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Education Australia Cellphones

What Happened After a High School Banned Mobile Phones? (smh.com.au) 289

Posted by EditorDavid from the teaching-a-lesson dept.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a local high school "has seen a dramatic decrease in behavioural issues and a boost in physical activity and students talking to each other just two months after it tightened restrictions on mobile phone usage."

The school's principal tells the newspaper that "in eight weeks of the policy, there has been a 90 per cent reduction in behavioural issues related to phones in the school." He said it was "so clear" that mobile phones hindered student learning and focus in classrooms and stunted their emotional and social intelligence. He said phone usage also contributed directly to conflict between students.

"At a time when mental health is of such a concern amongst our young people, our school community saw the phone as a significant and negative contributor to student wellbeing," he said....

An online petition calling for a ban on mobile phones in NSW high schools has attracted more than 21,600 signatures. A survey of Davidson High School parents in 2021 found 89 per cent supported the policy of permitting mobile phones at school but not allowing students to use them.
The principal said the move reduced distractions for students and teachers.
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What Happened After a High School Banned Mobile Phones? More

What Happened After a High School Banned Mobile Phones?

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  • Interesting (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @04:59PM (#62769952)

    So, they saw a 90% decrease in phone-related issues when they removed 100% of the phones?

    I am not all that impressed...

    • Presumably they had 10% as many incidents of people trying to bring phones anyway as they had total issues before the policy. Sadly when you outlaw catapults outlaws continue to use them with little concern for your ban.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You guys are so negative! What if all humanity problems could be solved by banning a few simple things such as cell phones and democrats?

      • But if everyone had a catapult, there would be no issue!

        Or ... something like that.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by LKM ( 227954 )
          The only thing that stops a good guy with a catapult is a bad guy with a catapult, or vice-versa, depending on how many good and bad guys there are on any given point, and depending on adherence to the compulsory catapult carrying act.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      Wait, a ban wasn't immediately 100% effective? Well, then it must be worse than useless.

      Do you hear yourself?

    • He said it was "so clear" that mobile phones hindered student learning and focus in classrooms and stunted their emotional and social intelligence. He said phone usage also contributed directly to conflict between students.

      When these are the phone-related issues? You should be impressed. I am!

    • Only a 60% ban (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @07:19PM (#62770352) Journal

      So, they saw a 90% decrease in phone-related issues when they removed 100% of the phones?

      If you RTFA (yes I know it's Slashdot) you'll find that the summary is not entirely correct. They only banned their use in the first three years of the high school. The upper two years were allowed to keep them and presumably accounted for the remaining 10% of issues.

      So effectively banning 60% of the school from using their phones solved 90% of phone issues.

    • So, they saw a 90% decrease in phone-related issues when they removed 100% of the phones?

      Percentages mean little without a baseline number.

      Did incidents go from 1000 to 100? Or from 10 to 1?

      Also, what counts as an "incident?" A student checking her text messages during class?

  • Bad science (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This obviously isn't science at all, but it does get served with a science-y-sounding numbers sauce, and some sort of backed conclusion... except the numbers are meaningless and the conclusion isn't backed.

    For verily: You take mobile phones away and "90% of behavioural issues related to mobile phones" goes away. That is, no more teachers snatching pupils' phones because they've been taken away already.

    It does not follow that pupils "emotional and social intelligence" is now suddenly no longer "stunted". S

    • Re:Bad science (Score:5, Insightful)

      by c-A-d ( 77980 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:04PM (#62769968)

      There is plenty of research that shows that cell phone use is disruptive to sleep which affects every other part of your life, and there's a lot of research that supports the idea that cell phone use coupled with social media messes up a person's attention span.

      Banning cell phones in school is, imo, a good idea.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        There is plenty of research that shows that cell phone use is disruptive to sleep which affects every other part of your life,

        And school is for sleeping, this is well-known. *nods sagely*

        and there's a lot of research that supports the idea that cell phone use coupled with social media messes up a person's attention span.

        This piece is not that research. This piece relates an anecdote and dresses it up as research, and that just doesn't do. Bad example for the children, too, and all that.

        Banning cell phones in school is, imo, a good idea.

        I don't disagree, in fact I think teaching with pen and paper, blackboard and chalk, may well be preferrable to using electronic anything. But that wasn't what GP was on about, explicitly so.

        • And school is for sleeping, this is well-known. *nods sagely*

          Well... yeah? What else could you do there that was worth the time you had to waste there?

          Back when I was a student and had to go to school, there was no cellphones with internet and no wikipedia, so what could I have done there sensibly?

      • "There is plenty of research that shows that cell phone use is disruptive to sleep which affects every other part of your life, and there's a lot of research that supports the idea that cell phone use coupled with social media messes up a person's attention span."

