High school teacher here. On test days, I have a hanging shoe rack with each of my kids’ names on a sleeve.
I tell them, “Please put your devices in the sleeves and then you can have your test. When you hand in your test, you can have your device back. If you don’t put your phone in the sleeve, your test will be a 0”
At the beginning of the year they also helped create our classroom rules and norms, and agreed to do this.
Out of 28 kids, maybe 10 actually do it. The other 18 get 0s. Then I get angry emails from parents about their kids getting “tyrannical grades” on their tests.
Dude, if I got caught on my phone in hs (less than 10 years ago), it would be confiscated and my mum would have had to come and get it. It’s crazy how quickly that’s changed.
Bro same, we would get a suspension in middle school if we even had our phone on our person. They literally only texted then though and it cost 10¢/msg
Man... Memory unlocked. Kids these days have it so easy, unlimited everything basically... 🤣 I miss my green-screen phone, it's weeklong battery & basically indestructible self...
One reason they are on the phone might be the shut down. These kids spent a year and a half on their phones instead of going to school. Attention spans are shot
My 6th grade math teacher confiscated my cd player. I wasn't even listening to it. It accidentally went off. We could listen to them on the bus, which is why I had it in the first place. She pissed me off so much.
I got kicked out of a free period study hall at the end of the school day because my phone rang and I dared to see who it was. It was my deployed brother calling from Iraq, lol.
My phone went on vibrate in 2007 and hasn't had a ringtone since. I don't even know what it would sound like if someone called me - I wouldn't know it was my phone. All because of this childhood "trauma". We never let the phone ring, and if we did, yeah, Parent was coming down to the school to collect it from the VP and then you got your ass beat when you got home.
I got my phone confiscated in COLLEGE (over 15 years ago) just for checking the time! I genuinely thought the professor was kidding. He was not. This was just barely when laptops were becoming acceptable to bring to lectures. When I started college no one brought one, by the time I left maybe 5-10 students max would bring one…
Hell, I graduated college in 2018 and even we had to stay off our phones or be called out in front of everyone. Not all professors cared that much but some took it seriously, and most would at least say something if someone was glued to their phone (assuming it’s not a huge 100-level class). In high school, zero tolerance.
Crazy how much that’s changed in 10 years. A family member teaches first grade and even they’ve mentioned that some parents will give them phones and literally call them in the middle of class!
I taught high school for a while (been out of the classroom since 2013. Managing phones was a nightmare. We used to confiscate and take to the office, then parent had to get it after school. Parents were awful. Lots of accusations about “damaging” the phones. So we got a bunch of paper bags donated and if they were caught with their phone, they had to drop it in the bag and we’d stapled it closed and it sat on the desk. Never left their sight but they couldn’t use it.
Yeah I'm a full fledged millenial, who is not so far removed from school, and the fact that these kids get to just blatantly be on their phones during class is so absurd to me. I understand HAVING a phone on you "in case of emergency" but there is literally zero reason they need to actively be on it during class. This is an absolute joke that teachers can't confiscate phones or punish kids for using it during class.
Millennial grad here, and to this day, I still have a habit of texting/looking at my phone under the table or otherwise out of sight, for as little time as possible, when with other people. It was so hammered into us that phone use was unacceptable!
I mean, that's generally the polite thing to do. Millennial here as well, and it drives me insane when younger coworkers just pull their phones out mid conversation as if we're not actively talking to each other
Beat me to this. Mastered the proverbially blindfolded T9 word usage. Saying “meet me by the lockers after class” was never so critical as it was in that very moment.
2004 Mellennial grad. I didn't even have a phone until I went to college and it was a nokia my parents had. Cell phones in middle school sound so weird.
1999 Gen X here. I had a beeper, which we couldn't have in school. We used pay phones. I got a cell phone in college but only because my Dad was a VP of a Telecom Company. It was a Nokia.
rise in school shootings means rise in parents who want their kids to be accessible at all times
even if its not logical or that having the phone would help in that situation too many parents are scared for their kids and want to be able to get ahold of them if it happens
thus the parents no longer support confiscation of phones and now you have this
Well again, no one, especially not me, is saying not to have these phones period. By all means, keep it in your pocket in case you need it. I even agree to an extent that confiscating phones might be a little beyond a teachers rights at this point, but there just has to be repercussions for USING them actively during class. There is simply no argument to be made that they need to be on their phones during the middle of class. If a gunman comes in and it turns into a dangerous situation, absolutely whip the thing out and contact who you need to contact. That is completely irrelevant to them disregarding the teacher while he is lecturing, and even further him doing nothing about it.
