Mothering Forum banner

Mobile phone in school?

10K views 34 replies 22 participants last post by  Nasty 
#1 ·
Mobile phone in school- Necessary of not?
And how do you provide a parental control?

Many thanks in advance
 
#2 ·
no their is no importance of mobile for student in school because they can study by reference book not from internet. in internet the information is easily available but it will be more in detail so the student is confused and by cellphone student cant concentrate on their studies they can concentrate in apps.
 
#3 ·
There are times and circumstances when cellphones are, if not necessary, at least very helpful.

Textbooks are expensive, limited and out-of-date, computers are limited, reference books are dated and not in the shrinking school budget. A Google search on a phone can be an efficient use of time, and essentially free. My kids have also done some amazing things using online tools like presentation software, having quick access to cloud-based backups and file-sharing has made group project work and project submission so much less reliant on printouts and finicky, risky shared thumb drives. My kids have used online graphing calculators (for free) rather than spending close to $200 on a TI-83 (we own one, but I have four kids).

It saves secretarial and administrative time and costs if my kids and I can text back and forth if there are changes in our meet-up plans (we have an admittedly complex living and transportation arrangements in our family). My 16yo daughter normally walks 30 minutes each way to school, often when it's dark out, and has a delivery job which she does on the way home two days a week. She needs a cellphone with her during the day for work and for safety.

The best way to minimize the temptation to use them inappropriately during class is for the teacher to provide and enforce a "cellphone parking bin" where students place their phones at the beginning of class, only retrieving them if they have a legitimate reason to do so. This is a very simple solution which is pretty standard at both the schools my kids have attended.

My kids now all have cellphones (ages 12+) because they stay home independently where we don't have a land line and/or live on their own, again without a land line. If my 12-year-old wasn't trustworthy with a phone she wouldn't have one, and I guess we'd put a land line in. I don't believe in parental control: I believe in teaching, trust, judiciousness in providing access and support.

So: are cellphones necessary for schoolchildren? Perhaps in some limited circumstances, for older students who need them for personal safety or work-related reasons. Can they be helpful, useful, efficient adjuncts or replace costlier tools and resources? Absolutely.

I think that if schools could get on the ball to handle cellphone use creatively and effectively, they could play a very important role in preparing their students for a mobile-tech real-life world where these tools/temptations are ubiquitous and where handling the opportunities and responsibilities will be a necessary life skill. The 30-plus crowd is definitely lagging here! Our kids need to learn better habits. Schools could be teaching those habits.

Miranda
 
#4 ·
I agree with Miranda, for older students it makes sense for the school to approach it creatively and not see them as the enemy. THey can be used for research, parental contact, etc. It is up to the parent to make sure the settings on the phone are appropriate, not the school. The exception to that is online bullying or hate crimes that are directed at other students in the school.
 
#6 · (Edited)
As part of my job, I wrote a blog post on this subject for the iPhone family locator app FamilySignal. I spoke to an expert at the Houston Unified School District, which at more than 215,000 students has the largest enrollment in Texas and the seventh-largest in the U.S.

Houston is interesting in that their schools have mixed policies regarding cellphones in the classroom, due to preferences in different communities around the (very large) metropolitan area. The expert in Houston said that while there is a mix, the preference is for having cellphones in classroom because educators believe they can make instruction more "effective and engaging." And, let's face it, cellphones are the primary communication tool for students across the country, and it only makes sense for teachers teachers to incorporate cellphones into their lesson plans, knowing that it completely replace old-school methods of instruction.

I also spoke to the head of digital literacy for the New York school district (who is an outspoken advocate for more technology use in the classroom). The methods they're implementing in New York are seen by some as being a model for the rest of the country. She told me that New York begins with "student/family agreements or notification" and said that teacher training was critical.

The entire blog post is in FamilySignal's e-book, which you can grab at the bottom of their website homepage (familysignal.com).
 
#7 ·
I'm a teacher. I hate cell phones. If RF blockers were legal I'd install one. I find no legitimate reason that your child needs one in my classroom. Now your child may very well benefit from one in the grander scheme outside my room. I also accept that they are part of life and are something students need to learn how to use appropriately. That learning doesn't come from an outright ban.

