Schools and Cellphones

[furlibusea]

@1010011010

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the student is there to learn not to pay attention to the teacher.

Bull. Most of us are up here doing everything up to and including tap dancing to get your fucking attention. Sometimes you have to do some boring stuff to get to the good stuff. Sometimes stuff is boring. Sometimes you have to do stuff you dont want. Get over it. School is not a TV, and you are not entitled to be entertained all the time. If you want to learn put some work of your own into it.

[vivalostwages]

@furlibusea

Bull. Most of us are up here doing everything up to and including tap dancing to get your fucking attention. Sometimes you have to do some boring stuff to get to the good stuff. Sometimes stuff is boring. Sometimes you have to do stuff you dont want. Get over it. School is not a TV, and you are not entitled to be entertained all the time. If you want to learn put some work of your own into it.

Would you mind coming to my college campus and telling this to the incoming students?
I sure as hell wish someone would explain this to them before they enter the classroom.

[Caridwen]

@WhyNot

[Devil’s Advocate]

…This is probably a really sucky analogy, but I’m helping my two year old learn to drink from a cup right now. Her father is annoyed because I give her an open topped glass and, predictably, she coughs and sputters when she takes too big a swig and she spills. He’d rather I make “real” cups off limits and only give her sippy cups. My thinking is that she’s not going to learn how to drink from a real glass by using a sippy cup. She can upend the sippy cup and suck from the tip and wave it all around and it doesn’t splash water anywhere. Now, most of the time, this is a good thing. But it’s not teaching her how real glasses work. If I want her to learn how real glasses work, I have to let her try a real glass.

Here’s the analogy part: if you want to teach kids how to be civil in a culture of ever present cellphones, you have to allow them cellphones. You have to teach them the civil limits on their use (for example, in lockers or off during class or whatever) and you have to enforce the consequences when they’re NOT civil, but by banning them from campus entirely, you’re NOT teaching civil use. You’re ignoring the issue completely.

I don’t think all the practice in the world is going to help a baby use a sippy cup if they don’t have the coordination or dexterity to use one. It’s like trying to potty train a toddler before they’re physically ready. Maybe it’s the same with cell phones. They can’t resist playing with the shiny lights and buttons. J/K but maybe parents can teach cell phone etiquette when they’re home and not subject the teacher and other students to their lack of impulse control. It’s almost impossible for some kids to have a cell phone and not fool around or play with it. Isn’t the goal to get kids to learn and pay attention in class?

[Gorgon_Heap]

I’m rather astonished to lean a lot of this.

When I was in school, some people (the assumed drug dealers) had pagers. Nobody had cell phones.

How important are these things? I got one for a gift when I was about 19. Couldn’t afford it and the company cancelled the account. I got a new one just a few months ago just because I had no other phone. The time difference? 10 years.

That kids are using these stupid thing in class, and doing what they are with them, is annoying and unsettling to somebody who not hip with technology. I still heven’t figure out how to send my own text messages. It took me months to discern just how to reply to one with one or two words.

I pick my daughter up from pre-K and see these little kids gabbing on phones as they walk by. They must be 8 or 10. I gape. What in Hell do they need’em for?

They don’t. Nobody really does. They’re “luxury items”. Kids surely don’t have any need for them in school.

[1010011010]

@furlibusea

Bull. Most of us are up here doing everything up to and including tap dancing to get your fucking attention. Sometimes you have to do some boring stuff to get to the good stuff. Sometimes stuff is boring. Sometimes you have to do stuff you dont want. Get over it. School is not a TV, and you are not entitled to be entertained all the time. If you want to learn put some work of your own into it.

Why do you hate America?