It's Time to Ban Cell Phones During the School Day

Is it time to completely ban student cell phones from school?

I'm at the point where I'm thinking yes, because the argument that students need to learn to use them appropriately, be taught to use them appropriately as tools, doesn't really take into account the fact that appropriate use of a tool that's inappropriate to use under certain circumstances means putting it away completely, turning it off completely, getting it out of whatever you are doing.

And I think so many students are glued to their phones throughout the school day during class, texting their parents, getting texts and even phone calls from their parents.

I've heard from some teachers that their parents even FaceTime kids, even very young kids during class, like what do you want for dinner?

Or grandma's in the hospital, like all kinds of inappropriate stuff that really is just a huge disruption and distraction.

I've heard about other schools that ban them except during passing period.

And then of course, as soon as students get out into the hallway, there's this rush of drama, right?

Like five minutes of intense drama between every class.

That I think is disruptive in a different way, but it's still pretty disruptive.

And then you have schools that allow phones at lunch, which maybe is a little bit reasonable to me.

I can be persuaded that banning phones the whole time except during lunch is the way to go.

But I think the strongest case is to be made for...

a complete ban, right?

When you get to school, you turn your phone off completely.

Now I'm not a fan of turning your phone into the office.

I think that's just too much liability, too much work.

And parents do want to know that their kids will have a cell phone with them in an emergency.

That's one thing I've heard from a lot of parents is like, I want my kid to have a phone in case of emergency.

I just don't want my kid playing on a phone all day.

So I don't like the idea of like collecting phones in the office.

I think locking them in those bags is kind of silly.

I As long as you have a phone to lock in the bag, you can keep your real phone out, and it just seems a little hokey to me.

But turning it off, putting it away for the day, I think that is the phrase that we can rally around as educators, away for the day, right?

Kids are going to have phones, kids are going to bring phones to school, but they can be off.

The parents will not...

go crazy if the phone is off.

The parents will survive the school day if they cannot text their children all day.

The students will survive if they have to actually like look at each other's faces and talk with words that are spoken in the normal traditional way rather than just texting and using apps all the time.

Let me know what you think about this.

Should we completely ban phones from the school day?

The UK was really seriously considering this pretty recently.

And I don't think we will ever do something nationally in the US.

Like the education system just doesn't work that way in the US.

But I'm seeing more and more schools that are making the call to just ban cell phones entirely and say, look, put it away.

I don't want to see it.

I don't want it to be on.

It needs to be powered off.

It needs to be on airplane mode, whatever, so that you are not using it at all during the day.

Let me know what you guys are doing.

Let me know what you think.