Cell Phones and Classrooms
By 
Here’s an interesting thing and perhaps a good debate to have:
Students returning to school in a growing number of states and districts are facing tight restrictions and outright bans on cellphone use as evidence mounts of the damaging impact persistent connection to the internet has on teenagers.
In Los Angeles, the second-largest district in the country, the school board voted in June to ban cellphone use. In Clark County, Nev., the district will require students in middle and high schools to store phones in pouches during the day, starting this fall. Several states — including Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida — have enacted legislation limiting cellphone access during the school year. And governors in at least three other states, including Virginia, have called on schools to restrict or ban the devices. Other states have provided funding to support restrictive policies.
Of the nation’s 20 largest school districts, at least seven forbid use of cellphones during the school day or plan to do so, while at least another seven impose significant restrictions, such as barring use during class time but permitting phones during lunch or when students are between classes, according to a Washington Post review.
Of course I think about this at the college level. I have to admit, I really gave up on banning cell phones a long time ago. Hell, I even use mine for the time, as is it’s not as if the clocks work in our classrooms….
But I wonder if I should reconsider this. Not this semester though, I’m on sabbatical which I am enjoying telling all my friends as they return to the classroom. But I wonder if it is worth trying to enforce this again in the college classroom. It’s hard to see any downside except for the enforcement. But the enforcement is a downside and is harder to do than in a K-12 classroom, where the teacher really is much more in charge. I am no softy either. I rarely get challenged much by students because I think I scare them a little bit. So I might be able to pull it off. But would it be worth it? Or do I really care?
I don’t have any real answers here, obviously. But maybe we are finally in a space where people find reason to put the damn phones anyway, whether they want to or not.