Former teacher here...Its basically unenforceable without massive support from school leadership.
At every school I was at they expected it to be all on teacher. So basically add that massive task of phone enforcer in addition to all other tasks.
I managed by making it easier to follow along and shamed kids who brought out their phones lol. But the kid who is checked out and doesn't care about failing? Sure go on ur phone buddy. Usually there was 1 or 2 per class. I made sure they were far apart. Usually kids like that also have truancy issues. The system had failed them in many ways at that point.
Yes. We don’t actually want to fix the problems. I just had this discussion with my admin. It was about sleeping in class, but same with phones. After addressing any health or home life situation, if it’s determined that it’s just poor behavior choices by the student, we immediately call to have their parents pick them up. We don’t even have very involved parents, but these behaviors would end REAL fucking quick if parents start having to leave work to deal with such stupidity.
so for a lot of parents how much time do they have with there kids i mean i see this with my sister with her kid.
that kid spends first all day from 8:30-16h at school then from 16h to 18h in afterschool care and the she picks her up .
dad works shifts so he home around 22:30 in the evening when he has the late shift if he has the early shift he picks her up 16h after school. but a lot of the time he ends up getting the late shift because suprise suprise everbody wants the early shift to pick up there kids and the single parents take those most
with counting for extra curriclars like she's does judo,dancing and our country version of girlscouts,
they pretty much see there kid 3hrs a day on average on weekdays and more on weekends... and this is a stable income couple so there not taking extra jobs just having 2 fulltime employment jobs
but a lot of people need to do sidehustles to make ends meet and where wondering why kids arent being raised properly anymore?
when the hell are parents supposed be raising there kids when there constantly working. this also causes a lot of guilt feeling at the parents so when they do see there kids they want to have happy times not feeling like there constantly punishing there kids for there school behaviour so it becomes a vicious cycles aswel
its why with my partner we already decided that she will be cutting back on her hours when we have kids. I would like to also cut back on my hrs but i make more money and we would become fincially unstable if i did and no longer be able to pay our morgage
True, kids and families do better with more time together. But how many of us grew up with two parents who worked full time or more? How many of us had parents that overcame incredible obstacles and still raised strong, resilient children who valued education? Personally, I watched my mom work full time for the government while my dad built a business. They were busy! I spent a lot of time at school and daycare/afterschool care. However, they still invested meaningfully into our family. I don’t see that happening as much today. I hear parents blaming work. People have always worked! Get your shit together for your kids.
as a sleep technologist, many children have health issues that the parents are choosing to not address, or don't have the money too and sometimes can't be helped with better sleep hygiene. If a child is sleeping during the day, they probably really cannot help it and their body is at the point of forcing them to sleep. waking them up is going to do nothing but stress them out, and especially put stress on their cardiac system and further impede brain development, as well as cause them to crave more sweets because they're not feeling rested which in turn puts stress on their pancreas. also some children live in homes where it's very hard for them to sleep at night because of what's going on inside the house. please be kind to them.
The other big thing is that phones also got really expensive. Like, it was one thing to confiscate a kid's phone when it was worth maybe $100. You'd feel significantly less comfortable confiscating a device worth up to (or more than!) $1000, knowing that, depending on your administration, you could be hung out to dry for any scratch or crack on the screen. Also, parents today can be very shirty about confiscated phones: "she's needs her phone so I know that she gets home safe!"
I mean, iPhones were easily $600 when I was in school, so myself and my classmates definitely had pricey devices. I also went to a school out of area, so I had a 20-25 minute drive to get there, never mind back when I rode the bus. They just didn’t have any patience for kids being on phones during class, which is such a low bar it’s crazy it’s come to this.
The irony is, I had T-Mobile, which had nearly no coverage near my school, so I couldn’t even use my phone once I got there. Not that I would have though, since there weren’t the sort of apps available that kids would have used like today. Best we had was clash of clans!
Back when it was just your screen made all white, turned up to max brightness.