The big request I would make is that you not call your child in the middle of the school day and that you make it clear to your child that texts do not need to be checked or responded to immediately. I have had parent text their child in the middle of the day, then call then on the cell phone when they don't immediately answer. Then lead with the question "what are you doing?". My students always responds "umm, learning physics". I want to respond with "WTF, why are you calling your child in the middle of my class?". A call to the office to get them out of class would have been way less disruptive if something couldn't wait.
 
#9 ·
I'm a college teacher, and I desperately wish that students entered my classroom less reliant on cellphones. Many of my college freshmen don't have a clue how to go to the library and locate a physical book. And yes, there is some information in those books that they can't find online. And while there is good information online, there is a lot of junk, too, and students frequently don't know the difference. It is what came up when they did a google search. It must be right. When students have used their cellphones for "research" in my class, when they are working in small groups, it almost always results in disappointing work that is lacking in creativity. Great. now I know what sparknotes thought about the question I asked. Or more likely, now I know what sparknotes thought about some vaguely related subject matter, because I wouldn't ask exactly what they asked on sparknotes. I still don't know what you and your classmates might have come up with if you'd actually read the passage we were discussing and thought about it with your own brains, bringing your own experiences and creativity to the matter.

And then there is the complete inability to turn the darn things off and put them away during my class. Now of course I understand that there are occasional emergencies. If your wife might be going into labor during the next hour, then you have my permission to leave your phone on (in fact, you have my permission to miss class today). But usually there is no reason you can't go for the whole 75 minutes of my class without texting or answering your phone.

As for the parental controls, when I first heard about parental controls or about parents using GPS on phones to keep track of their kids, I thought, "have kids today gotten dumber? My friends and I would have found ways around that." We would have "accidentally" left the phone in the library, or left it with a friend while we went where we really wanted to go.
Then again, if kids are completely unable to let go of their cell phones, I guess they won't do that.

So, in short, I don't think they are necessary in school. I do agree that they might be useful outside of school, but I really wish that students would learn how to function without them and how to think and find information without them before they become adults attending college (and working, and voting, and . . . )
 
#10 ·
I don't have a cell phone myself, so I see no reason why my 5th grader needs one. I expect he'll get one at some point in high school. So far, he communicates with us much the same way as we communicated with our parents: If he needs something truly urgent during the school day, he goes to the school office to use the phone. He can play in the schoolyard after school, but if he's staying more than an hour after school or going somewhere else, he calls us using whatever phone is available where he is. If he is out in the neighborhood and wants to talk to us and has 50c, there are pay phones in the library and supermarket.

His school has a rule that phones and other devices (mp3, tablet, etc.) may not be used in class and must be in silent mode. I think this is a great rule. Messages can be checked and sent between classes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MamadeRumi
#11 ·
I don't have a cell phone myself, so I see no reason why my 5th grader needs one.
I don't doubt that's true, but it's an illustration of how location- and lifestyle-dependent the choice to own a cellphone is. Why? Because three years ago I was exactly like you and yet now, with kids growing up fast and circumstances changing in ways I could never have anticipated, I can't imagine our family coping without cellphones.

Miranda
 
#13 ·
No not necessary and a perpetual connection of parents to kids and kids to the internet can have many many downsides . What 'emergency' will happen that they need a direct line to you that cannot be provided from a landline at the school? What is the likelihood of such emergency?

How has life changed such that a cellphone is needed for a kid in school?
 
#14 ·
What 'emergency' will happen that they need a direct line to you that cannot be provided from a landline at the school?
Well, I realize this is not the situation at every school, but at our local school when there is a power failure (which happens several times every winter) the PBX land-line system goes down. If the power goes off early in the day, the school begins to get cold, and the staff and teachers who don't have cellphones have been known to borrow them from the kids to contact parents to let them know that school is closing early. And of course even if they don't close school early, there's no land line for emergency contact.

