How do I bring up my contact list on this thing? Where's the screen? These are some funny little buttons. What's this slot for? Wait. You mean I'd have to carry quarters around? All the time, just in case I might want to make a phone call? Can't I use Rixty or Bitcoin or Paypal or something instead? What if I just need to send a text?

It would be a lot like asking the kids who attended school before mobile phone ubiquity to use morse code over telegraph lines instead of touch-tone dialing on the public phones or the phone in the office.

If you want to force kids to live in the past, do it in history class. Otherwise, adapt your policies and curriculum for the times in which we all live.

I think expecting kids to remember one emergency contact phone number in case they're not able to use their mobile for whatever reason is entirely reasonable, and not remotely comparable to expecting them to be able to use morse code.

No, it would be more like expecting me, when I was a child, to know how to send a morse coded telegram, when I had my parents' phone numbers memorized, and the touch-tone land-line telephone is right there.

Or it would be like expecting a kid able to send a morse code telegram to write a letter and have it delivered by the postal system, when the morse key and telegraph line is right there.

Or it would be like expecting a kid who knows how to write a letter and use the postal addressing system to inscribe and fire a cuneiform tablet then pay a random itinerant to carry it to the next town, when there's a post office right there.

It's unnecessarily forcing someone to use the previous generation of communications technology.

And if mobile phones were 100% guaranteed to be charged when you need them, that would be fine, but since they're not, asking a child to memorise a few digits so they're able to use someone else's phone in an emergency is perfectly reasonable redundancy.

Also, as far as I know, there wasn't ever a time when people knew how to send telegrams, but didn't know how to write letters. Indeed most people didn't know how to send telegrams with a telegraph key at all, they'd just write up their message and take it to an office to be keyed by an operator. A process which is largely identical to posting a letter.

You know you can recharge a cellphone, right? In fact you can make a call while it's still charging! Guaranteed one of your friends has a charger you can use.

Guaranteed? What makes you so sure? And then you need to find a power socket you can use (not difficult in a school, but could be elsewhere), and wait for the minimum charge level, and then wait for it to boot.

But if you know the number, you can use your friend's phone in a few seconds.

Same reason you're sure that one of your friends will have a cellphone. The numbers make it exceedingly likely.

You can't call an "emergency contact phone number" from a payphone without the right change unless that number is 911 (or the local equivalent). My kid[1] can't call me from a payphone in an emergency. Not only does my kid not carry change, but won't know my number. I don't even know my own mom's number.

And yes, the secretary/front desk/whatever can call me on behalf of my child, but that seems pretty ridiculous, too when everyone already owns a cell phone.

[1] My kid is two years old, so this is obviously academic for me at this point.

>You can't call an "emergency contact phone number" from a payphone

Of course, and you probably couldn't even find one in the first place.

But you could borrow a friend's phone, or ask a teacher to use a school phone, or even just ask someone in a random store if you're desperate. Just having access to that number without a charged mobile takes you from helpless to having many options, and it takes minimal effort. (Hell, write it down if you have to.)

Sure, but you could also just call on your cellphone like everyone else does all the time. What is the point of complicating it? It's totally reasonable to ask your kid to memorize your number in case of an emergency (or their cellphone actually breaks). That's entirely different from saying it's reasonable that kids can't use their cellphones and need to rely on pay phones.

Yes? That's exactly what I said.

This whole thread was about banning/blocking cellphones. Your initial reply made it sound like you agreed that this was fine because kids should memorize an emergency number anyway. I see now that wasn't your intent.

Man, you live in a padded bubble. When the real world slaps you and your children in the face with a shovel you're all dead.

I haven't used a payphone in at least a decade. I haven't carried a calling card in nearly two decades. I have change in my pocket that could be used for a payphone maybe twice a year.

It makes no sense to expect students to use a payphone in this day and age. How many schools even have working payphones now? I bet most had them removed or disconnected because no one uses payphones anymore.