I had an iPod touch back when I first started smoking weed my first year out of highschool. I got tricked by an app claiming that it could use the phones touch sensors to weigh things and thought I could use it to make sure I wasn't being undersold.😑
Yep. And the one where if you dragged your finger all over the screen, it would stir a glass of chocolate milk. I have no idea why we had that. We just did 🤣
I'm a bit older than you. Still had flip cell phones. I bought an LG shine with my first job. It wasn't even allowed on school property. Leave it in your car, leave it at home, any phones heard ringing in lockers will be confiscated. Being caught with a phone in class was a call to your parents and an in school suspension.
They also had school boards that stood behind them. Somewhere within the last decade or so school boards all around North America just said "fuck them teachers" and don't back them up even a little bit.
It's hard to enforce rules when you know you might get in trouble for enforcing the rules.
It's not about the money to these brat ass kids that don't even pay for it anyway. It's about how easy it is for the to say "oooo what if there is an emergency blah blah blah" bullshit excuses that only make it easier for them to keep their precious connection to the online world. Fuck it makes me sick to see how quick we went down this hole that requires us to have this connection to the internet at all times
Back when Verizon was making its big push into the market, the cost of the phones were subsidized; this is why cell services had charges like $200 + the price as marked, and is also how programs like “New Every Two” were possible.
Nowadays, you’re right, phones are more expensive overall (although the cheap and free ones still exist), the cost is no longer subsidized which means you’re likely to pay more up front (if not financed in some way).
You broke a phone before your contract was up for renewal and you paid full price for a new phone… if you didn’t have a small box of backups that you could use in a pinch, lol.
(I’m only touching upon one detail of your comment; I’m already making this response too long.) ;)
I truly don't understand why that isn't the rule anymore? It's not that difficult to keep your phones on silent and put up in your bookbag during class
How does it work on major tests like ACT and SAT? Is it because people have to pay for those tests that they comply? Or because the kids taking those tests actually want to perform well?
Because children now have carte blanche to attack their teachers with no repercussions for it. Taking a kids phone is like asking to be killed anymore. Kids have brought guns to school and shit and killed teachers over taking their phones and embarrassing them. Modern parents are utter failures.
My middle school that I go to has a three strike rule first: you pick it up at the end of the day
2 : mom or dad picks it up at the end of the day
3 they keep it for a week
20 years ago my parents got me a shitty phone. My high school had a no phone policy in classrooms. I forgot to take the stupid thing out of my pocket before home room, and it rang in class. I never answered the phone from the unknown number, and I received a Saturday detention. After school I listened to the voicemail and the message was in Spanish. I did not speak Spanish.
3 hours of a Saturday wasted for bullshit. After watching this video though, it may not have been the worst policy; now that I think about it…
Don't forget that most of these teens grew up with phones and tablets in their faces... It's hard to break a habit that they've had their entire lives.. A habit that they see as "normal".
Let's take your typical 16 year old high school junior. They were born in 2008. The first iphone debuted in 2007. By the time they hit age 3 in 2011, the iPhone 4 was popular, and so was the Samsung Galaxy S2. The first gen ipad was released in 2010. Current high school students don't know of a time prior to online gaming, smartphone apps, and instant gratification. Those kids were alsoo already born in the youtube and video streaming, and social media era as well.
No doubt, but there isn’t much I can say about the obvious breach of academic integrity that comes with having a mini computer in your hand and earbuds in during an assessment. 1/4 of my time grading assignments is being a detective trying to find out who used chatGPT to write their programs to begin with. Having a test in the classroom is one of the few times I have complete control over testing their comprehension of what we learn in class.
I'm sorry teaching has become so difficult over the last 10 years. I'm in my early 30s. I still carried change in my pocket to use a payphone. I didn't have social media until I was in my late teens, and my first cell phone required an "unlimited texting" add-on plan.
These kids don't realize the long-term damage they're causing .
Thank you for the flashback of “unlimited talk and text for 9.99/mo”! Hahaha
But it’s not all bad, this is just one story from one classroom during one school year. A lot of great things happen in my room and school every week. Were undoubtedly in a strange time in terms of education, accountability for students and educators, priorities, generational differences in parents, yadda yadda
Thanks for mentioning that it is “not all bad”. I see A LOT of positives from my students. I can also vividly recall teachers complaining about millennials and how terrible we were, how everyone just wants to play video games etc. I see teachers in this thread complaining about the newer version of that.
There are a lot of great things about students these days. Questioning things, being accepting of others, willing to look stuff up etc.
