France To Ban Mobile Phones In Schools (theguardian.com) 191
The French government is planning to ban students from using mobile phones in the country's primary, junior and middle schools. While children will be permitted to bring their phones to school, they will not be allowed to get them out at any time until they leave, even during breaks. The Guardian reports: Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister, said the measure would come into effect from the start of the next school year in September 2018. It will apply to all pupils from the time they start school at age of six -- up to about 15 when they start secondary school. Blanquer said some education establishments already prohibited pupils from using their mobiles. "Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons [...] for urgent situations, but their use has to be somehow controlled," he told RTL radio. The minister said the ban was also a "public health message to families," adding: "It's good that children are not too often, or even at all, in front of a screen before the age of seven." The French headteachers' union was skeptical that the ban could be enforced.
Why were they ever allowed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right from the start, I was completely surprised that any school anywhere has ever allow them.
Re:Why were they ever allowed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good idea, as long as they also get rid of this:
Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons
You can't have it both ways.
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Re:Why were they ever allowed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is not about that.
As I understood, they are doing that under influence of people saying that "cellphones give you brain cancer"
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No, you're the one introducing that into the conversation.
See also: "The Rule of Goats"
https://twitter.com/popehat/st... [twitter.com]
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Good idea, as long as they also get rid of this:
Sometimes you need a mobile for teaching reasons
You can't have it both ways.
Sure you can. That's exactly what my kids' school does. It works fine.
Re:Why were they ever allowed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right from the start, I was completely surprised that any school anywhere has ever allow them.
"I need to be able to reach my child in an emergency!"
"My child is special. He/She must be permitted to carry their cell phone."
The blame lies more with smartphone-addicted parents than the school. And schools often succumb to what parents want, not common sense. In reality, the parents are doing nothing more than creating pathetic excuses to justify paying for a smartphone for their 8-year BFF (a.k.a. their child)
We're also dealing with parents who treat smartphones like it's their left arm, so no surprise their kids consider a smartphone and social media access as vital as breathing.
Educational purpose? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I need to be able to reach my child in an emergency!"
That's why they have an administrative office. You call there and they go contact your child if necessary. Worked just fine for 100 years. There is no educational value in allowing access to cell phones of any sort during the day. If there is an odd circumstance where a child really does need to carry their phone during class hours due to some special circumstance then the parent can arrange that through the school administration on a short term basis.
The blame lies more with smartphone-addicted parents than the school.
There is Truth in this. The basic question to ask is "what educational purpose is being fulfilled by allowing access to smartphones during school hours?" If there isn't one then there is no reason to allow them.
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Also what type of emergency is so important that your kid needs to know right away? I can see the kid calling you for an emergency because you have the power and authority do something about it. But if you have an emergency the last person I would call is my kid, because there isn't much they can do about it. Leave a message to the Admin office and they will call you to the office either right away if is that important, or between classes if it isn't.
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I agree with the Admin office solution. However my school system is a ridiculous failure in this regard. First, the admin office stops answering the phone within ten minutes of school ending for the day. Second the bus system apparently doesn't have much of a maintenance budget because my kids bus breaks down a few times every school year, which can mean they get home up to an hour and a half late. When your kid is late getting home there is no number we can call to find out what is going on. The school act
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Because countries that allow homeschooling have refused the parents' application for asylum or a work visa.
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What do you mean "pay for it"? (Score:2)
Because countries that allow homeschooling have refused the parents' application for asylum or a work visa.
Well then you should work harder to pay for it then!
To what does "it" refer? If by "it" you mean a work visa, that fails because countries impose conditions on admitting guest workers other than pure ability to pay. If by "it" you mean homeschooling, payment doesn't change the fact that it's a crime in many countries. By "it" did you mean the entire cost of establishing an accredited private school?
Re: Educational purpose? (Score:2, Funny)
There are non-lethal guillotines in France.
Nothing but excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
So far I think the situation is that schools can't handle cell phone storage during school hours.
What are you talking about? They have lockers. Use them. For schools that don't have lockers either forbid them to bring the phones or come up with a secure box to store them during the day.
Imagine the liability issues.
