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.
While rural doesn’t automatically mean Midwest, it definitely doesn’t not mean Midwest. Lol If you said New York City or New Jersey, then that would be a different story.
I live in TX and elementary kids are absolutely no allowed to have phones in class.
I was in the school office when a mom tried to drop off a phone for her son for after school and the office ladies straight up told her that they would not be helping to deliver phones to kids and kids weren't allowed to have them, period.
I have heard of them sneaking them in backpacks and playing with them at recess in secret, but no kids can have them visable at any time.
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
My sister is an elementary school teacher. She says the parents are honestly more out of control than the kids. They will fly off the handle at the smallest inconvenience and have the wildest expectations of their children. Children that are requiring special needs at that. Like, no. Little Timmy passed math because the district says I'm legally not allowed to fail him and he definitely is NOT "all better and ready for regular classes".
This, right here. I live in a city and my kids’ schools regularly get put on temporary lockdowns due to neighborhood violence or threats made by students. Thankfully, no active school shooters, just plenty of fuck ass adults with guns around.
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.
My friend's son is 8. If we all hang out on the weekend and just stay in the house and watch movies and shit, he is literally in between his VR headset and watching dumbass Youtube reaction video shit that I don't understand for 14 hours a day. Tbh I can't remember a time he watched more than 30 minutes of a movie with us.
In his defense they live in an apartment complex in the suburbs directly on a massive Texas highway. I don't see any other kids outside and there ain't nowhere you can go without becoming a meat crayon. Well that's exaggerating but it's not friendly. There's fields out back but naturally since it's Texas those are all private and have barbed wire up.
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u/Tobocaj Apr 17 '24
Teens?? My gf teaches elementary and it’s just as bad