Given how incredibly disruptive it is to have my child pulled out of class in order to be given a message (our school, like many large schools around here, doesn’t use a PA system), I like the idea of being able to advise any change of arrangements via text or voicemail messages. Equally, I like the idea of my children being able to advise me of last minute changes of plan no matter where I am (at my daughter’s school there is only one payphone, students need special permission to use it, and it very often doesn’t work). In many families operating on multiple schedules, mobile phones are an incredibly useful communication tool - and I’d be a lot happier if my older children had one each (my 10 year old is a different matter, I don’t WANT her to simply be able to message me changes of plan or for me to simply message her changes of plan - responsible parenting demands that I either communicate those to her directly on the phone or through another responsible adult).
So yes, my 16 year old will be getting a mobile phone before she changes schools at the end of the year (we’re a 15 minute walk from her current school) and my now 10 year old will probably have one by year 8.
It’s the indiscriminate use of the phones which causes the problems (and not prepaying them), rather than simple possession of the phones in itself.
I can concentrate much better when I’m studying if there’s music playing, though I never had a teacher turn on the radio for us. I never understood why we were often told “it must be SILENT!!! for you to concentrate” when the opposite is true for me.
I can say that the cell phone problem is in American colleges, too. In the past two or three years I have yet to be in a class where somebody’s phone didn’t ring at least once during the semester. Mine did once, but we were moving desks around so nobody else heard it. Now I have a phone that vibrates. And I’m leaving it on, since I have a friend who is due to have a baby in a month. Any professors that have a problem with that can bite me. I’m not going to start talking on it in class, but if she calls, I’m outta there!
I’ve got a funny but true story about what happened to me when I was about 16 in high school in 1978. I used to attend a very strict Catholic boys school down here in Australia and I was real goody two shoes. I never used to go out on the weekend and I never used to do naughty things like drink booze and that sorta stuff.
Anyway, most of my classmates used to get up to that sort of mischief and one Monday in chemistry class, I passed a note very quietly to friend who was sitting next to me. I asked what he got up to on the weekend and did he get sloshed? A pretty innocent kinda thing to do, but I got busted passing the note by my teacher (Who unfortunately happened to also be the School Principal d’oh!) and he asked me to hand him the note!
Teacher: So Paul, did you get drunk on the weekend?
Paul: No sir, don’t do that kind of thing. (Big Liar!)
Teacher: Well Boo Boo, obviously you’re bent on causing trouble in this class and not paying attention. You’re hereby expelled from the school until your parents come to speak to me personally. This sort of behaviour is TOTALLY beyond acceptable!
Me: Whispers under breath Sir, there are more people waiting over there in the FAR QUEUE.
Far out! Can you imagine such a thing in todays era? I woulda just sent the guy an SMS on our phones!
“As for the cell phone thing…at my high school in CA, students were not allowed to have pagers at school (no one really had cells yet) and if a teacher caugh you with one, they could confiscate it. So that meant people were extra sure to turn them off in class, and if they went off, the teacher would often take it. They were never permitted to be a distraction. I imagine its the same with cells.”
Actually its against the ca state penal code for a student to have a eletronic device at school
This includes handheld videogames beepers cell phones cd players ect They could confiscate it and not return it …
On the beeper and cell phone If you could prove a real need for it " parent or student was really ill or had medicial problems you could get it waived bu the local police and school board
And Most of the time I was in school frome 82-94 Some teachers would play the radio or music oftem as it was proven ( by a few studies )music helps kids concertrate and learn better
About the music: Well, what if you can’t concentrate when music is playing in the background? I can’t. If you want to allow students headphones while they’re working on problems (not during class discussion obviously), that’s fine. But to put on a radio so that everyone is forced to work with music in the background? I would have failed all of my classes.
And cell phones should only be used between classes. Anyone reading or sending messages isn’t concentrating on their classwork. Not only are they not learning anything, but they’re being very rude to the teacher, the person they should be paying attention to.
This happened in a class of mine (university, no less, and a language class - not a big lecture theatre)… the girl ANSWERED her cellphone, right in the middle of the lesson…
You have to picture the redoubtable P-ssa. Picciano: “NON si utilizzano i telefoni cellulari nella CLASSE D’ITALIANO!!”
I can understand the teachers allowing the radio or music to be played if it keeps the kids quiet and it does not interfere with their work or studies. If removing the music is a source of discipline that’s fine too. I would guess the majority of the students enjoy the music and that remaining in the good graces of your fellow students will be a good incentive not to act up.
I cannot agree with the policy to allow cellphones in the school, sending a text message is no different from passing notes or chatting with your classmate next to you.
We have to realize that school should teach more the the three R’s, students should be learning the work habits that will benefit them as they move on from high school and into college or the workforce. we try to impress on our children the importance of learning and that they should be taking their schoolwork as seriously as we take our jobs and college.
