In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning.
The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes.
When I was a kid school shootings were just becoming a thing and we didn’t have cell phones. I think parents will prefer to have them as long as the shooting situation continues. It’s the only way you would have direct contact with your kid in that situation. If we had it back in my day my parents would have sent me with a phone. When I got to highschool phones became more available and they got me one.
Yeah I’m not against kids having phones for emergencies, I’m just against them having them on to text or sext or other stuff during school time. It’s a different age. When I was in school, I don’t think there had been a recorded school shooting yet (I mean this was the 60s and 70s) so, it wasn’t even a thing we had to worry about.