Schools around the country, and even in our area, are making drastic changes to how they handle cell phones in the hands of students. Maple River even built their new school with little cell phone lockers as a place for students to leave their devices during the school day.
As technology changes, schools have to adjust on the fly. When I started teaching in the mid-90s, we still filled out bubble sheets for our grades at the end of the quarter. Most parents had no idea how their child was doing until mid-term grades came out. Now, I update grades online every day, and parents can see that update as soon as I do it. Email was barely a thing when I started teaching, and it’s now the main way to interact with families and other staff members. (Now if only everyone, including students, would check their email!)
The current cell phone policy at NRHEG is up to teacher discretion. Each teacher can run their classroom as they see fit when it comes to phones, with the one commonality being that if a kid leaves your room, their phone should not go with them. We know that students sometimes claim to have to use the bathroom, but they really just want to check all their “important” updates on social media. There have also been reports of people using the cameras on their phones inappropriately in the bathrooms as well.
A number of years back, we all had pouches hung in our rooms, containers to hold cell phones during class. I placed mine back by my desk so I could keep an eye on it and so it was well out of the reach of the kids during class. This has worked fairly well. My expectation is that phones go in the pouches. I know I’m not always 100% successful, but if I mention something, the kids will trudge back to do that. If somebody willfully violates my policy, they might have to leave their phone with me for the remainder of the day.
Other teachers handle things differently in their rooms. Some have the kids place their phones face down on their desks. Others don’t mind if the phone stays in their pocket. An area that hasn’t worked, though, is not taking them in the hallway. When I walk the halls during my prep time, I see nearly every student who is out of a classroom looking at their phone. This was the one area we were all supposed to make sure was the same.
There is a groundswell among some of the staff to just go the way of other schools and ban cell phones during the day. One suggested to me that students will have to leave them in their lockers, which would also mean all students would need to have locks on their lockers, something NRHEG doesn’t have unless kids rent one from the office.
I’m torn on this and have talked to a lot of other teachers about the topic. I think what I do in my classroom works for me. I allow kids to use their phones at times to listen to music. Sometimes they need to contact someone for a class-related item; for example, we started a group project last week, and a group member was gone for one class. One of the other kids knew that texting that person would get an important message to them, so I said to go ahead.
At times, I use phones as an incentive. If everyone has all their work turned in, I’ll allow kids to keep their phones on them. That’s a big deal.
You might ask, “What if they look at it during class?”. I would return that with, “Do you look at your cell phone at work?”. For most people, the answer is yes. One teacher commented to me that part of our job is to prepare kids for life outside these walls. Phones are a part of life, and if we can teach them to balance the desire to look at a notification and the need to get the work done, we will have succeeded.
But if there is no uniformity in expectations, that can lead to confusion and confrontation. Every teacher loves to hear, “Well, so-and-so allows us to do this!” However, adjusting to different teachers is like some jobs where you have to change based on varying clients. Life skills!
But when the phones become such a distraction and cause great distress, maybe we need to take them away. Drama increases when kids text and snap and whatever throughout the day. Schools that have banned them proclaim the greatness of that decision.
Regardless of which way the wind blows, I know one thing. Strong support and leadership are a must when it comes to cell phones. If we allow them and students are still belligerent when they break the basic rules, there must be guidelines in place and support for repercussions. If the phones are banned and students, inevitably, try to keep them anyway, there must be guidelines in place and support for repercussions. If that doesn’t exist, nothing matters with what rules are in place.
It’s an interesting conundrum. As I’ve been working with my 8th graders on persuasive writing, we’ve been talking about looking at both sides of issues. That’s what I’ve done here, and I’m still not sure. Either way, I’ll work with the rules that are decided, because I can see both sides quite clearly, almost as clear as the reception on my own phone.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is anastrophe, which means the inversion of the usual order of words, as in, “Master Yoda said, ‘Away must your phones be’ to the class of younglings.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!