Recently, the school board had a meeting and one of the discussion points was about high school students’ phone usage. It was said that cell phones were distracting students and affecting their ability to learn. I do agree with the fact that phones have become way more distracting and that it has been a growing issue since COVID-19, but I believe they should allow students to have and or use their phones, with this generation of kids/teens/young adults they live their life mostly off of social media. Yes, that does sound bad but that’s how we communicate and how we keep in touch with friends in and out of school.
This leads me to my next point, the representative stated—- that if they cut the phone usage during school the bathrooms would be less crowded and kids wouldn’t have the ability to text their friends to come to the bathroom or to wander around. Yes, the bathroom situation has gotten way worse since the beginning of the school year and it is a growing issue. Personally, cutting students’ communication to stop having their friends or a big group come to the bathroom won’t be the worst idea, but making it so the students have no communication throughout the school day is ridiculous. I fear there may be an increase in student violence and disrespect toward teachers.
The new and upcoming high schoolers were in middle school or had started middle school during COVID-19. Those kids/young teens never got to experience the true middle school experience, and I think that stunted their ability to have decent human communication, cell phones take away most social communication, yes – but there is so much more than that. They keep us in touch with our parents during school and another main point is school emergencies, say if a student or a student’s friend has an issue or an emergency they’d be able to call someone for help. Taking away phones can result in more free bathrooms but they are only thinking about the bathroom being free and students not on phones to help them get “better grades”.
I think if the student isn’t trying, let that student fail. It shouldn’t be the teacher that gets blamed for the student’s decision. High schoolers should be mature enough to put their phone away if they want to learn because if a teacher takes a phone away from the student, the student might get mad/hostile and that’s going to cause an issue in the classroom which would take away from other student’s learning. I know not every student will act in a way to distract or disrespect the class or teacher, but I fear that there will be an increase in arguing which would be a bigger discretion than the student sitting there on their phone.