What liability issues? This is made up nonsense. There simply aren't any and it's trivial to work out exceptions to the policy where reasonable. People already sue schools for idiotic reasons so it's hardly worth worrying about a few irrational parents making up new reasons to be irrational. If there is an emergency contact the administrative office or the teacher directly. If the teachers have phones (and most do) then there is no reason to worry about emergencies.
Plus it's a hell of a lot of work.
Schools are very well equipped to monitor students using forbidden items during the school day. They've been doing it literally since there were schools. They already do this so it's really nothing new at all.
Then kids can't have a phone on them on their way to school or home, which is probably a bad idea.
Bullshit. I never had a cell phone as a child and yet somehow I survived the fiery apocalypse. I reject the entire premise of this argument. Children younger than driving age are in most locations by definition with an adult the entire time they are transiting to/from school. Why would they need a phone? Children old enough to drive can leave the phone in the car or in their locker during the day. If a parent is worried about their child's safety, a phone isn't going to solve that problem. The parent should be with the child if they are worried about them.
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I never had a cell phone as a child and yet somehow I survived the fiery apocalypse.
That right there is a bullshit argument. Test it out with some other then/now comparison to see for yourself, e.g.
We never had airbags/carseats/bike helmets when I was a child, so why do we need them now?
and
Grandpappy didn't have seatbelts when he was a child, so requiring them in cars now isn't necessary.
I'm sure we could come up with many more examples that illustrate the fact that "I didn't have it, so kids today should not, either" is a nonsensical argument. There is simply no question that there are safety advantages to having a phone available (obvious ones being the ability to call 911 in an emergency, or call someone else for a less serious issue, etc....) "Not necessary" does not mea
False equivalency and insecurity (Score:2)
That right there is a bullshit argument. Test it out with some other then/now comparison to see for yourself, e.g.
Hardly. Your attempts at bringing in other unrelated arguments that I did not make is a false equivalency.
That depends on what the concerns are, doesn't it? Obviously, a phone doesn't grant the holder invulnerability, but it can certainly ameliorate some common worries (like not knowing where the child is, not being able to reach them, etc....)
Not really no. If the parent is that concerned then they can accompany the child. If they need to reach them at school then they can do so through the administration of the school. If they are concerned about the transit to/from then accompany them. I reject the premise of your argument. If a parent thinks a phone is a security blanket then they are not actually considering the facts of the situat
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Your attempts at bringing in other analogous examples of the same argument
FTFY. Your argument was: "I didn't, so they shouldn't" and it has no more merit when applied to phones than any other thing that can improve safety, even if only in rare circumstances.
If the parent is that concerned then they can accompany the child.
Or take advantage of other options that accomplish at least part of the goal of monitoring the child's whereabouts and condition.
If they need to reach them at school then they can do so through the administration of the school. If they are concerned about the transit to/from then accompany them. I reject the premise of your argument.
Regardless of your perception, a phone is a perfectly valid way to reach a child and know his location.
A phone won't fix actual problems and I'm not going to pretend that it will.
But you are pretending, because a phone does in fact fix the problems of: parent and child havi
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It is the same arguments, not something unrelated. Try understanding what is being said before you decide that a particular criticism is unwarranted.
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* Children younger than driving age are in most locations by definition with an adult the entire time they are transiting to/from school.*
You might be surprised, but there are many modern countries where kids walk to school alone for a mile or several.
No phone needed (Score:2)
You might be surprised, but there are many modern countries where kids walk to school alone for a mile or several.
And they routinely do so without the aid of a phone. What exactly is your point?
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I agree that the kids don't need those phones, but not so much this...
"Children younger than driving age are in most locations by definition with an adult the entire time they are transiting to/from school."
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I grew up on the streets of Detroit, walking about a half dozen city blocks to elementary school, back in the 60s. There were no cell phones, and there were not payphones nearby. We even did so during the riots in '67. The only supervision we had was the "safety patrol" boys, who were also elementary school age kids, who checked for traffic at each intersection. Never once heard of anything more than a fist fight.
We've gone from that to the current situation where we've got helicopter parenting, raising
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Never once heard of anything more than a fist fight.
This is either a lie, or you've had your fingers in your ears your whole life.
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Um, no. No, it's not. If you know anything about Detroit, you know it was one of the most segregated cities on the planet back in the 60s. My elementary school was had a grand total of one black kid, and we were only about five miles from the downtown center,..Macomb Elementary near the major intersections of Harper and Conners. The area was pretty crime free when I was growing up, but that changed in the 70s.