        Think of it as evolution in action.

        • Think of it as evolution in action.

          Except that the failures have more kids. So evolution is taking us in the wrong direction.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Jhon ( 241832 )

            " So evolution is taking us in the wrong direction."

            You say it's taking us in the WRONG direction... I say it's taking is to the invention of BRAWNDO -- because it's got what plants crave! It's got electrolytes! We need BROWNDO!

          • So evolution is taking us in the wrong direction.

            By definition that does not happen. To some people it may just seem slow.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It is worse than that. A key method to *improveâ(TM)*discipline is to set an arbitrary rule that allows the removal of unwanted students. What is missing here, in terms of data, weâ(TM)re the students she are no longe being educated.

      The kid of a friend of mine was subject to this. He was not the kind of kid the high school wanted, even though in college he graduated with a double major in science. His mother moved into some cheap apartments that were just inside the zone. When he needed surgery,

    • Re: Bad science (Score:4, Informative)

      by sonamchauhan ( 587356 ) <sonamc@NOsPam.gmail.com> on Sunday August 07, 2022 @08:34PM (#62770518) Journal

      I recommend reading this book:

      https://stolenfocusbook.com/mo... [stolenfocusbook.com]

      Makes a very good case for what the school did. Plenty of science behind it.

      (Written, haltingly, on my mobile :)

  • Nerds horrified (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:09PM (#62769984)
    The fauxtistic nerds on here will be horrified and will come up with all justifications about why this is not the case, despite it clearly being the case.

    Addicts will always justify why their addictions are fine.

  • Of course they did. It's not hard to guess. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cephalien ( 529516 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:12PM (#62769992)

    But as a teacher in the US, I spend more time dealing with cell phones than almost anything else, mostly because parents don't do their jobs.

    I've even been told by a parent that their child needs a phone during class because the mom might need the child to leave early and pick up another younger kid (nevermind that the older student had chronic truancy issues and straight Fs)

    You want to fix education in this country? Pay teachers. Join a union. Start telling parents that they are responsible for their own children and make it stick.

    If I see a cell phone out during class, a student is either expected to come to me and explain why they need to take a call (emergencies happen, although I have always said that we managed these fine when parents simply had to call the school) or it is confiscated and returned to a parent. No exceptions.

    • But as a teacher in the US, I spend more time dealing with cell phones than almost anything else, mostly because parents don't do their jobs.

      I've even been told by a parent that their child needs a phone during class because the mom might need the child to leave early and pick up another younger kid (nevermind that the older student had chronic truancy issues and straight Fs)

      You want to fix education in this country? Pay teachers. Join a union. Start telling parents that they are responsible for their own children and make it stick.

      If I see a cell phone out during class, a student is either expected to come to me and explain why they need to take a call (emergencies happen, although I have always said that we managed these fine when parents simply had to call the school) or it is confiscated and returned to a parent. No exceptions.

      Photographing blackboards with a cellphone camera has been my favourite way of taking notes for about as long as there have been cellphone cameras. I frequently could not write/draw fast enough to copy what was happening down on the blackboard and the teachers seemed to take particular delight in not giving a shit about the students who were taking notes. I can understand being irritated by cellphones going off in class but going full classroom Hitler on anybody who lifts a cellphone in class is not a solut

      • "Photographing blackboards with a cellphone camera has been my favourite way of taking notes for about as long as there have been cellphone cameras."

        I hope you all switch off the 'click' or the class will sound like the Japanese tourist group before the Mona Lisa.

      • Re:Of course they did. It's not hard to guess. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Junta ( 36770 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:59PM (#62770132)

        On the matter of capturing board with camera, most of note taking is in the writing of it, rather than reading. Forcing it through your brain into whatever storage medium will make it stick more than any amount of merely reading it. Whether it is 'writing' or 'typing', just some thing to force your brain, however briefly, to internalize the information on the way through.

        • Whether it is 'writing' or 'typing', just some thing to force your brain, however briefly, to internalize the information on the way through.

          That's how it works for normal people. If you have dysgraphia, being forced to copy something using handwriting can result in being less likely to remember what it is you just copied, because you're focusing 100% of your attention on the physical act of transcribing.

