Ring Ring! Hello? It's your teacher speaking!
Cell phones, in the classroom? Na ah, doesn't work for me! While I am a fan of technology and run a development company with my husband, there's a time and place for its use - oh and age, there's a certain level of age appropriateness for technological devices too! This is just my opinion and I dare to be challenged!
Yes, I know I will get the arguments that it helps the kids make arrangements or keeps them up to date with whereabouts, but to be perfectly honest with you, these are all things that can be discussed as prior arrangements. It is also up to the school to offer students supervised contact portals, for emergencies.
I am by no means old-school, I can’t live without my Smartphone! But as an adult, I feel I have earned my way to cell phone privileges 24/7! When I became a mother, I was quite intrigued with the effect that modern technology will have on new generations, so I read quite a few articles on the subject. Which lead me to share these 5 points with you:
5 Reasons Why Kids Shouldn’t Have Cell Phones At School
- Teachers really don’t need more distractions in the classroom. Forgot to put your phone on silent? Well you just interrupted a lesson concerning a significant historical event! Can’t help the itch to check your Facebook feed – sigh, you have just missed a crucial point that will be included in your next exam.
- Lack of communication. Yes, we are allowed to use cell phones to socialize, but school is not only about learning maths and literacy skills – you are there to learn basic human skills to, like how to respond to face-to-face conflict or to praise someone without feeling embarrassed. It’s too easy to “like” a comment when you have your cell on hand, instead of giving a real pat on the back.
- Cell phone radiation. Ok this is probably the hippie in me talking and I can honestly say that I have not yet found substantial proof to back up my argument, so this feeling is probably just me being the paranoid mom! But, I do get wary when a bunch of people are sitting in a room receiving tons of messages and updates to their phones – do I want my kid to fry his brain? No.
- Cyber bullying. This point is in fact terribly real and is happening way too often in out modern world. This one has the paranoid mom in me going berserk! Cyber bullying is happening at home and at schools too, since there is no escaping the internet! Banning phones from school is just one more way to somehow control and prevent these nasty bullying tactics.
- That’s one way to cheat! Allowing students to have their mobiles on them during class is just one more opportunity for them to cheat in tests, or perhaps it is a temptation to do so, since Google always has the answer!
Maybe I am an old stick in the mud, but I honestly see no good coming from allowing children to take mobiles into class or even into school. There are ways to meet the perks but the cons outweigh the pros by far and I really hope that parents help to discourage the practice. My 2 cents.
The problem with cell phones in school is that there is nothing that a teacher can do that is more interesting to a child than that which they choose to look at on their phones, Tommy Lee and Pamela could be going at it in the front of the classroom and they would not look up from whatever they are looking at on their phone. Whatever someone thinks is interesting is going to be more interesting to them than whatever you think is interesting.
That is so true! Ha ha, I love your example of what could be going on in front of the classroom!