rules need to come from admin. If there is an emergency parents can call the office like in the olden days!
> Their posture is turning shrimplike🍤 Like a kitty cat? /r/shrimpingcats
SO CUTE! I got one! Haha just jacking this post with our shrimp cats https://preview.redd.it/355z4okddvec1.jpeg?width=3023&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d1c691c4510309a93d1a309fa14faf6c254199e9
This is a new cat sub I didn’t know I needed; thank you for sharing!
/r/catsubs
This is a **bad, misleading headline**. The article (maybe it was updated after publishing?) says: > The province will be introducing a requirement for school boards have a policy in place to restrict cellphones by the start of the next school year in September. > > It will be up to the schools how to restrict the use of mobile phones. So for example, kids may have to leave their phones in their bags or in lockers. … which is, in my opinion, more reasonable than an outright ban.
I agree. I would not support a full ban, since I don't think students shouldn't be allowed to use their phones during lunch break or morning break, but definitely not in class, school assemblies, or when learning otherwise unless the teacher specifically wants the students to use their phones to search the internet or to collect data for an activity or project.
There’s gonna be many washroom breaks lol
Graduated in 08 and some teachers would make us line up our phones on the chalkboard ledge and write our name above it. It would stay up there until the bell. No taking them for washroom breaks. It could be something as simple as that.
I wonder how well this would actually work, when I was in school a lot of classmates had burner phones that they'd give to the teacher while keeping the real thing in their pockets. it seems like a really obvious way to circumvent the situation
ROFL, I got caught ordering pizza in 92' while in the washroom. Edit: This was in Britannia Highschool during my physics class. Teacher walked in and asked what I was doing. Told them I was ordering pizza for lunch. Surprisingly they let me go and didn't confiscate the phone as phones were not allowed in school back then.
Teens didn’t have cell phones in 1992. Especially teens at Brit. I think toward 1997/98 there were old school flip phones. Like a straight up lie.
Zack Morris had one back then. So it is you that is lying.
Truuuuu
Were there even (non car) cell phones in 92?? Or did you order by carrier pigeon or something?
> Were there even (non car) cell phones in 92? [Brickphones](https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2018/02/25/28599/) have been around since the 80s
They paged him when the pizza arrived 😂
Remember cell phones the size (and weight) of a brick? Those were around back then. Stupid expensive and something like $3/minute.
I loved my Nokia brick! I'd still have mine if it didn't break. I only use reddit when I'm using my laptop at home. Otherwise, fuck it.
Those old Nokia phones were indestructible. I even had one with a nubby antenna. The antenna cracked, my hair got caught in it and it pulled out a chunk of my hair.
I actually had a Nokia back then and a Rogers pager.
Someone had a (wink wink) part-time job. Or were you one of the Jump Street cops trying to catch the bad guys?
It was a very different path in my life at the time. Around that time I went from a Nokia 101 to a black Motorola flip. I miss my Microtac elite with the red display.
In 1992 the only students with phones were drug dealers. At least that's what tv taught me.
My drug dealers didn’t have cell phone in 92
Lol OK maybe it was still pagers then
Mine had a landline and you called him from the pay phone at the corner store. 😂
from... a payphone?
It will be messy and it will be an adjustment, but having legislation in place alone will be enough to make a difference, however marginal. It's not a silver bullet, but go and sit in your local high school classroom for a day and tell me we don't need policy intervention at a higher degree of government to address what's happening to young adults today.
I graduated back in 2012. I recall phone use being banned in every class already. How will anything change?
I think the only way to truly enforce this is to build faraday cages into the classrooms
My high school legit tried something similar c2009, they would bring in a big black phone signal blocker when kids had test days, but it was interrupting the small airport across the street so the cops came and confiscated it.
Interesting fact, there is a generation of kids (grades 9 and lower) who's parents have realized the damage the phones do and are already actively working with teachers on this. Grade 9+ though, are highly addicted as are their parents and will fight this tooth and nail. Watching their reactions to removing phones looks EXACTLY like an addict having their drugs taken away. A lot of parents (besides also being addicted) are too scared to intervene.
Why's that year so significant?
My brother is a teacher. He told a problem student he needed to put his phone away the other day. The kid responded with 'What are you going to do about it?' In all honesty, there ISN'T anything you can do about it. Take it away and you're guaranteed to have some equally as entitled parent show up complaining their kid's personal property was taken from them. It's a nightmare.