          • If you have no hands, it's just a cruel joke. That's why students with special needs get assistance. That isn't what anyone is talking about here.
        • To refine the comment above a little, according to research: If students copy the information from the board, it has little measurable effect. In fact, copying can inhibit learning in some cases. The learning part happens when the students have to put it into their own words or summarise it. This is why handwritten notes work better than typed notes because handwriting is slower than speech so students cannot simply copy, they have to process the information & select what's most salient. Most students c
        • One of my college professors took the approach of asking the students to NOT take notes during his lectures, and instead to concentrate on actually listening to what he was saying. He then made dozens of copies of his lecture notes and kept them on file in one of the libraries, where you could go check out a copy of any lecture any time you wanted. If you just wanted them for studying, you were free to photocopy the entire lecture. But as a bonus, if you hand-copied the lecture notes you were allowed to
      • You will not learn the material as well, and you feed a tech addiction. Also nice use of an edge case to blanket rampant bad behavior- for every one person for whom cell phones in class are a net positive, there are 50 net negatives. I am not certain you are in the net positive category.

        • You will not learn the material as well, and you feed a tech addiction. Also nice use of an edge case to blanket rampant bad behavior- for every one person for whom cell phones in class are a net positive, there are 50 net negatives. I am not certain you are in the net positive category.

          Photographing the blackboard is not an edge case, most students in my school did that. It's simply using technology to increase your productivity. If people receiving calls or making calls during class is bothering you then throw them out. The ones playing mobile games will fail the semester and that is nobody's fault except their own. Neither is a reason to go full classroom Hitler on the ones using mobile phones to increase their productivity, unless of course you enjoy being a classroom Hitler in which c

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        If only someone would make a camera that could take digital pictures...

      • Photographing blackboards with a cellphone camera has been my favourite way of taking notes for about as long as there have been cellphone cameras. I frequently could not write/draw fast enough to copy what was happening down on the blackboard and the teachers seemed to take particular delight in not giving a shit about the students who were taking notes. I can understand being irritated by cellphones going off in class but going full classroom Hitler on anybody who lifts a cellphone in class is not a solution either. Same for laptops.

        I photographed my whiteboard and posted it online for every class, every day. Way more efficient than having each student do it.

      • Photographing blackboards

        and the teachers seemed to take particular delight in not giving a shit about the students who were taking notes.

        What I hear I will forget, what I see I will remember, what I do I will understand. -No idea the source of this proverb.

        Learn to take notes properly and you'll get orders of magnitude better education than taking photos of the blackboard. The work on a blackboard is not there to be looked at, it's there to be replicated in a worked example.

        I can understand being irritated by cellphones going off in class but going full classroom Hitler on anybody who lifts a cellphone in class is not a solution either.

        Actually it is. You're distracting the other people in the class. There is zero reason for you to have a phone in the class. Zero. And if you instead paid attention more

    • Wow, you are in a lucky school. A friend also teaches. Except he is not allowed to take cell phones, only send the kid down to the principles office. And generally the kid comes back with the phone and nothing happens, except my friend gets dinged because he sends too many kids down for cell phone usage. He figured it out, let the kid have it, pay zero attention and fail the kid. Oops, too many failures for the school so the principle asks my friend to raise the grade, which he does of course or would be te

      • >knife at his neck, kid back next day

        If police and social services were not involved then the principal is fostering an unsafe work environment and should be fired.

        Kids in such a poor situation need intervention. And adults and other kids too need protection. No wonder you get gangs.

        • Unfortunately, the average american has no clue what transpires in classes. And almost universally on /. absolutely no idea what goes on in "underperforming" schools. Oddly there are cameras everywhere in school halls, but not in classrooms. I think it would be wise to install the cameras in the classrooms and give parents unfettered access to them. In fact, I'd make it a requirement that the parents watch their little maggots for an hour a day to see just what angels they have. But I doubt even that would

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cob666 ( 656740 )

      I've even been told by a parent that their child needs a phone during class because the mom might need the child to leave early...

      In this scenario, the parent should call the school and explain why they need to have their child dismissed early.

    • If I see a cell phone out during class, a student is either expected to come to me and explain why they need to take a call (emergencies happen, although I have always said that we managed these fine when parents simply had to call the school) or it is confiscated and returned to a parent. No exceptions.

      Exactly. Schools can handle this the same way they've handled it for a hundred years - the parent calls the school, then the school sends someone to go and find the kid in class. Expecting every kid to have a phone seems like a really inefficient way to make them reachable in an emergency.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      I'm a parent and I don't want my teenager (about to enter grade 9 this fall) to have a cell phone, but my wife tells me that the school organizes everything through cell phones and social media now. It's ridiculous to me that the schools *know* that social media is a toxic environment for their students, but they embrace it. I've been railroaded into agreeing. We'll set limits, force the phone to be in the kitchen for charging every night, etc., but it still irks me.

  • Why did they start allowing them? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:17PM (#62770002)

    What I don't understand is why mobile phones were ever allowed in the classroom to begin with. There was a period where no electronics (Ti-82 in math class aside) were allowed in classrooms. I can't for the life of me understand why this policy changed.