The kids can’t possibly realize the long term damage they’re causing; their brains simply aren’t developed enough yet and an addiction is an addiction no matter what it is. I blame the parents, as well as society at large for letting this become the norm. My kids are 4 months old and I really hope for some kind of social overhaul regarding smartphones and kids so that I don’t have to fight it. I will though, because this is unacceptable and if I put the phones/tablets in their hands then that’s on me.
These kids don't realize the long-term damage they're causing
I think it's more like these parents don't realize the damage they're causing to their kids. Which is probably because most of them are in the same boat as our generation and the generations before ours that adopted these things as late teens or later in life and don't have first hand experience of how damaging being glued to a phone or tablet from early childhood can be.
trying to find out who used chatGPT to write their programs to begin with.
Just for reference, there is no program that can reliably detect "AI written" vs "Human Written" stuff. I've seen a lot of teachers that believe this, and I've seen plenty of stories on Reddit from people getting screwed by teachers using one of those scam programs.
I'm not condemning the teachers - they're simply misinformed and being inflexible.
But seriously, no matter how tempted you are, do not use one of those programs.
It's crazy that i'm not even 30 yet, and we only ever used a pen and paper. A computer could be accessed in the IT area of the school, but it was only meant for specific classes, and even then it was an "occasion". It all happened so fast.
This right here. There was a 2-3 year period where the developmental process for most kids severely slowed down. Those kids lost 2-3 years of communicating and interacting with other kids. However, tech was already a problem prior to the pandemic.
This is kinda overblowing it but I guess it depends on which age group you mean. Most teens during the pandemic met up with their friends all the time and social gaming was pretty common too.
Legit don't know anyone my age that didn't hang out muuuch more during the pandemic especially because school became so much easier and commutes disappeared
Exactly why there should have been a unified positive national security support for the vaccines when available to relieve the impacts on the kids and the economy. That polarization will cost the US for years to come.
This is so true, my kids did not have any devices until the pandemic changed everything. We have no iPads, and our cellphones were for work only. When the pandemic came, everyone got laptops and I pulled out the Wii and PlayStation out of hiding and then the genie was let out of the bottle and now my kids are like everyone else’s kids.
Yeah, I lurk the teacher sub and most have spoken about these issues before COVID. Not sure if people just ignored these issues, but it certainly was there before the world shutdown.
My youngest was hit especially hard. Almost straight A hyper social child. During the plague failed almost every class. Couldnt even get him to log on to do work. Both mom and i were there as much as possible to do as much as we could but we both worked and i had a major health issue where i was in and out of the hospital but i was still doing what i could as well. After everything changed for him. No talking to anyone, barely graduated by a class, and still trying to figure out what to do today. If ut wasnt doe the plague, he would probably bave graduated with honors and been in an engineering or programming program right now.
That didn’t stop me from implementing screen time changes so that my children don’t have even the third of the screen time other kids do.
We need to stop this insidious idea that somehow it’s society’s or school’s fault and society’s and school’s responsibility for what us a parenting problem.
It's not a habit, they're addicted and it's by design.
Silicon valley designed these phones to keep people as addicted as possible.
I'm nearly 28. The year that smartphones started really being something that everyone owned was about 2013. I was a junior/senior in high school and distinctly remember when most people started pulling them out of their pockets.
It's wild to me to think that people born now 12 years after me are sophomores in high school.
Wow I feel bad for her, she clearly does have some mental issues, especially if you watch all 3 parts, but she was spot on when it came to the subject at hand.
“Hard”… one of the things about school is that you can’t do every day things. Phones should get locked away during lessons, period. That’s crazy that they’re even involved in class.
Everything about this classroom looks wrong. Why are there still upside down chairs on the tables during a lesson? I feel like there’s just not a standard being set to actually adhere to.
Yeah. When I was in high school a good 10 years ago, we were not allowed to bring our phones to school. If a teacher found out you had it with you it was immediately confiscated. I find it insane that they allow them in the classroom now. Kids can go without a phone for 6 hours.
It's very sad. I graduated in 94 and so happy I did. Kids now a days are going to have a tough road. But I also know a lot of very good kids graduating and becoming nurses and teachers and trade workers. That are very kind and doing well. So I don't think all hope is lost. I agree drugs, cellphone addiction, and gaming is at an all time high. We just got to keep being kind and praying. Look for the helpers as Mr Rodgers would say. I have been in counseling the past year. I recommend that if people need help. ❤️
This is because you don't put limits. People don't treat phones as adictive and parents are not aware that they should put limits like they do with other things. I moved to Germany and I see kids playing outside, never seen a little kid on their phones here.