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Most school children of ages 8-10 go to a primary school in their neighborhood. On the walk home from a neighborhood school there has seldom ever been a series of pay phones.
I guess if you live in a shit urban area this may not have always been the case.
They don't need a pay phone or a cell phone during school. Kids shouldn't be calling anyone DURING school. France is not talking about banning them BEFORE or AFTER school. Put that phone away kids during the schoolday, it has no place in school.
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That all went fine in the pre-mobile-phone era and there is no reason why it shouldn't today, but there is also no reason not to have the added safety of the child being able to reach out if something happens along the way. I wouldn't want my children to leave the house without a phone if at all possible.
Conflict yourself often?
I truly feel for the children of the future that are raised to become this dependent on a phone. What's the point of teaching someone self defense when all an adversary needs is a cell blocker to incapacitate them...
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I don't see the conflict. Why not have the added safety and convenience of carrying a mobile phone even though it's not strictly necessary?
The problem with children having a cell phone with them every time they leave the house is they're often on the way to school with them.
This directly conflicts with your pre-mobile-phone era statements where you claim that it "all went fine" when children didn't have cell phones on them at all times.
Either advocate for the safety net excuse, or advocate for how students managed to survive outside their homes and in school for hundreds of years.
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Sorry cluestick, there is a huge conflict between those statements. How are you ever going to become fluent in English if you refuse to accept corrections? You claim there is no conflict, it just means you don't understand what you're saying. Your grammar is pretty good, but your comprehension is nonexistent.
Saying "everything went fine" implies that there is no important health or security advantage to carrying one. Maybe it translates to a different implication in your native tongue?
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"...the added safety.."
Um, no. You need to look up how often people are injured while just walking and using their cellphones. Your "added safety" is completely obliterated by the added risk of injury.
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Now i'm sorry, but having a 9 year-old carry a $1000 device is providing them with more risk of being mugged, not less. If they need a mobile, give them a cheapy $20 feature phone. It's also much less expensive when it does inevitably get lost, broken or stolen.
Even if I were obscenely rich, I wouldn't want my kids having powerful phones, not whilst in school. I wouldn't want them to be easily distracted. Cheap underpowered crap is all they get, and not just because I'm cheap.
I also think a teenagers first car they get to drive should have more than 4 cylinders either. Even if you can afford to buy the snowflakes a Porsche, don't! Until they have 5+ driving experience, no one should be driving a powerful car, even if "Daddy" can afford it. For the safety of t
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In my country, cell phones have off buttons. #LivingInTheFuture
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"I need to be able to reach my child in an emergency!"
"My child is special. He/She must be permitted to carry their cell phone."
It's the other way around - the child need to be able to reach his/her parents, in case of emergencies. No, using school facilities is not an option because quite often bullying is more or less 'protected' by the school, and extreme situations would have ended quite differently if parents have a direct knowledge of school-sponsored or encouraged bullying. Before Columbine it was quite normal to allow 'jocks' to bully 'nerds' or other groups that didn't conform to the schools idea of wholesome lives. Today we've seen a rise in religious bullying where non-christian (especially atheistic) students are openly bullied by other students and teachers alike for 'not believing' or 'not accepting God'. It is optimal to report incidents as they happen as many seem to lose the courage as the day goes by so they're quiet when they come home from school.
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As a kid bullied in school. If I didn't feel going to the school officials for help, I wouldn't want to go to my parents either.
Still if you are being bullied what are your parents going to do, other than being bullied as a Mommas boy.
The kid is quite when they come home not because they had lost courage, but they feel that they need to be tough enough to deal with it themselves.
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Ditto. I fortunately had a perceptive mother, who got it out of me that I was being pestered by a couple of bullies on the way home from school frequently during my freshman year of HS. She spoke with my coach who had a couple of my senior teammates address the issue, and I was never bothered again. Sometimes a little peer pressure can be a good thing.
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We're also dealing with parents who treat smartphones like it's their left arm, so no surprise their kids consider a smartphone and social media access as vital as breathing.
I take a strong "do as I say not as I do" in these situations.
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Right from the start
Whitelist vs blacklist. It surprises me that you're surprised that schools don't ban absolutely everything new. Did you go to school in a monastery?