    • Re:Why did they start allowing them? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:30PM (#62770048)

      What I don't understand is why mobile phones were ever allowed in the classroom to begin with.

      Because smartphones are surveillance devices that parents want to see attached to their children 24/7.

      The thing I wonder about is how a generation that was allowed to grow up without permanent surveillance decided that their children shall not be free of it.

      • Re:Why did they start allowing them? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:51PM (#62770106)

        "The thing I wonder about is how a generation that was allowed to grow up without permanent surveillance decided that their children shall not be free of it."

        Those are the kids of the new 'old' parents.

        They wait until they are 35 (wife) 42 (husband), they have just the one child, one heir, no spare.

        They are driven around all their life like a chauffeur and need their phones to express their whims for whatever they fancy that moment to their personal shopper. (mom).

        Small wonder that now there are warnings at universities on 4000 year old texts, that they might contain graphic descriptions of war, torture, castrations and other niceties that were removed from these kids' dictionaries.

        • Modded funny, but somewhat 'sadly funny' in my opinion. We are of the one child persuasion as are some of our friends. It is amazing how few rules those kids have compared to our own. Just recently we got made fun of by the other parents for leaving a kid's party 'early' because we are strict about 7pm bed time. These same parents then complain about their 3 or 4 year olds being up at 9, 10 or at some point in the middle of the night... because they follow absolutely no proper routine.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by PPH ( 736903 )

            We had a strict 8:00 PM bedtime for our kids (when younger). But that was primarily due to my wanting to get the wife in bed by 8:05.

    • Re:Why did they start allowing them? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cephalien ( 529516 ) on Sunday August 07, 2022 @06:07PM (#62770150)

      In our case, a school board member's child complained about the no phones at all policy so it was changed to "enforcement by teacher", instead of "school wide no phones at all".

      Yes, our discipline issues and academic performance dropped accordingly, but who cares as long as we keep those seat time dollars rolling in.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      The helicopter (parenting) doesn't work without the phones.

  • Wait, am I doing that wrong?

  • ... is the last thing you want kids to have at school.

  • Even adults dont know how to manage their phone addictions. I hope they banned teacher phone use as well.

    • Yeah because the problem with modern education is teachers playing on their phone during class... I'm genuinely struggling to classify your post. It would normally be whataboutism, but that normally involves an example that is actually real rather than a made up strawman.

  • They want their cell-phone bans back. Cell phones were banned back then, but for a different reason.* Pagers too (remember those?).

    * Their use was associated with drug-dealing.

  • When I graduated high school that year, I saw exactly one (1) student that had a mobile phone during my senior year in high school, and back then mobile phones were only used to make and recieve calls. The biggest problem was students bringing in pagers because of drug dealing and that while we were in the suburbs, we were fairly close to a bad and drug infested urban area.

  • From the "Things That Surprised No One" Department.

  • I'd like to see all the new schools being built or refurbished to make them Faraday Cages. No RF allowed in or out. They can set up an internal cell station that just offers emergency services.

  • Just across the border in Victoria mobile phones have been banned in schools since 2020. It's not like there isn't precedent. https://www.vic.gov.au/mobile-... [vic.gov.au]

  • It the problem phones, social media, or internet-enabled applications? Many/most schools (at least in the US) now require internet access for homework, projects, and tests. So, banning internet access would require teachers to go back to using paper. Most teachers would protest vociferously because internet applications do grading for them and eliminate arguably the most onerous task for teachers. Pandora has been released from her box, and there is no way that teacher unions would allow the elimination

    • The problem is kids. If you think the problems are gone now, think again. Because if taking away phones would solve problems like bullying, shaming or even bodily harm, these phenomenons would have come into existence within the past 2 decades.

      And let's be honest here, they didn't.

      What you see here is bullies having to relearn the analogue way of bullying. Give it a few months and check again when they adapted.

  • You have two guns. One of them is for the bouncer when you enter the club so he doesn't search you. If you don't hand over a gun, they expect you to hide one because nobody comes unarmed.

    So get a burner phone for your school to take from you.

  • Geofence the thing (Score:3)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Monday August 08, 2022 @09:11AM (#62771706)

    It wouldn't be difficult for Apple and Google to modify the OS to allow for geofencing of individual apps. So when you're in school, you can't use social media apps or games. You could use calculators, note taking apps, the camera app (for documenting a science class experiment but no selfies). Texting would be tricky since you want to be able to send/receive emergency messages. The phone app could only call 911 and your parents.

    Oh, and while their adding that feature, prevent the phone form shooting photos and video in portrait orientation. Always. Permanently. Hey, I can dream.

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