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UNESCO calls for global ban on smartphones in schools
(news.un.org)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Technology
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The absolute last thing I want to do these days is to try to remove kids' ability to call for help in emergencies.
Phones are also important so that kids can receive emergency alerts, like earthquake and tsunami and tornado alerts, depending on where you live. Such emergency alert systems provide only a little bit of warning, but that can make all the difference.
You think it should be disallowed even in cases like the one described, so a parent can tell their kid pickup will be late or to catch a ride with a particular trusted adult or to walk to xyz place to wait, etc?
And they can be used to help academics, too, such as for taking notes, recording lectures (when allowed), looking up an unfamiliar word (especially for kids whose first language isn't whatever they're being taught in), taking photos of the whiteboard. And more and more, boosted by LLM tech, they're becoming helpful for things like live translation and auto-transcription (great for deaf or hard of hearing students especially, but also just for anyone who finds subtitles make audio easier to follow along with, as many people apparently do).
A school can tell kids to mute phones, and not to look at them during class (and that part's hardly new - even before phones it was games on calculators and books and magazines and passing notes), but taking them or even forcing them to be turned off (except perhaps during tests) is too much imo. Especially when kids will absolutely bring them in anyway, and the whole thing will just create more of an us vs. them dynamic with the teachers and students. And especially now that phones have become such personal devices for so many people, like an external brain filled with your secrets.
Kids have no need for any of those. There is an adult in charge who is responsible for emergency situations.
Yes, it absolutely should be unconditionally banned in the classroom, with substantial disciplinary action for the first offense. No, the example they gave is not even sort of a justification. Anything that results in the student leaving early goes through the office, and nothing that doesn't result in them leaving early can possibly require them to have a phone during the day.
No, a phone is absolutely not a tool in the classroom. It is a massive distraction. The idea of using the absolutely disgusting shitshow that is modern LLM tech in an educational setting is even more disgusting and anti-learning. Students that need accommodations should be getting actual accommodations, not a cheap facsimile that make it impossible for a class to function because of the massive distraction.
You should absolutely not be permitted to have a phone on your person in a classroom setting before college, let alone to interact with it.
How can you say that with a straight face after seeing all the horror stories of kids with special needs having those needs blatantly ignored by school staff?
Because they're only a minority so they don't count! /s ~Strawberry
Here's a quick lil story fir ya.
Our teachers refused to listen to us while the school burned. Refused to look out of the window and see the actual fire. These people are in charge of your children.
Kids should have phones. Teachers are there to reach and that's it. They aren't pious perfect creations. Phones are a great safety net that we didn't have when I was in school.
I walked past my teacher and out of the school as it was burning. Teachers should not have final day in anything. They are there to teach and nothing else. I'd rather my kid grew up to understand they have final day in their life and can walk out of situations they cause them harm.
Why don't they stop making education stupid, then?
Surface level I agreed but thinking more on it I don't.
Emergencies and early pickups should be the responsibility of the adults i.e. teachers and administrative staff. They are responsible for you while in school so they need to be informed either way.
Late pickups can be discovered when the school day is over and they get their phone back / access to it.
Learning tool for people with disabilities? No they should get real/proper tools and help/assistance. Not just a free pass to use their own smartphone. Not everyone can afford one good enough to be of much help.
Photos of the whiteboard sure but I think that falls on the teacher that they need to have that and being able to hand it out. They could of course take a picture themself and print it/photocopy.
As for laws for if they can take them that is of course needed if they are to be banned properly.
I don't think it creates and us vs them if it's not on the teachers to enforce it. Place the task on non-teacher staff and have reasonable punishments for trying to avoid the ban and it will work to ban them.
The real world doesn't work that way. Horror stories abound of school staff blatantly ignoring students' special needs.
And that problem is of infinitely higher priority than banning phones in school 100%. Allowing phones is not a solution to that very real problem.
Let's review the available options here:
There is no third option of solving the problem of children being neglected in schools. That would require people who don't care to magically start caring, which obviously isn't going to happen.
Therefore, the greatest harm reduction is achieved through option 1.
I strongly disagree. Option one is just giving up on trying to improve the situation in our schools. You're not listening here. "Not caring" as you put it either is or should be neglect in terms of performing their job and thus grounds for dismissal. Then you'll say "but no one wants to teach anyway, there's a shortage as is" and I'll say that yeah, that's another more important issue, that teachers need better working conditions and pay.
That there exists more important issues to fix doesn't mean that banning phones isn't a good idea, it just means that there are prerequisites before it would actually work "in the real world" as you put it.
You're willing to hold off on banning phones in the classroom until neglectful school staff are no longer an issue, then? Okay, that's fine with me, but from what I've seen and heard of our schools and our cultural values around education, you're going to be waiting a very long time.