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For us old guys like me. Parents often gave kids pagers so they can contact them in case of emergency, and the kid during his free time would use the payphone to call them back to figure out what is up. While some schools put a ban on them, because they used them for drug dealing during school hours, for the most part they were a tool for the parents to keep tabs on their kids. Kids during this time may brag if the pager actually had messaging on it, however just having a pager was a status symbol, that y
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Right from the start, I was completely surprised that any school anywhere has ever allow them.
When I was in school they were banned as being "Drug Paraphernalia". Even back then, that was a little bit ridiculous (not that they were banned, but that they were labeled drug paraphernalia). Nothing as disruptive as a phone should be allowed in school at any time whilst school is in session. I can't think of one legitimate education reason why kids should use cell phones whilst class is in session, nor should they rely on them during breaks. I think a school day without a cell phone could only be a g
Texting, the new smoking (Score:4, Interesting)
I predict that French schools will have a serious lack of empty toilets in the foreseeable future. And for a change, it's not because of the quality of the cafeteria lunch.
Re:Texting, the new smoking (Score:4, Interesting)
Could be prevented by a jammer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
French lunches versus US lunches (Score:5, Informative)
I predict that French schools will have a serious lack of empty toilets in the foreseeable future. And for a change, it's not because of the quality of the cafeteria lunch.
I think you may not be aware of how amazingly good [karenlebillon.com] the food is in French schools. Unlike in the US where we literally give prisoners better food than students [theodysseyonline.com] which is just mind blowing.
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Thank you so much for that link.
The suggestion of a ban on vending machines and fizzy drinks could cause a civil war here in the UK, but this is all a good read for later.
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Really? Where do French students fuck?
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Really? Where do French students fuck?
They don't. They just French kiss a lot.
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The same place the French kiss.
Yes, I meant it.
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So true ...
My school did this 20 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
You had to have it on silent (not vibrate). If you got it out the teacher took until the end of class.
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Hm. So either you can't use it until the class is over, or you try to hide it under your desk, and if you get caught ... you can't use it until the class is over.
I suspect I know which choice a lot of the kids made...
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and if you get caught ... you can't use it until the class is over
Or you can't use it until you pick it up in the principal's office at the end of the day. Or you can't use it until your parents pick it up in the principal's office. Lots of different options.
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I wonder if in the USA the quasi-automatic gun shooting starts when the student gets the phone taken away, or when the parents of the student hear about it?
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No, usually it is when they get the txt from their gang telling them who to shoot.
Totally agree! (Score:3, Interesting)
As a parent, I totally agree with this. My eight year old son is already asking about when he gets his own mobile phone. Some friends of him already have one! Insane! Kids at that age are not ready for the internet and communication like that. If they learn to communicate via digital devices instead of directly, they miss essential things like non-verbal communication. This will seriously affect them if you ask me.
I know I can't go around giving him a mobile phone when he goes to high school, otherwise he will be left out of a lot of social events. This nation wide ban removes the difficult discussion between schools and parents. I wish they would do this in my country too.
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If they learn to communicate via digital devices instead of directly, they miss essential things like non-verbal communication. This will seriously affect them if you ask me.
Today learning to communicate not directly is just as essential as learning to communicate directly. Not learning both forms of communication properly will definitely affect them.
Not giving kids enough credit (Score:2)
Kids at that age are not ready for the internet and communication like that.
That's quite plainly not true and I see hundreds of children almost daily that handle it just fine. What they are not ready for is UNSUPERVISED access to online communications. They are perfectly capable of handling it with a bit of guidance. Furthermore given how important the internet is and will continue to be, to withhold access to learning about such tools is actually likely harmful to them in the long run. I would argue that trying to nerf their world actually does more harm and I have seen that p
Re:Not giving kids enough credit (Score:4, Funny)
Kids are more resilient than you give them credit for. That said I think that the French ban sounds like an excellent idea. Smartphones are nothing but a distraction during the school day. They can play with them as much as they want after school hours.
Not my child. My child is a fragile, delicate masterpiece without flaw. I must hover over my child 24/7 to prevent any teacher, adult, child, or government organization from implying that my little piece of perfection might have a flaw. In order to do this, they must text and call me constantly throughout the day so that I can verify that no one is making such absurd allegations.
