Furryanimal
Y gath o Gymru
- Location
- Wales
See my reply about season tickets.
Mobile phones are to be banned in schools in the UK
- Thread starter hollydolly
- Start date
OldFeller
Well-known Member
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
I think they should bring back flogging if the children are found to be consulting their phones at inappropriate times.
How about some sort of high tech jamming device that's on the teacher's phone that gives the teacher full control by allowing the teacher to disable all phones via Bluetooth.
Now, in the USA, if they tried to either ban phones or jam them and an active shooter situation was developing, the school becomes even more liable.
How about some sort of high tech jamming device that's on the teacher's phone that gives the teacher full control by allowing the teacher to disable all phones via Bluetooth.
Now, in the USA, if they tried to either ban phones or jam them and an active shooter situation was developing, the school becomes even more liable.
VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
Cell Phones are a real danger to education. People (kids in this case) are learning by searching online, rather than tutoring. Setting aside the preferred method that includes actual human interaction, concentration, and real dialog, the other issue of one of fairness, accuracy, and context.
I do worry about things when I hear someone say, "do your own research". This usually means "look it up on the internet", as though the net is a benigm encyclopedia of truth. It simply is not. The vast majority of the internet is driven by commerce, be it selling product or money through clicks. Google results can be manipulated if you give them money - and this is true of ALL the search engines. Layered on top of that are algorithms that control result sets. Meaning, when you search Google, you're getting back the results they want you to get, or rather, minus the stuff they don't want you to get.
This doesn't materialize as you'd expect, because they need you to engage, so the content is "personalized". This ensures you get results from sources you like (either intentional, or not), people you like, shows you like, and web sites you frequent. This in turn creates echo chambers, where we find affirmation (affirmation makes us feel good, and therefore more likely to stay longer) for whatever crack pot theory we've got.
Now, in a wider societal context, this one thing (dangerous, but off-topic here), but in an educational situation it's dangerous. When you consider young minds are impressionable, it's a real worry. So I applaud this idea of "banning" them in schools.
Still, the only way to truly make it work is to kill the signal. Have signal blockers that stop them working in each classroom. It would be trivial to do, and you could exclude certain numbers (say the tutors) from being blocked. However, paranoia is high these days, and besides, it is illegal in the UK to block cell phone signals, so it would need a lot of work to get pushed through.
That said, they could build classrooms that blocked signals without breaking the law (though no doubt it would be challenged if they did). Think of the concept of a Faraday Cage.
There are far too many entitled individuals today to ever get this done. I laugh when people say things like, "but I need to be able to contact my child!!" Why do they never ask themselves, "well how did they do that before the cell phone?"
I do worry about things when I hear someone say, "do your own research". This usually means "look it up on the internet", as though the net is a benigm encyclopedia of truth. It simply is not. The vast majority of the internet is driven by commerce, be it selling product or money through clicks. Google results can be manipulated if you give them money - and this is true of ALL the search engines. Layered on top of that are algorithms that control result sets. Meaning, when you search Google, you're getting back the results they want you to get, or rather, minus the stuff they don't want you to get.
This doesn't materialize as you'd expect, because they need you to engage, so the content is "personalized". This ensures you get results from sources you like (either intentional, or not), people you like, shows you like, and web sites you frequent. This in turn creates echo chambers, where we find affirmation (affirmation makes us feel good, and therefore more likely to stay longer) for whatever crack pot theory we've got.
Now, in a wider societal context, this one thing (dangerous, but off-topic here), but in an educational situation it's dangerous. When you consider young minds are impressionable, it's a real worry. So I applaud this idea of "banning" them in schools.
Still, the only way to truly make it work is to kill the signal. Have signal blockers that stop them working in each classroom. It would be trivial to do, and you could exclude certain numbers (say the tutors) from being blocked. However, paranoia is high these days, and besides, it is illegal in the UK to block cell phone signals, so it would need a lot of work to get pushed through.
That said, they could build classrooms that blocked signals without breaking the law (though no doubt it would be challenged if they did). Think of the concept of a Faraday Cage.
There are far too many entitled individuals today to ever get this done. I laugh when people say things like, "but I need to be able to contact my child!!" Why do they never ask themselves, "well how did they do that before the cell phone?"
Knives have been banned from being carried
in school, for years, yet many, schoolchildren
have been killed by stabbing as they go to and
from school, at least in London, over the years.
Phones might be easier to police, as they make
a noise, but I doubt it.
Mike.
in school, for years, yet many, schoolchildren
have been killed by stabbing as they go to and
from school, at least in London, over the years.
Phones might be easier to police, as they make
a noise, but I doubt it.
Mike.
VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
I don't think it's reasonable to expect a law to completely eradicate anything. Laws against murder don't stop people being killed. Laws on speed limits don't get adhered to. What the passing of a law/rule does is to set a norm, expectancy, and to validate requests to turn something off or to not do anything. A passing of a mobile phone rule in a school is the school board saying: This is not allowed here. Along with some consequences. This message can then be passed on to parents to, hopefully, teach their kids.
Of course, some children will break the rule, but with a rule being applied, they can't have a good argument against.
They had to suffer a lot of unnecessary worry. I didn't want to get my kid a phone while she was in elementary school but one day when I was waiting for her to come home and it was miserable weather and her bus didn't show up, I was so glad she was considerate enough to borrow one of the other kids' phones and call and let me know the bus was stuck in the snow but was putting chains on and would resume travel soon. After that I got her a phone.
I think the best people to decide about how to handle the negatives of kids having phones in class would be the young adults that have had that experience.
hollydolly
SF VIP
- Location
- London England
...but your daughter didn't need her phone in class which is the whole point of this Ban. No phones needed in Class.. they can have them after school...
VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
I worked abroad in the US for 20 years - NONE of my family EVER called me. I think that means I didn't need a phone. Although honestly, I had one because of work, but I only gave that number to colleagues....
hollydolly
SF VIP
- Location
- London England
Nope..the phones are being banned in class.. No-one said they can't have their phones.. but they cannot have them during class.. they can bring their phones to school. they can leave with them, but they can't have them on their person during school hours.. and as an eminent barrister has said.. this is perfectly legal for teachers to remove and even ban phones...
Furryanimal
Y gath o Gymru
- Location
- Wales
Well,we all know some schools impose over zealous rules that make no sense and cause the problems they are supposed to prevent.
As a teacher I loved pointing such things out.
The banner headline is that mobile phones are to be banned in schools.
And I can think of Headteachers I encountered who would try to prevent them being carried through the gates.
As for the legality of removing a phone from a student and banning them from having them in school at all-I would like to see that challenged in court.
They are needed to access services such as I outlined,pay for stuff in shops and contain all sorts of personal information that anyone tech savvy could access.
The shops in town are full of school students every day when they open-buying stuff for lunch and even breakfast.
They,almost without fail,are paying via their phone.
And as usual the press have failed to grasp this applies only to England.
What I would be asking is why -unless they are being used as part of a lesson-any school does not have a policy that requires them to be turned off during lesson time.
It hardly needs to be become a law passed by Parliament.