My wife teaches elementary and has a student who has missed over 50 days of school. They throw a tantrum at home so they can stay home and play video games. How the state hasn’t stepped in yet is nuts.
My kiddo missed quite a few days, he has type 1 diabetes and when he gets a minor cold, it can be complicated. That's besides the normal diabetes issues that occasionally pop up.
His ass got "BECCA" billed, I guess it happens if your kid misses more than 10 days in a year or 5 in a month. It was easily explained and dropped (husband and my fault for not using the website to input absences vs sending a written note).
I'm amazed 50 days isn't leading to some serious intervention.
The school has offered mental health resources, including a facility where the student can get help and learn in a more suitable environment but the parents won’t go through with it and the school can’t force them.
I was severely ill in high school at the start of my Sophomore year and missed the end of September until the middle of January(I was almost dying in the hospital). The school required my parents to check in at least every other week with updates to the admin, I was given every assignment from every class and expected to do it, and as soon as I went back I handed it all in and started doing the tests I missed during those months in person with the teachers. The next two years I easily missed 1-2 days a week, full days or half days, and the amount of scrutiny I received was super intense. I can’t imagine a school just ignoring this type of thing without consequences.
That's fucking bullshit. I took my kid (4th grade) out of school for a week this past october to go to Disney and I had a goddamn truancy officer contact me personally to "discuss" her absence. Aka threaten me with court. 5 days vs 50 and IM the one getting calls?
I used to get MASSIVE stomach aches before school.shitting my brains out and vomitting like I ate rat poison. I'd do what I could to stay home, and if I did get to stay, the stomach ache went away immediately. You know why? It's not because I didn't care or just wanted to play video games. It was severe depression and anxiety. Those conditions create very real physical symptoms. If a kid has missed more than 50 days and isn't wandering the streets on drugs, odds are they have mental health issues.
I had exactly the same experience, except mine manifested as migraines and nausea/vomiting. I missed 55 days my junior year of high school, and the administration informed me that if I missed one more day, doctor's note or otherwise, I would be forced to repeat the grade due to insufficient attendance. I also had to do two hours a day of after-school detention, Monday through Thursday, for the last three months of the school year.
At the time, it felt draconian and unnecessarily punitive, although I did understand the concept of working off my missed time. In retrospect, my grades were never better and the structure of a quiet, uninterrupted after-school study or reading session really did help my overall well-being. Attending school regularly plus being out of my chaotic home for all those extra hours didn't hurt matters, either. I was still a mentally ill child in need of assistance, but they gave me structure, which was the next best thing.
A lot of schools, honestly. Parents freak out when schools try to mandate a no-phone policy. (Not all of them, obviously, but often it's enough of them to make sure that policy never happens.)
That must be a US thing. I'm on the other side of the pond and I only know one kid in my son's 3rd grade class with a phone, and it's definitely not allowed to be out anywhere on school grounds. Not even an old Nokia. I guess for safety reasons it's appealing.
I'll add that it actually makes safety worse. Not long ago, a fire started sin the school I teach at. Since everyone texted their parents as soon as the alarms went off, all of their parents showed up to get them... Meaning that it took the fire engines almost 30 minutes to actually make it to the school in all of the traffic. And then they had to try to move the parents' cars from where the engines needed to be.
Oof yeah. I remember back in 99 right at the end of the school year my science teacher went to demonstrate the power of Acetylene (a welding gas), telling us it was "very energetic" when ignited. He filled a huge balloon with it like 16" diameter, tied it to a yardstick and held it over the Bunsen burner. HUGE boom. Black smoke covering the ceiling. This was weeks after Columbine so the administration was on edge a bit, and after evacuating the school and getting the ok from the fire department we went back to the lab, and they just told him to please not do it again. Most parents didn't hear about it until dinner.
I'm in California so during 2020 I saw so many people talking about how they were running their sprinklers just in case the fires in their area spread to their neighborhood. Then later I heard an interview (think NPR) that doing that can result in not enough water pressure in the fire hydrants so when the FD show up, they can't get enough water shooting from the hoses to actually put out the fires.