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I agree it's insane for an 8 year old to have a phone, but it's not too many years away from when it is no longer insane.
When I was a kid, you took some coins with you to use a payphone if you got into trouble (and could find a payphone...). That pretty much worked as contrary to pop hysteria there actually ISN'T a sex predator waiting behind every lamp post to abduct your kid. However, if you can give your kid a portable communication device so they can reach you more or less at will... why wouldn't you?
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In actual emergencies, you didn't need quarters you'd just dial 0 and make a "collect call" and your parents would get the charge on their phone bill.
Actually, the rarity of collect calls showed how non-emergency most of the "emergencies" that people imagine needing a cell phone for are.
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>In actual emergencies, you didn't need quarters you'd just dial 0 and make a "collect call" and your parents would get the charge on their phone bill.
I have only the vaguest recollection of receiving a collect call once from my father when he was on a business trip abroad. By the time it was my turn to call home, I had a calling card to reduce the billing rate... and it wasn't long after that (reasonably sized) cell phones became common.
>Actually, the rarity of collect calls showed how non-emergency
If they didn't stop there (Score:2)
and also outlawed rude behavior, they'd really making a positive change. Then again, they'd loose a well know internationally recognized trait.
Neo-Luddism (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, not to talk loudly and continuously over the telephone in public transport.
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Nope. Kids don't need to have 24/7 access to a device with access to the internet that parents have no way of monitoring.
That's not luddism. That's just good parenting.
Next you're going to tell me not letting your 5 year old watch porn is neo-puritanism.
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Have you ever heard of parental controls?
Shame parental controls are easy to circumvent and none are very good.
Both sides pay (Score:2)
Hell where I live a phone without credit will receive but not make calls
What country is that? Where I live, the sender pays half the minute rate (unless the sender has minutes remaining or an unmetered plan) and the receiver pays half the minute rate (unless the receiver has minutes remaining or an unmetered plan), as both sides of the call are using channel-minutes on a tower. Having never lived in France, I have no experience with its mobile phone service pricing model.
Schools != Parents (Score:2)
It would be better to teach students the etiquette of modern communication.
Isn’t that the parents' job? Should schools do that too?
Good (Score:2)
All other EU countries + the 16 federal states of Germany should follow.
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While I agree that this seems to be a good idea, sometimes it's good to incubate experiments in one location before going all in. It's one of the few advantages of having 50 states in the US...you can see what worked elsewhere...and what didn't. Unfortunately for us, we let our partisanship get in the way of right v. wrong too often.
Better solution... (Score:2)
Schools should put up their own local cell tower that only routes to 911 or the head office if the call is detected to come from within the borders of the school property, unless it's a registered faculty phone number.
This is something that is possible to do, BTW, not just a pipe dream. It stops kids from wasting time on their phones in class, but still allows for emergency calls.
Terrible idea (Score:2)
Schools should put up their own local cell tower that only routes to 911 or the head office if the call is detected to come from within the borders of the school property, unless it's a registered faculty phone number.
That wouldn't work for almost countless reasons. First, it's a very Big Brother sort of solution which would almost certainly draw lawsuits if they tried to implement it. Second, schools are not just for children. I'm on staff at my local school part time. We have community education activities going on all the time which involve people who aren't students. We have parents, guardians, grandparents and other relatives visiting for various reasons. Third, it is quite an unreasonable administrative burd
Re: Your terrible response (Score:2)
>. First, it's a very Big Brother sort of solution which would almost certainly draw lawsuits if they tried to implement it.
So will not having the ability to call 911 if someone's hurting kids.
> Third, it is quite an unreasonable administrative burden to try to get everyone who might possibly visit a school to register their phone with a school.
People still have to check in when entering a school (they're generally not free and open to the public). An extra few seconds for tradesmen to put their phon
Think it through before saying stupid things (Score:2)
People still have to check in when entering a school (they're generally not free and open to the public). An extra few seconds for tradesmen to put their phone number into the system isn't a huge burden.
Yes it is. Because their phone is not functional until they check it in. Furthermore there is no compelling reason to ban the phones of anyone who is not a student. It only serves to inconvenience people who don't need to be inconvenienced. Not to mention it is dangerous. There would be no way to not block people who are merely driving by the school. Radio towers don't respect property lines. How do you plan to ensure the cell tower does not affect those who are 1 foot off school grounds?