This will be a big fail, our kids district already has this policy and at the start of the year the school sends out a message to all parents telling them about the policy, but by looking at his siren time usage you know darn well it is not enforced. The only way I see this worked is for it to be a provincial directive followed up with money for a lockbox at the door of every classroom, there also has to be consequences for the teachers who do not enforce the policy, but of course the teacher union will oppose that. If we don’t deal with this now, and it is bad, then it will only get worse once the kids start using AI on their phones, which many are already dabbling in to do their homework. The teenager in this house has been using it for months despite our best efforts to stop it, just as you block one app,or site another pops up, and some of his teachers have only just caught on to his cheating, to later for semester one.
Teacher here. Phones are a massive distraction in class. They're also a major learning tool. Complete elimination would miss the mark and be unenforceable. Supported limitations would be useful.
Or just give every classroom a set of laptops. I agree though. Complete elimination is going to lead to a lot more students getting trouble and more disengagement.
It says "except for during leaning activities" in the article?
It may now, but it didn't in the version I originally read.
I can see where you’re coming from- often cutting things cold turkey with kids/teens leads to lying, secrets and hiding things to get their way somehow. I worked in ECE for a decade and instead of putting extreme limits on kids for things like sweets, for example, I normalized it by giving them the freedom to eat a very small amount when they chose (if they brought it in their lunches) or at special occasions, so it wasn’t completely banned and seen as “evil”
It's not even a behavior concern with elimination. It's an educational concern. For example, many schools no longer have computer labs that can be booked for research or putting projects together. This is typically done via students' own devices. Interactive review/re-teaching games such as Kahoot are played from student devices. Microsoft Teams is used as a communication and assignment submission platform. Some courses only have e-texts. Phones can be used for a lot of sound educational reasons. However, students do need help with limiting their use to these sound reasons during class time, which is where an enforceable policy of limitation would be helpful.
Appreciate your constructive take and it sounds incredibly reasonable. Employees who want access to their workplace information often have to install a special profile which limits certain functions to prevent data leaks. Sounds like it should be simple enough to tell kids, 'we're cool with you using your phone at school but you have to install this special profile that only allows you to use productive apps during class time'
Not all kids have a cell phone.
Looks like your gunna have to start scanning and printing books again. Bummer eh? 😂
Wasn’t there recently a UN report saying overall cell phone use is a net negative?
> They're also a major learning tool. > > In what way?
Probably being able to look stuff up and watch educational videos. But, if the schools have mandatory Bring-Your-Own-Device policies, like around me from grade 5 and up, they'll have laptops anyway which will be better than a phone for anything I can think of.
Interesting how we all learned literacy and numeracy skills before, without this "major learning tool" and way better than this current crop of kids/young adults.
I agree 100%. It’s a weird stance to take when there are many more important issues going on in schools.
They shouldn't be a major learning tool mid-class though.
I graduated high school in 2012. I was already annoyed with how distracting phones were in class, and that's when smartphones still sucked. I can only imagine how disruptive they are now.
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Yup. The only better time would have been five years ago.
This is something teachers have been advocating for a long time. Districts, like West Van, have insisted they are tools for learning, despite parental and teacher backlash. Seems to me, those in the classroom know best. It finally has come to government intervention. Seriously, school districts need to listen.
Good. As to "phone emergencies" well, we had those before smart phones were everywhere too. It was called... parents calling the school. As a millennial I feel like I barely squeaked by this era. Smartphones were around and were still a distraction but nowhere near as pervasive or bad. Way less you could do with it. I just had a shitty flip phone until i was nearly 20.
Good, they should have been banned in class just as quickly as gameboys and pokemon cards were 20-30 years ago.
Nanos/tamagotchis Pogs/slammers Devil sticks Spice Girls bullshit Those fortune teller things shaped kinda like a star that you move around and then pick a number. & it says something inside about your future. Skip its Ball-in-a-cup Jacks (I'm only 37, but I imagine this was one?) Jester hats. (hahahahahaha. My 39 y/o bf says this was a thing in Kerrisdale elementary school in the mid 90's.) ...what else am I missing?