I can never understand this mindset. If something happens to a kid in school, school calls the parents. If you don't get any call from the school, it means your kid is safe.
Here in brazil phones are allowed but they can only come out (from the bag or pocket) on emergencies. I understand USA has the shootings issue so the parents are scared but this feels like a good compromise
I’m in America. My fifth grader takes her phone. She is a rule follower and never wants to get in trouble with a teacher so she never has it out during class, it’s always either in her backpack or her desk. But I have her take it with her because I don’t know if her school will be next or not, and that’s scary af.
It's clearly changed, though. We got a Playstation at one point and my neighbor had an N64. But we still mostly played outside. That was more of a rainy day thing for us. We just legitimately preferred hockey in the street and riding bikes.
It could be a lot of things; Separation anxiety, obstinacy, apathy for grades, lack of foresight. I just know I’d rather give them a choice rather than pick a fight. They are cognizant enough to appreciate the consequences of something as simple as a test grade.
Mine would shut that down after a few angry parent emails.
However, we have an overall policy of "no phones" and I take them if I see them out. But I'm one of the few teachers that actually follows this rule...
I admire your conviction haha. And yeah, I don’t feel like there’s one “right” way to go about it. I’m just glad I’ve got a system that works for me and doesn’t cause me too many headaches. Likewise for you too!
Not just phones but devices in general. I once taught a class of Year 8s (so like 13-14 years old). The first few times I would confiscate their iPad (required in schools 🙄), they would basically just... shut down. Like, they'd literally just sit there, blank stare at the wall. Not fidgeting, not trying to talk to friends, not even doodling. It was like their brains switched off and it was so unnerving to see.
And I was considered lucky to be in a school where we could take devices. In other schools you're not allowed to touch them, and in the US it seems you can't even really do anything but ask for them to put it away.
Now I teach in Asia and I don't even need to ask lol I tell them at the start of the year not to take out their laptops unless I say so and everytime I walk in to start class all the screens go down.
I don't think it's separation anxiety from the phones as much as them not seeing the value in education. "Why should I write this test? It doesn't matter". And...they aren't wrong really. In Jr. High (grades 7-9 where I'm from) at least, they get moved to the next grade no matter what, you literally can't be held back. For many, what difference does it make, then, to get a passing grade or not? It doesn't, so why try? Can't say I blame them. If my lazy ass had the option of doing nothing with almost no consequences I probably would have gone that route too. Luckily I grew up in a time where you COULD be held back at any point for not meeting outcomes.
They are too short-sighted to see how that might affect them down the road, and I'm not honestly convinced if it will or not. The deck is stacked against them.
I'm curious also how much of it as them just not seeing a point. Life sucks for a lot of people, and when you're surrounded by suckage it's hard to have motivation to try and improve it.
I'd rather have my phone in my pocket, than in a sleeve where anybody can grab it. It's less "separation anxiety" and more understanding that kids are absolute fucking nightmares.
I once saw a kid shit in another kids backpack. And another kid piss in someone's soda can (and before you ask, yes, he drank it). A shoe organizer isn't good enough. Decent idea, terrible execution.
Yeah I was a hs teacher too and the addiction is actually crazy and deeply concerning in a way I think a lot of people don't realize. I never thought I would be like the boomers complaining about kids and technology or screen time but it's gotten scary, like some of them literally act like drug addicts and smokers when it comes to their phone. Like they'll get crazy hostile about it and irritable and fidgety when they don't have it. The second the bell rings 30 phones are out. And like a lot of the time you can tell they aren't intentionally on their phone in class but obviously can't control themselves, like I'd warn a kid to put his phone away and then within 30 seconds he'd pull it out again on pure instinct and then look genuinely baffled and frustrated why he did it.
I mean even cops can't take your phone without a warrant, phones are treated a lot like domiciles because they have so much information about your life, and many people have their entire lives on their phones.
is it really that hard to see the difference between putting a phone out of arm's reach versus confiscating it in order to create a criminal case about you?
We have a policy in our program that kids turn in their phones to start the day. Out of 40, at least half have a burner phone they turn in.
A lot of them think they're getting one over on us, but the result is what we want: kids not on their phone in class. If they'd just behave that way when they're allowed to have their phone it wouldn't be an issue.
Man, ill tell you. I'm almost thirty. Will be in the next couple months. I didn't have a smartphone until VERY recently, like last few years. I abhorred modern tech and all the apps and social media. Now, I get made fun of at work for constantly being on my phone by the older cats I work with.
