Schools Took Away Students’ Phones, Now They’re Treating Separation Anxiety
January 25th, 2020We’re far enough into the zombie apocalypse that we’re seeing the zombies spawning their own zombie children. Or, to use a different analogy, addicts are giving birth to more addicts.
The enabling of the behavior by the schools and the sycophantic coddling is absolutely unbelievable.
Even the French ban doesn’t go far enough, since it allows the students to physically keep the phones on them.
Sanity prevailing would look something like this:
Turn the phones in at the start of school
or
Leave them at home
The end.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
Before class each day, a high-school teacher in Indianapolis grabs a clear plastic bag and fastens it to her waist with a ribbon. The homemade pouch is a repository for phones that are either confiscated or handed over voluntarily by students who don’t want to be tempted to tap or swipe during class.
She calls it the “phoney pack,” and the magic of the makeshift vault isn’t that it keeps devices out of reach. It’s that it lowers students’ anxiety by keeping their phones in view.
Smartphones have long been a scourge for teachers and administrators, who have employed a range of strict measures to keep them out of the classroom. But it turns out that getting rid of phones introduced another distraction: withdrawal pangs.
Now, teachers across the country are testing their own methods for managing their students’ phone-related angst. Some use lockable pouches that let students hold their phones rather than having to leave them alone in their lockers. Others have set up charging stations in classrooms, betting that the visibility and value of a charge will keep students at ease. Then there are the teachers who have decided dangling extra credit and other prizes is the best defense against phone withdrawal.
Students don’t always appreciate the efforts to appease them.