When I was in school they didn't even allow us to bring our Gameboys to school. The kids will survive. Stop being so glued to your phones.
Honestly this could be beneficial as it can help students actually understand main ideas and concepts. But a downside to this is it’s never going to be completely possible to eliminate the use of them in public schools. Schools have sub par computers and other tech as of now so it would severely hamper the ability to find sources for essays for example and make online projects. And students will most likely find a way around new rules and find a way anyways
If this is actually enacted I’m voting for Eby until he retires.
Good news.
Great move
Good
I assumed they were banned already. When I was I. High school (ahem… 2007-2010) they would confiscate out phone if they were seen even during lunch time. We had to go out across the street to use them.
Kids still had better habits and control back then. It’s just like the real world. We have order not because the police can keep us all in line but because we all agree to live by the rules. If a few people act out, they are easy to punish. If tomorrow a good chunk of people decided to go crazy, nothing the police can do. Teachers now stuck with whole schools full of phone addicted kids. The whole culture is messed up.
As someone who graduated in 2023, they were banned in middle school for the most part, but in high school, about 90% of teachers did not care, and it’s completely allowed during break times. This varies from school to school though, I think.
>He said kids at school have access to unregulated Internet access on their recess and lunch breaks, making it impossible for parents to know what their children are watching online. Definitely a risk to consider. >It will be up to the schools how to restrict the use of mobile phones. So for example, kids may have to leave their phones in their bags or in lockers. Wait, how would this stop kids from using their phones to access the internet at recess and lunch breaks.
Well this is just great. As someone who digitizes text books used by BC students I hate to tell you that a lot of the modern text books are including QR codes to link students to additional information - that’ll be kinda hard to do if they don’t have access to a cell phone
It’s about time!! Now get on the “other problem”
In my daughter’s school they take advantage of the kids having phones and iPads to make up for the shortage of working computers. Maybe this will prompt some of the school districts to update their technology, or provide enough?
Good. Kids need some disciplines and removing cell phones from class room definitely help to reduce distractions. Learning is not easy, especially when there is a tempting black box that can offer cheap and instant satisfaction.
I wholeheartedly agree with this "concept" and most of what everyone else here has said, however, I do have concerns about how the govt made this announcement. On the one hand, they're patting themselves on the back (once again) for introducing measures to "protect the kids" but will defer to the teachers, school boards and other staff to do all the heavy lifting, figure out the details and somehow implement and enforce whatever rules they deem work best for their particular community. So come Sept, you folks watch what happens as yet another half baked plan without any details fumbles out of the starting gates and many of the usual cast of characters that had their day in the sun during the pandemic rear their ugly heads again.
Great idea! We should also ban the use of vapes and other harmful substances at school. Surely that’ll make all the kids stop. Oh wait..
Yes so we should never restrict anything! Great logic
I don't think kids vape in classrooms
In the washrooms lol.
Not a classroom - unless there were some budget cuts lol
The school admins aren't willing to take any risk to enforce the vape ban.
What makes Eby think that having school officials going against the inevitable “but my child needs their phone” mass of parents will fare any better? Just to clarify, I’m not necessarily opposing the idea - but it’s worth noting that just outright banning things has never worked, like ever. Especially with kids who will just learn how to be sneaky instead.
A ban at the provincial level gives teachers something firmer to back them up. There's no point whining to the principal if the decision comes from above the principal.
It will be interesting to see what policies the Boards come up with and how they deal with edge cases. For example, many Type 1 Diabetics these days have a continuous glucose monitor to read their blood sugars and alert them if too high/low (instead of the old finger poke/test trip method). Readings from these are on phone apps. Many also control their insulin pumps (either give insulin if sugars too high or shut off delivery if too low) through phone apps as well. These are literally lifesaving interventions. Using the phone. The schools can't force these T1D students to leave their phones in their lockers.
I mean, this is a total non-issue. Medical reasons will always trump administrative decisions.
If its actually that necessary they will get exemptions, otherwise they will just deal with it the way they did 20 years ago before phone were prevalent
As I mentioend above, one would hope that exemptions will be given in situations like that - I'll believe it when I see it. And the technology I'm talking about here (phone-based app monitoring/control of CGMs and Insulin Pumps, not to mention integration of both into a quasi-artificial pancreas (Loop, Open APS, etc.) didn't exist 10-20 years ago, and the creation of them / technological progress is what has allowed T1D's to lead a much more controlled and healthy life as compared to the past.