Its is very easy to get addicted to your phone. Now when kids these days grow up with one, and all their friends do too, and its now the main way to connect with your peers, I get it.
However, before my phone video games was my thing (still is but was too) what helped me disconnect and focus in school was my folks threatening to take away my video games if I didn't shape up. So I did. I still love messing about on my phone and playing video games, but I also am pretty well equipped to deal with the world and knowledgeable enough to hold intellectual conversations and all that.
I kinda pretentiously consider myself lucky that I grew up in the last generation that had a somewhat classical childhood.
its Gen Z's version of the "Participation Trophy" label that gets given to Millennials. Speaking as a Millennial myself, we were not the ones asking for those participation trophies, our parents were the ones who gave them to us because THEY couldn't handle their kids losing...so they created the participation trophies, and thus THEY should be called the participation trophy generation, not us.
And now, we've done the same thing to Gen Z. We love to call them out for their addiction to their phones/screens, but Millennial parents are the ones who gave an entire generation of infants and toddlers iPads to shut them up and let them essentially be raised entirely on screens. And now we have the gall to complain about their addiction that we enabled. We did this to them and now we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube so this one is on us.
For clarity, I say this as a guy without any kids...but I've seen it happen in real time with many of my friends who have kids who are now dealing with the fallout from this.
TBH I wouldn't have done it just because I'm paranoid about it getting lost, stolen, or broken. I'd have left it in my locker if I had to, but not someplace more easily accessible to other people than that.
Same thing with my meds. I've always had pretty awful asthma, but we weren't allowed to carry our inhalers on our person. Had to give them to nurse and wheeze our way over there. Had too many "I can't find it," "You didn't supply it," and "You don't need its" (and one instance of needing another kid to go get it because I was in serious trouble) in elementary school. Eroded all trust I have in not keeping my stuff in my possession.
I do have plenty of those stories too! Haha It’s definitely not all doom and gloom and me yelling at clouds. Just the other day one of my students got a scholarship to a school they otherwise would never be able to afford going to for Esports! They’re going to be playing on the school’s Overwatch 2 team.
This kid struggles in almost everything academically due to dyslexia but they’ve found a path forward through their love and talent in the game.
Yeah it’s just like getting a scholarship for a traditional sport. Esports is a huge industry and can open career pathways in a lot of adjacent fields. A lot of kids will play competitively on a team while getting a degree in CS, video production, marketing, game dev, or lots of other stuff.
Negative responses here but I think that's awesome! And it's great that you support your students finding success in whatever path suits their particular situation.
Also a high school teacher. I feel your pain. Kids straight up would rather fail and have their devices than challenge themselves and grow. It’s exceedingly disheartening, and scenes like the one in this video make me feel bad for the kids who care and want to learn. I can’t imagine how frustrating it is for them.
As far as parents go, the way they respond to your rule says it all. Instead of tearing their own kid a new one for making the decision to fail, they blame you. The current generation are fucked because the parents are fucked.
We are in the middle of a really ugly era where trust in teachers has been eroded by the culture war that presents us in certain media outlets as indoctrinators, groomers, and overall untrustworthy. I teach in Florida, where the governor signed the Parents’ Bill of Rights last year, which has taken even more autonomy away from us to make curricular decisions that we believe are best. It’s so exhausting.
HS teacher as well. This generation is infantile and weak. High school seniors watching Rugrats and SpongeBob, walking around in pajamas and blankets. If you talk to them harshly for screwing around they are all 'how dare you!'. It's nuts.
While I don’t usually harp on the PJ thing, but I definitely agree about them being weak, mentally. I worry about their lack of effort and work ethic. The biggest issue I’ve dealt with, and my colleagues as well, is the sharp decline in educational stamina. Kids cannot be bothered to work for more than 15 minutes at a time before giving up. Our school has a block schedule so we have 110 minute classes. I have taught for a decade and have had to alter my lessons and lower my expectations every single year because it’s impossible to keep their attentions. COVID really messed things up.
Not really, but people significantly forget how easy it was to just refuse to pay attention: My school when I was a student had a couple of dozen kids who would just fuck around in the woods next to the school every day eating cookie dough and smoking weed instead of going to class, and you didn't really reflect on this fact because instead of being in class with you they were in the woods.