Boo hoo. Live without your electronic leash for a bit. If you're really that important, people will reach you through the school's office.
Grow up. El
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No, it is MUCH simple to just forbid the students from taking a phone out of their locker during the school day.
The problem is, that would be hell to enforce. You would literally need teachers walking up and down the halls monitoring this. Teachers shouldn't be doing that.
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The problem is, that would be hell to enforce. You would literally need teachers walking up and down the halls monitoring this. Teachers shouldn't be doing that.
I bet you think that laws are ineffective if you don't have a policeman looking over your shoulder 24/7 as well, too.
You don't need teachers monitoring every kid every moment. You just have a consequence when the teachers see a kid with a phone. (And for the kids who are smart enough to prevent the teachers from ever noticing ... well then, the phone isn't really a disruption anymore, is it?)
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What's important is whether they are disrupting the learning of anyone else. You can't force someone to learn. Kids have been tuning out their teachers forever; phones have nothing to do with that.
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Making perfect the enemy of good (Score:2)
The problem is, that would be hell to enforce. You would literally need teachers walking up and down the halls monitoring this. Teachers shouldn't be doing that.
No it would not. Teachers already are monitoring for contraband. If they see it being used then there are consequences. Have you ever actually been around kids? Teachers don't walk around covering their eyes and ears. And if a kid manages to sneak in a phone, so what? It just not that big a deal.
Here's why a whitelist system wouldn't work:
1) No way to ensure that it only functions on school grounds and doesn't affect those off campus
2) It creates all sorts of privacy problems and legal minefields that
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That something is possible doesn't really matter if it is neither legal nor desirable.
The headline begins "France To Ban". This implies that somebody thinks the ban is desirable and ought to be legal and has convinced those with legislative or regulatory power of same.
Bring on the downmods! (Score:3)
Kids under 18 shouldn't even have phones other than ones tied to their parents' for the aforementioned emergencies. They also shouldn't have any access to social media in any way, shape, or form.
Old news (Score:3)
In Italy mobile phones are banned since 2012...
Millennials in withdrawal (Score:2)
I took a group of Millennials (14-17) on a wilderness hike in 2015 and discovered they had such an attachment to their phones that they'd rather carry them than other important gear like a knife or extra flashlight batteries. Sad/interesting to watch them go through withdrawal over the 10 days on the trail with no cell coverage and no AC outlets. Solar was a little help but no coverage was a killer for these kids. They continually checked their mostly dead and disconnected devices looking for signs of li
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And you don't need to ban 15 year olds from learning phone use!
Oh yes, such a difficult skill to master and we're in such short supply in the labour market for workers who have the ability to use a phone. Why, just the other day I recall hearing our manufacturing department lamenting how hard it is to find workers who know how to operate Candy Crush on their smartphones.
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Buttons?! When I was a kid, we had to use a dial.
Now get off my lawn!
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The problem with putting phones in lockers is that the teachers will end up having to deal with disrupted classes because of the kids who just need to check instagram in the break and then end up being late for class. This is a problem that was solved already, mobile phones haven't been around for that long, surely the school has a way to contact students and vice-versa.
There has always been reasons why kids might be late for class. There have always been punishments for kids that are repeatedly late for class. If kids are repeat offending for this, then it is the teacher's fault.
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kids who just need to check instagram
Why? When I went to school, it was kids who just needed a cigarette in the parking lot during the break. That wasn't an excuse for being late even though the physical withdrawal symptoms were more serious.
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They can keep the phones as long as they are off or in "airplane mode".
Except it does not work that way (Score:2)
Friend teaches at an "underperforming" high school in the US. He explained to me one of the few times he can send a kid to the VP office is if they have a phone out and are actively using and refuse to give it to him for the duration of class. He sends student to VP. The VP asks the student for the phone. Student usually refuses. VP sends student back to class with phone. Zero punishment. Actually an incentive. Student gets to avoid class for 15 or 20 minutes.
The kids know they run the place, and the parent
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Student usually refuses.
3 day suspension.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope no suspension, nada, nothing is standard. Shoot, he told me one girl held a knife on another and she was back the next day.