throwaway50603
Why not bring it in? I don't understand why they should behave as if they lived in 19th century. They're people living in 21st century, making full use of new technology - nothing wrong about that.
It's bullshit to demand they have to go home to get their phone before they go on with their day after school - not to mention they use the phones before school too. My siblings buy breakfast and lunch with the virtual payment cards (from our parent's Revolut) they have in the phone.
Even their public transit tickets are apps - it's a QR code, and because the transit company wants to reduce staff, you pay 20% less if you buy tickets in the app. Will the school reimburse the additional 20% they caused them to pay? I guess not, right.
And remember Covid? Here in Europe the vaccination/test pass is an app too. Soon the ID and driver's licence will be apps as well.
Even the school itself is sending them homework and grades into an app, btw.
Sure, they could go back to 19th century life with paper calendars, letters, money and transit tickets. But their quality of life would go significantly down. Schools have no right to demand that. Nobody has.
And as I said, school day is not 100% class time. What they do during breaks is their own business.
> Most schools in EU just bans cellphone usage during school hours either by taking it away or barred from bringing it in and it's just effective.
No, they don't. In my state it's very wrong to touch the phone - could be a fine and suspension (for the teacher/school employee) or even a crime, depending on what they did.
The school can demand it's turned off during class time (doesn't apply to breaks) but they have no way to verify or enforce. They can write a teacher's note in case of a disruption or take the student out of the class in serious cases, but they can't touch the phone.
A phone contains private photos, conversations, has authorized access to email, chat and (in other cases) social media accounts, it's a second authentication factor, it has payment cards, saved passwords, browser history, potentially health data (for example, period or medication notification app) and other data that they might not want anybody else to access, or could even cause them problems if the wrong person saw some of it.
It's perfectly understandable they want to have it under their own control. Touching it without permission is unacceptable.
I have seen kids steal stuff from the teacher's desk/other school property when I was at school. I would never trust the school's ability to keep my phone secure.
Also - the school day is not 100% class time, there are breaks in between. What they do during breaks is their own business.
Touching it without permission is unacceptable. Ask the student to put it away, pull them out of the class if they don't - but don't touch the phone. I'd pepper spray anyone who tried to take it away from me too.
Taking away their phones because others can't handle themselves is wrong.
So yeah, a lot to debate.
For myself it was mostly that parents could simply call me 5 minutes before they picked me up for my dentist appointment (which I had at least monthly for 7 years due to having braces) instead of me waiting somewhere for who knows how long because there was a traffic jam (and missing more schooltime than necessary).
They could simply call me/send me a SMS and ask me to pick up my younger siblings when they had unexpected work and couldn't make it in time - but since they respected me as a person, I had to confirm that I will do it and don't have other plans. Obviously, if I saw the question only after school that'd be way too late and they would have to force me into it instead of simply asking the grandparents if I said I can't.
Because why the hell shouldn't we use modern technology if it's available to us? Thanks to it we were flexible, and we enjoyed it.
Yeah, I also used the phone during class. Because the lessons were shit. Though we had a few very engaging teachers and even though I had zero interest in their subjects, I never used phone in their class.
Schools have to improve, taking phones away is just bandaging the symptoms.
I'm sure the school office would've loved to handle all the calls for us, lol.