Separate from the emergency issue, though, I think that a text messages from parents about changes in plans that students receive upon taking phones out of airplane mode at the end of class eliminate an real drain on school secretarial resources. One message every few days to your kid may not seem like much, but school-wide it amounts to dozens and dozens of such messages a week, each of which takes at least a couple of minutes to pass along, amounting to hours a week. I am friends with the school secretary and she still talks about how much time she used to spend on this stuff before cell service came to our area 5 years ago. Because really, a school secretary is the school's secretary, not the personal secretary to hundreds of students concerning their part-time jobs, shopping lists, after-school care arrangements, extra-curricular activities and transportation needs. I never would have dreamt it a few years ago, but my tween and teen lead very complicated after-school lives with multiple responsibilities and complicated arrangements that can change quickly. I'd hate to have to ask the school secretary to give my girls messages as often as I need to reach them.

Miranda
 
#15 ·
Oh, and as for "how has life changed such that a cellphone is needed for a kid in school?" ...

I don't think "need" is really the right word; as I said in my first response, cellphones are not necessary but can be very helpful. More helpful than they were a decade or two ago for a couple of reasons.

First, the expectation of parental supervision is higher now. I think this is a ridiculous trend, but it's real: parents whose kids walk to and from school can be and are called upon to justify the risks their kids are exposed to through this "dangerous" practice. A generation ago no one would have thought twice about a 10-year-old walking 30 minutes to school, but nowadays it's not the norm at all. Cellphones can provide some measure of justification, of risk-management, of peace of mind, for what is a perfectly healthy (imo) practice.

Second, many families have built wonderful opportunities into their lives that rely on the presence of mobile communication. By way of example, my middle dd had to begin living away from home at age 15 in order to attend a high school that offered basic college-track STEM courses. (The only school in/near our town doesn't offer basics like chemistry, physics, calculus, etc..) Her cellphone is a large part of what made living away a viable option: with it she is able to keep house on her own, get around on foot safely, work part-time on her way home from school to help pay her living costs, and manage a busy life full of lots of tutoring work and extra-curricular activities. My 12yo has unique educational needs that are currently being well-met but in a piecemeal creative way, meaning part-time schooling, homeschooling with lots of travel, and lots of logistical finesse required to meld everything together; her cellphone makes this possible and efficient, and keeps the logistics pleasant enough to be sustainable.

Prior to the age of mobile communication my girls wouldn't have had these opportunities. But they're thriving, and mobile phones are part of what has made this possible for them.

Miranda
 
#16 · (Edited)
We live in a rural area and my son is given a fair amount of independence to bus and walk to and from school, our work and home on his own, plus he has two anaphylactic allergies, so we bought him a cell phone a few years ago. We have parental blocks on it so it only functions as a phone, and I've set it up so that only calls from his contact book will ring through. All other calls go straight to v/m, and it's only to be used in case of an emergency. He keeps it turned off unless he has a reason to call... One so it's not disruptive in class, and two so it doesn't lose charge. When it's school hours and I need to reach him I go through the school secretary (amounts to less than a handful of times in a school year). I don't think cells should be used during school hours.

We also no longer have a landline at home so if he's home alone he turns it on and he has a way to reach us, and us him.

Times have changed... There aren't pay phones on every corner, and I take comfort knowing I'm always just a phone call away no matter where he is...

We also have frequent power outages in the winter which takes down landlines, so if he's not with us when it goes out we can reach each other via our cells.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#17 ·
Moominmamma wrote:
I think that a text messages from parents about changes in plans that students receive upon taking phones out of airplane mode at the end of class eliminate an real drain on school secretarial resources. One message every few days to your kid may not seem like much, but school-wide it amounts to dozens and dozens of such messages a week, each of which takes at least a couple of minutes to pass along, amounting to hours a week.
Absolutely, if I found that I needed to communicate changes in plans to my child every FEW DAYS, a cell phone would make sense! But in the five and a half years he's attended public school so far, we've had to do this exactly once--to tell them that I was in labor so his godmother would be picking him up that afternoon. The rest of the time, we make our plans in advance and stick to them, or if something is ambiguous we have a backup plan: "If Daddy's not home yet when you get here, go to Abby's house."