If you attend Lola’s college you don’t want your cellphone going off unless it’s a bona fide life and death emergency as you could be asked to leave the class for causing a disruption. While I am at work I attend a great number of meetings and we frown upon people who can’t bother to shut their phone off or use the vibrate feature in the event there’s an emergency that has to be dealt with.
Again, cellphones aren’t the problem. It is the manner in which people use them indescriminately without concern for other people. As more and more people get them, etiquette becomes all that more important.
I think our schools in this country is going down the toilet. If you’re not lucky enough to live in an affluent 'hood, then your kids will not be given a good education.
More and more reports claim that kids (born from 1980 or so and up) are getting more and more problems concentrating. Me don’t think this is a genetical change, but a change in society. So who’s to blame? Schools not having anough funding, teachers not being good and/or committed? Lack of discipline in general? Parents working to much and not caring about their kids?
I dunno, and it’s probably an item for a diferent thread, but I simply cannot believe how many of you think that it’s ok to play music during class. If I listened to music, while doing homework, it was my choice and if the studying didn’t go well (they did, but that’s another matter), then the problem was mine.
If a kid in his/hers early teens today, can’t go through a school day without a cellphone, and having music blaring from a Hifi when doing algebra problems, I still think that something is seriously wrong about what’s happening in our schools.
I’m in a university right now. My first semester there I had Precalculus. That teacher meant what she said. Her syllabus said, “absolutely NO cell phones allowed in the class”. She explained her policy; if a cell phone went off in her class, you had to leave since you were a disruption to the class.
So of course a cell phone rings a few classes later. She immediately stops what she’s saying and tells the guy, “get out”. He whips his phone out and says, “oh it’s okay, I’m shutting it off ri—”
She interrupts him with, “No it’s NOT okay, I told you the first day of class, and it’s on the syllabus, that no one is to have a cell phone on during my class. Get out of this room and do not come back until tomorrow.”
That rocked. She did that each and every time. Cell phones stopped ringing after the first couple weeks.
I dunno, The Gaspode.
The company I work for is headquartered out of Stockholm, and while they do some stuff I disagree with over there (At HQ), they still seem pretty sharp, even the new kids just coming onto the workplace. In fact, we’ve got one of the ‘new kids’ here in Wilmington on secondment, and she’s as sharp as you’d care for her to be.
Seems to me, from my limited sample, that your schools are doing just fine.
Tranquilis
I’m sure you’re right, but then, a kid coming over to work there is bound to be one of the sharper knives…
About 25% of the kids leaving junior high, do so without complete grades. They don’t even have basic skills in Swedish, and these are not the kids of immigrants, we’re talking about.
Textbooks still teach about the Soviet Union and Cold War, since they haven’t been replaced since the mid 80’s.
I could go on and on, but please take my word for it - school is a big issue here, and will be one of the hottests topics in the election in September. The conservatives will use the situations in our schools as their biggest club for bashing the socialdemocrats over the head.
I hate to say this, but I have that beat three times. And you know what that means.
EXAMS. Twice in a multiple choice exam (same exam, fortunately not the same person or that person would have been, ah, not everyone’s best friend), once in an essay exam.
I can understand if people are medical personnel (which these turned out not to be) or if there are dying relatives, but as we could all tell from the conversation (idle chatter, essentially) … well, it wasn’t of dire importance.
The class let the person know each time. Picture (in one case) 150 people looking at you, some of whom have been to Hell and back studying for this exam, and you’re interrupting their test. Not happy campers.
Wow. At my university that would be an automatic FAIL. I cannot imagine anyone being stupid enough to bring a mobile phone into an exam at a university.
If one goes off in a lecture it is a rare moment, but one of total humiliation for the person who forgot to turn it off.
I’m with auliya. At my alma mater (Queen’s University, Kingston, ON) you would have been ejected from an exam for using an electronic device like a cell phone. No rewrite.
You know, I went through fifteen years of kindergarten, elementary school, and high school (high school was five years when I went) and went through a whole bachelor of arts degree, and managed to do it without ever once, on any of the thousands of days I went to school, carrying a cell phone. Not once did I ever miss a doctor’s appointment or fail to be where my parents were picking me up, on the rare occasions THAT happened (way back in the 80’s, kids were hardly ever driven to school by their parents.) How did I ever survive all those years without a cell phone?
I don’t even carry a cell phone on my person NOW. Why do you need a phone on you all the time? Who needs to be called that badly? If you’re a doctor, sure. Your wife’s pregnant, absolutely. Otherwise, Jesus, leave a frickin’ message. I don’t want my office strapped to my goddamned back.
I use music in my classroom, especially in art. Nothing like a little music to get kids in the non-verbal mode. Of course, they’re not totally thrilled with it, since it’s classical.
With my eighth graders, I use music as a reward - once a week on Fridays, during group work, if they stay on task, and then the music cannot have profane, sexist, racist, or violent language. Don’t get radio in my classroom because of interference from the building and the mountains around us.