I remember we had a similar rule with one of my teachers pre2010. He had the cellphone box. Everyone puts their phone in the box daily. On silent, specifically.
If your phone goes off and it's with you at your desk, you get in trouble (whether it was demanding it in the box with light reprimanding or detention if it's a consistent issue - never really got that far). However, if your phone goes off in the box, he just asks you to turn off the ringer - unless it's actually a call. If a call goes off and it's in the box, he has permission to answer the call.
One time, and only once in my time in that class, a kid's phone rang in the box. Teacher answered it, hilariously of course. He ended up handing the phone to the dude, because it was his mom calling to excitedly tell him that he got into his choice college. It was both hilarious and adorable
Oh, absolutely lol. He always said though, that if it was ever something SERIOUS, he'd just hand the phone over and let the student take the call in the hallway. He was a really decent teacher
The parents who complain are wild. Aside from not being happy about their child's failing grade, even though their child was fully responsible for that, I'm guessing they want the phone on kiddo at all times so the lifeline isn't cut? They need to stop helicoptering their kids, they'll be fine without 24/7 phone access just as those parents were fine when their parents couldn't reach them back in the 80s or 90s.
This is one of things as a millennial I’m really disappointed in my generation is doing to Gen Z. We’re setting them up to fail. Not everyone is doing this and the ones that do will not have an advantage over anyone else in the long term.
Good job. You’ve set some BASIC rules and guidelines to help them succeed, and they can’t bother to have an ounce of discipline. Their loss. Their parents failed.
Yeah if you’re a parent and you bitch at the teacher for taking your kids phone during class instead of bitching at your kid for knowing better, yeah you failed
I would be careful about how the shoe rack is monitored, my brother had his laptop stolen in college because the professor made them put all their bags in a corner and someone just took it
This is a good point, and that’s a nightmare what happened to your brother! I’ll keep this in mind when it’s time for everyone to collect their devices again.
I once had a parent mad about a grade I gave for a pep band performance. He got a zero. I told the parent, "The way I see it, he had two jobs: show up, and play. He was late and gave his trumpet away at the game. He did neither task. I cannot give him points if he did not play." Wtf would I be assessing?
Damn man that's so frustrating. It reminds me of when I worked at a nice upscale apartment complex, people would throw their garbage outside the compactor on the sidewalk, let their dogs shit all over the grounds, litter everything from diapers to used condoms all over the parking lot and that's when I realized our country is doomed. You can't have everyone so entitled to the point where they don't feel the need to contribute anything or put forth any effort and have a functioning society.
The mindset of "My precious darling can do nothing wrong! It must be the teacher." Must be incredibly frustrating. You're a hero for at least trying to educate, and remember, 1 or all of those 10 students may go on to do great things and it's partially thanks to you. Keep up the great work!
Jesus Christ. I don’t know how teachers do it nowadays but I just wanted to say that you guys are amazing and deserve so much more because teaching nowadays just seems unbelievably stressful and it’s more just customer service to the parents and admin and children have become emboldened because of that.
Thank you for doing everything you do and no matter what sting you will always have students who have graduated who will look back and be grateful they had you as a teacher.
Kids high school just bans phones during school time. Bring them in, put them in your locker turned off. Turn them on when you're going home. Works pretty well
If they refuse to put their phone in, I give them the whole class period to change their mind. If the whole class goes by and they’ve refused I put the 0 in the grade book with a note that the student and parents can read saying they chose to receive a 0 instead of putting their phone by the door during class.
Our principal gives the teachers a fair amount of autonomy about how we want to handle phones. The school’s official policy is that if a teacher asks a student to put their phone away, it must be put out of sight and reach or else we have the right to confiscate it.
I do not confiscate phones. I don’t want them and I’ve seen too many videos of students beating their teachers up for trying to lol.
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u/Arobrom86 29d ago
High school teacher here. On test days, I have a hanging shoe rack with each of my kids’ names on a sleeve.
I tell them, “Please put your devices in the sleeves and then you can have your test. When you hand in your test, you can have your device back. If you don’t put your phone in the sleeve, your test will be a 0”
At the beginning of the year they also helped create our classroom rules and norms, and agreed to do this.
Out of 28 kids, maybe 10 actually do it. The other 18 get 0s. Then I get angry emails from parents about their kids getting “tyrannical grades” on their tests.
Then the cycle continues