If I lived in a remote area and/or a place with unreliable utilities, like some of you, a cell phone would make more sense for me as well as for my child. As it is, our everyday routine keeps us always within screaming distance of other human beings, and I know from experiences fainting on the sidewalk that Pittsburghers love to rush over and make sure you're okay! We have never had a power outage of more than a few minutes in 13 years living in our home, and in all the places I've lived in 25 years here, the only landline outage I've had was when someone apparently cut the wire to my apartment, which was creepy but not the kind of thing that happens often, thank goodness--and my downstairs neighbors let me use their phone. Even when I travel alone, usually I'm either on public transport or driving on well-traveled highways where I could easily get help if needed.

As for the kid living on her own while she goes to high school, I certainly understand why her having a cell phone makes it easier for you to feel comfortable about her safety and your ability to communicate with her, and I likely would want my child to have one in that situation, too--but I still don't see it as truly necessary. I went to college 1,400 miles away from my parents when I was 18. I had a landline in my dorm room, with no answering machine. If they couldn't reach me, they had to assume I was out somewhere, oh well. I called them at least once a week, so not all that much time could pass without any contact. And then in my second year, my dad got email at work and I already had email at college, so he could leave me a message that way and I'd answer as soon as I saw it, typically within a few hours. Yes, I was a legal adult, but I know my parents did worry about me a bit--but based on what I hear from parents whose cell-phoned kids are away at college now, the level of worry is about the same anyway.
 
#18 ·
As for the kid living on her own while she goes to high school... I still don't see it as truly necessary. I went to college 1,400 miles away from my parents when I was 18.
This is straying off-topic from the original post, but I think these are quite different situations. At 18 you were legally an adult. With a 15- or 16-year-old I still have a legal duty of care. That doesn't mean I have to be in touch with my kid every moment, but it does mean that I have to ensure that she has reasonable access to parental support and supervision or someone who is in loco parentis. Without a cellphone we would probably have to pay for her to be housed like an exchange student in a home with responsible adults to ensure that the legal duty of care was being satisfied.

Miranda
 
#20 ·
I think the examples the pp gave of why their kids have cell phones are unique circumstances and yes I agree that in those cases a cell phone would be a good idea. A 15 year old living on her own? Sure. A place with unreliable landlines? Yes. Also, I can completely understand that once a child is driving it's a nice comfort to know they have a phone if their car breaks down, they get lost driving, etc. The lack of payphones doesn't concern me since every person walking now has a phone. If she was truly lost somewhere I tell her to just find a mom and ask to use her phone.

I think it's important for kids to have times when they feel completely on their own, without the tether of mom and dad just a text away in their pocket. My DD is 8 and kids her age are already starting to get phones, with parents justifying them with statements like, "I want to make sure they got to X place via X ride so they can text me when they arrive for my own piece of mind". My DD missed her stop when she took the bus home from school a few weeks ago (wasn't paying attention). So she had to tell the bus driver and wait for all the stops to be completed and be dropped off last. I think, in that instance, if she had a cell phone, her first instinct would be to call me and ask what to do. I liked that she had to figure out what to do on her own. Also, as envirobecca mentioned, what it used to be like for us on college- just a landline in the dorm. College kids now are having for more social/emotional problems than ever before, and while that is a complex issue, the fact that they are still linked to their parents all the time via cell phones does not help matters and likely contributes to their anxiety and general failure to launch as adults.

Also, having a lot of completely screen-free time is really important for kids, and with phones usually comes games, the internet, and all the complexity/problems that come with it. For example, neuroscience research is finding that the extreme multi-tasking nature of surfing the net is causing our brains to literally re-wire, causing it to be harder for us to focus on single tasks and to be immersed deeply in thought (like reading a book or listening to a lecture).

If you want to ague that your 10 year old needs a phone because they have a lot of activities and it's required to coordinate schedules/car pools, etc..well then your kid is in way too many activities.

I'm not sure what I will do, but my plan is to hold off on the phone as long as possible, and when DD does get one, I hope to contact her when she's out of the house as infrequently as possible.
 
#21 · (Edited)
I think it's important for kids to have times when they feel completely on their own, without the tether of mom and dad just a text away in their pocket.
You raised some excellent points, Snydley. I think that self-reliance is really important to nurture and I can see that the way cellphones can be used could interfere with that.