The kids in my class learned pretty quickly not to play with their cell phones, gameboys, and other little toys, as I would confiscate them as soon as I saw them. If I was in a good mood, I’d let them have it back at the end of the day (and you never saw such piteous heartbreak as a 13 year old denied her cell phone). If I was in a bad mood, I’d give it to the principal. If he was in a good mood, he’d let the kid’s parent collect it whenever they chose to. If not, it was his until the end of the school year. I love my principal.
Gaspode, there are a lot of problems with education in the US - poor teachers, lack of parental involvement, violence, disintegrating schools, and much more. However, it’s still a half-decent system, and it has the potential to be fantastic. One of these days, I think I’ll start a GD thread on reforming education.
More and more reports claim that kids (born from 1980 or so and up) are getting more and more problems concentrating. Me don’t think this is a genetical change, but a change in society.
My pet theory is that this has to do with the post-60s attitude of not challenging the kids. It seems like everything they want to do must be encouraged as “natural development”, or “exploration of boundries” or some other sort of rubbish. Failure seems never to be because “you are a lazy git” or “sorry but you’re a bit stupid”, but rather that they have done the best they can (whether they did or not). I noticed a hell of a lot of during my studies here at a post-secondary level. The discussions on whether or not to grade schoolkids is a prime example of that, the worry that you might destroy their egos if they didn’t get A’s. I also think there is a tendancy to diagnose away issues. Seems like every damned kid in Sweden has some sort of learning or behavioural disorder (hyperbole yes, but sometimes it feels that way) and my experience is that the message being sent to these kids is, If you do, then its ok to screw up. My brother has high-impact dyslexia, and in the swedish school system as I have seen it he would be allowed to reach a mere fraction of his potential if he himself did not choose to bust his ass. As it is, dyslexia is only now being recognised in the Irish school system, and he is cut practically zero breaks. Means he has to work his ass off to achive only so-so results, but in the long run it is going to be to his benefit. Again, some middle ground between the two systems would be good…
Sorry if this is turning into an anti-sweden hijack eep Tell me if I get out of hand!
Re: music in classes. The teachers may well have deliberately put the music on to help learning. Numerous studies have shown that having certain kinds of music (especially classical, particularly Mozart) enhances acquisition and retention of mathematical and scientific skills. The classes you mention are in these disciplines, so the teachers probably hadn’t just ‘given up.’ They were using music as an educational tool. Although if they put on the top 40, they weren’t using it very well.
There is also the discipline advantage you brought up, threatening to take the music away if they’re unruly. This kind of positive discipline can be more effective than threats of punishment in maintaining order.
Personally I think it would be counterproductive to always have music on, as the students would then come to associate learning with music, but they won’t be able to have it playing while they’re in exams or at work. But that’s coming at this issue from the POV of someone who dislikes noise while studying. Allowing personal stereos would resolve that issue, but then it would be difficult for the teacher to prescribe what the students listened to (if they listened to music with an irregular beat, for instance jazz, that would be disadvantageous to learning. At least one study has evidenced this; I’ll go searching for it in the morning).
I had one teacher on a course tell us this, but many of us left our phones on anyway - most of us had kids, and needed to be in contact in case the child fell ill or had an accident. We wouldn’t chat in class, of course, and would only have the phones on vibrate, but it was essential that we have them available.
Oh, yes, QueenAl. Having a cell phone on vibrate was perfectly acceptible, because it’s not like the cell phone would make the entire class start shaking. A vibrating ring wouldn’t disturb the class, you’d be able to tell it was ringing and could tactfully step out of the classroom to answer it, no different then if you left the room to use the facilities.
For what it’s worth you have my 100% agreement. I’ve been seeing some shows over the past few days (Edinburgh Festival) and there seems to be phones going off in almost all of them.
What’s worse is that sometimes people think that it’s acceptable to answer them during the show. I figure if you have to be contacted that urgently then an SMS with the phone on vibrate should do … otherwise you should be questioning if you should be going out in the first place.
So I agree, lets create some cell phone etiquette rules and push to have them taught/enforced in classes. Teach 'em young.
If one of my 5th graders brings any electronic device to school, it is confiscated as soon as I see it and returned to their parents on request or to the student the last week of school. I confiscated two cell phones last year.
If a student’s cell phone or pager rings during one of my college classes that student is removed from class. If a student uses a cell phone even without it ringing (by taking an incoming call in class or messaging someone) the student is asked to leave for the rest of the class period. If it’s not an emergency, the student is wasting everyone’s class time, and if it is they would need to be leaving anyway. People with kids went to college before cell phones or pagers existed. There are people with children who go to college now and don’t have cell phones. For the vast majority of people, a cell phone is a convenience, not a necessity.
I’ve had exactly one college student whose eletronic messaging device qualified as a necessity. She was a trauma nurse who was on-call during some classes, and even she kept her pager on vibrate.