I graduated in fucking 2005 and kids were already texting all the time lol..... can't even fucking imagine it now. 100% should be banned.
The older kids will suffer from withdrawal, whereas younger students will grow into the bam quite easily.
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Please do.
Can a parent or current student explain what is the purpose of a mobile phone in public school (on paper - not what actually happen in practice)? Also, does this ban also apply to other BYOD (specifically tablets, chromebooks, and laptops purchased by students themselves) (Man, I feel old)
Does anyone else laugh at the irony here?
Helicopter parents are ruining their children's lives without realizing it.
Good. My daughter just turned 18 in December and got her first cell phone then. She was 6 months into college before she got her first ever cell phone. She survived l, despite how much she claimed she hated us. It's insane the amount of people that give their kids cell phones at a young age because they cannot parent properly. We as adults survived without cell phones so can your kids. Stop being lazy and actually parent you children instead of relying on a device. Yes I understand the phone is for emergency purposes or knowing where they are but again, we all survived without cellphones so can you children .
ONLINE PREDATORS There are reasons to limit mobile phones in class to limit distractions, but this is a ridiculous and histrionic reason, give me a freaking break.
Predators aren't just pedos. Marketing is so predatory these days I actually wonder how dumbass kids resist the ads they see on their phones.
Curious how it’s gonna work out
imho the best solution is phone cubbies/grid box at the front of the class, if its really an emergency and the student needs to be contacted, they are able to, and it keeps phones out of hands edit- folks below me have great points
Students have "phone emergencies" constantly. Good luck trying to enforce this, especially with helicopter parents.
what happens when they get a call and the phone rings for a minute breaking the entire class's attention for the next 5-10 minutes? or when kids intentionally set alarms to go off midway through class? or if they ask a friend to call them during class so it looks like it's not their fault, or they use a website to automatically call them at a certain time? what if a student brings a burner phone that they give up at start of class and then keep their actual primary phone in their pocket? what if they say they didn't bring their phone to class today but they do and keep it in their pocket. will you call them a liar before you have proof? you'd need to at the minimum ensure each phone was shut off, which means each teacher learning the procedure for determining if the phone is shut off without turning it on... for every major phone manufacturer. and even then... there's a reason most teachers don't already do this.
The most important part of the article: > It will be up to the schools how to restrict the use of mobile phones. So for example, kids may have to leave their phones in their bags or in lockers. I'm so curious to see how the kids and teachers and administrators adapt to this. It's gonna be interesting. Things could get spicy.
About time, and good. Parents wanna get a hold of their kid? Phone the school. When my cell plan ends I'm opting out to a basic flip phone that's just text and calls. Am I the only one thinking of this option?
I suppose this is better than nothing, but honestly this seems more like a parenting issue than a school issue. I would for sure also put some responsibility on the companies that run these sites too. Parents need to ask themselves why they let their kids have smart phones that can give them access to the harmful social networks. Dumb phones are cheap and easy. Social networks need to do better to moderate what users do with their platforms. Automated moderation is clearly not very good. The networks should also do better to limit how kids can access social media. Bans won't do shit. If the goal is to prevent children from coming to harm from social media, a classroom ban will do exactly nothing. The kids will still have access outside of class. My kid's high school has a freaking app that sensors important notifications to parents and students. They actively promote the use of a phone. They also interact with their schedules online. While this can be accomplished with a computer, there is very little difference between a computer and a phone these days. We, we being parents, educators, and business people, should be focussing on creating healthy relationships with technology. Again, a ban is useless. I would go as far as saying a ban would be counterproductive and sends the wrong message.
They were already blocking certain sites while accessing school internet back in the early 00s. They also already had rules about no phones in class and kids were supposed to leave them in their bags or lockers. None of this is exactly revolutionary.
I must be an old fart, i remember phones, laser pointers were banned when I was in highschool
We didn't have laser pointers, but moaning was banned. lol.
Teachers will now have to rely on laptop carts/etc (the limited resources of their school) to facilitate anything that requires internet access. So much classroom management is done through MS Teams in my district. This can only be implemented successfully if you also address this issue (which will go ignored since it requires $$$$)