On the other hand, I think that what we want to do is empower our kids to solve their own problems, not actually abandon them when they might have a need that they cannot solve. I'm not sure it's impossible for kids to learn to be self-reliant, resourceful and confident while having a cellphone in their pockets. Just because they know that if something really serious were to happen and they got lost or ended up somewhere dangerous or got injured or felt threatened that they would have a way to contact support (whether that's parents to get a ride home from a pit party that's gone sour or 9-1-1 for something more dire), that doesn't necessarily remove from them the opportunity walk into a store and ask for directions, speak up to friends about an unsafe situation, etc. etc.. Sometimes I think having a cellphone in your pocket that could be used in an emergency, or which provides access to information can give you the ability to push outside your comfort zone and increase your confidence and self-reliance. For instance, my ds only became comfortable exploring the big city where he lives only once he had a smartphone that gave him real-time public transit data. His confidence with shopping, socializing, etc. etc. went up astronomically once he got a cellphone with a data plan. Yes he's more tethered in a sense, but he's far more confident and adventurous.

I'm also thinking of these two incredibly self-reliant younger daughters I have who almost never text me for help, and are in fact more likely to text me to cancel support I've arranged to give. For example here are the texts I got from them yesterday:

dd12: gonna walk home so don't come get me
dd17: Tutoring tomorrow so will stay in town this wknd. Don't buy food. Will get my own groceries on my way home tonight. Don't need much and should be able to carry it all.

I agree that if a parent is considering getting their child a cellphone simply to co-ordinate after-school-activity logistics it's worth reflecting on whether the child is over-scheduled. Over-scheduling is pretty common. But I think you're over-generalizing when you say that it's always an overscheduling issue. Sometimes there are unique circumstances. Perhaps the parent works on-call and once in a while alternate after-school instructions need to be communicated to the child at the last minute (eg. "Just got called in. Stay on the bus and go to Auntie Natalie's."). Perhaps the child has challenges at school and the daily after-school sports schedule is something that provides a much-needed physical and destressing outlet that he is miserable without. Perhaps the child is unschooled and therefore those 3-4 hours of afternoon-evening activities are the sum total of her away-from-home activities for the day. Or maybe the child is passionate about a particular after-school activity, but his sibling has therapy appointments that conflict and can run overtime. These examples are all drawn from situations of families I know. When I see an 11-year-old outside the dance studio using a cellphone to arrange a ride, I try not to judge.

Miranda
 
#25 ·
Japanese Dad With Experience

I have a long history with mobile technology. When I was in Japan I loved technology as the way to the future, but then my children started playing pokemon at the dinner table. I swatted the play boy out of his hands and said son stand in the corner and respect. Later I came to America to work on a dude ranch in Wyoming and nature was amazing. I lost my phone in river wrangling a cow a day, but I never got another one. If your children cannot go into nature and survive for three days only with a knife then they do not need phone at school. If they do get a phone make sure they sure they only in nature, so they nev3r forget were they come from.

Türkiyeye gitmek istiyousunuz.
どうもありがとうございました
良い一日を過ごしてください
 
This post has been deleted
#30 ·
My son asks me to buy him a phone and I am not sure if re is ready. What age should a child get a phone? I always thought that when he was fifteen I would buy him one but all his friends already have one and I don't want him to be the only one without a phone. Of course I want to protect him but how can I believe in modern technology. There is a lot of scams and other stuff on social media and I don't want my son to see it. Maybe there is some sort of control? I think I don't have any choice and I have to buy him one. We will have a talk about all things he has to avoid.
 
#32 ·
If the student/child is in danger and they don't have their phone on them in school. ... If the school allows there students to keep their phones during school times, they can also give them a sense of security. If they end up followed or need to call their parents or even emergency services.
 
#35 ·
The use of mobile phones in schools is a topic that sparks debates among parents, educators, and students. Some argue that mobile phones are necessary for communication and educational purposes, while others believe they can be a distraction. Ultimately, it depends on the school's policies and the individual needs of the students.For more information about smartphones and specifically Huawei smartphones, I recommend site that offers comprehensive resources and insights about smartphones.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top