> In talking to teachers across the country, the reasons phone policies don't work or are not implemented center on three main issues: safety (parents want their children to be reachable, especially during our era of heightened school violence), liability (phones are expensive, and in some districts, teachers have been held liable when they confiscated a phone the student later claimed was damaged), and lack of clear, consistent policy support (it can be difficult to rally an entire staff around a policy, maintain energy for its consistent enforcement, and make sure the work of its enforcement is upheld equitably).
My own experience with nieces nephews and niblings agrees that it's pretty much this. It's more about the parents' wishes than the children's demands.
Phones are powerful tools. Ideally kids would learn how to use them properly while respecting their sharp edges. Ya know, more work for teachers on budgets that are already under attack and such.
I'm sorry but no. There is no emergency I can think of that either can't wait till lunch (or end of class, whenever the kids are allowed to check), or else calling the school office directly (remember those?), or even just showing up to the school to pickup their kid in person.
By the way, most parents I speak to would love to have their kids off their phones and focusing on school during the day. This whole "parents, emergency" argument seems highly suspicious to me.
I'm sure in such a situation a hypothetical "no phones" rule wouldn't be enforced. I can't imagine a scenario where kids are on lockdown and the teacher hands out detention for texting.
> There is no emergency I can think of that either can't wait till lunch
Respectfully, most parents I've met do not agree with you. And I don't think that the random events like school shootings and bomb threats have helped them relax into the same environment we had in the 90's.
I guess we’ll see if that’s representative, there’s a clear backlash, so at least a significant proportion don’t agree, and don’t appreciate the disruption and peer pressure dynamics this creates.
I’m certainly in the camp of personal devices having no place outside of a backpack. We shouldn’t let our anxiety run things.
If there is an emergency, a parent can deal with it the same way they would have 20 years ago: call the school, and they will send someone to grab your kid from the classroom. This was not a particularly rare occurrence when I was in school.
The parent has to talk to the school on the phone to release their kid from class anyway.
What are they gonna do? Blow up their kids phone in the middle of a shooting, risking the shooter discovering their kid's location if the phone isn't on silent?
What does this actually accomplish that improves kids' safety?
Especially when to satisfy their anxiety, they give their kids expensive electronics that drastically increase their risk for depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, disordered eating, executive dysfunction, etc.?
