According to Pew Research Center, 77% of US adults now support in-classroom phone bans for middle and high school students, marking the second consecutive year that support...
Imagine a world where teachers weren’t geriatric and taught their kids digital literacy instead of digital luddism.
I mean, shit, homework was invented as a fucking punishment and so many studies have shown it has diminishing returns after a certain age. Yet here we are, perpetuating a system designed explicitly for controlling kids - not teaching them.
But yeah, phones are the problem. The internet is the problem. Definitely not how kids are taught to interact with them, no sir. While we’re at it, just get rid of PCs at the school - that way the district can save money on their IT department. They can access social media from the PCs so I don’t see the problem.
One of the more chilling moments of the '90s for me was when they put the child safety restraint seat laws in at federal level. Now, I had a newborn and a toddler at the time, and I was voluntarily putting them in the best safety seats we could get, but to me what those laws were was training the populace, from the earliest ages (up through age 5 I think) that they MUST COMPLY with the OVERWHELMING FORCE of adults bigger than them and submit to being physically restrained the whole time they are in a car. It’s like they were prepping the population to be less resistant to arrest and physical restraints.
I always thought homework was some employers’ wet dream about getting their employees to not only work for the company while in-office, but also to work all night long too. And I know some “go getter carreer oriented” people with aspirations to management who did exactly that for decades. Personally, I rate my work product and volume as “optimal” with around 30 hours a week of focused devotion to task, beyond that I do more bad work which has less total value than if I just did the 30 hours and knocked off to let my brain rest, refresh and reset to do another good 30 hours next week.
I don’t blame the teachers, I blame the system. I know too many teachers who have been yelled at by admin for daring to teach in a way the kids can learn because it’s “not what you’re supposed to teach, stick to the curriculum.”
Bad administrators are the worst part of the school systems. There’s a mix of good and bad at all levels, but a bad administrator can screw up the education of students even when the students have what would have been good teachers.
Digital literacy doesn’t do much when it comes to tech engineered to hook you and grab your attention. It bypasses the frontal lobe entirely.
At this point I don’t even know anyone who managed to use something like Instagram “occasionally” or in controlled manner. It’s way too addictive for this, and usage spirals out of control pretty fast.
I do agree with you generally though, schools should only use evidence-based interventions or none at all, no exceptions. In healthcare rolling out a drug without randomized control trial would be called heresy.
But when government does it, it makes it mandatory for all kids immediately, and then ignores increasing pile of evidence how it’s bad for decades
Digital literacy should be exactly about not getting used by tech engineered to hook you and grab your attention, instead using the tech to give you actual value.
Kids are going to use their phones for random bullshit in class no matter what if they are allowed, but phones in general can be a fantastic learning tool used in the classroom.
I wonder if we might eventually see schools distribute phones like they do laptops, even though that in itself is rare. It would allow the school to lock them down during school hours. Maybe include some option to buy out the phone/number when a student leaves.
A common complaint of not allowing phones is that students can’t contact their parents quickly in an emergency or vice versa. A locked down phone with “emergency contacts” fixes that issue.
Imagine a world where teachers weren’t geriatric and taught their kids digital literacy instead of digital luddism.
I mean, shit, homework was invented as a fucking punishment and so many studies have shown it has diminishing returns after a certain age. Yet here we are, perpetuating a system designed explicitly for controlling kids - not teaching them.
But yeah, phones are the problem. The internet is the problem. Definitely not how kids are taught to interact with them, no sir. While we’re at it, just get rid of PCs at the school - that way the district can save money on their IT department. They can access social media from the PCs so I don’t see the problem.
One of the more chilling moments of the '90s for me was when they put the child safety restraint seat laws in at federal level. Now, I had a newborn and a toddler at the time, and I was voluntarily putting them in the best safety seats we could get, but to me what those laws were was training the populace, from the earliest ages (up through age 5 I think) that they MUST COMPLY with the OVERWHELMING FORCE of adults bigger than them and submit to being physically restrained the whole time they are in a car. It’s like they were prepping the population to be less resistant to arrest and physical restraints.
I always thought homework was some employers’ wet dream about getting their employees to not only work for the company while in-office, but also to work all night long too. And I know some “go getter carreer oriented” people with aspirations to management who did exactly that for decades. Personally, I rate my work product and volume as “optimal” with around 30 hours a week of focused devotion to task, beyond that I do more bad work which has less total value than if I just did the 30 hours and knocked off to let my brain rest, refresh and reset to do another good 30 hours next week.
I don’t blame the teachers, I blame the system. I know too many teachers who have been yelled at by admin for daring to teach in a way the kids can learn because it’s “not what you’re supposed to teach, stick to the curriculum.”
Bad administrators are the worst part of the school systems. There’s a mix of good and bad at all levels, but a bad administrator can screw up the education of students even when the students have what would have been good teachers.
Digital literacy doesn’t do much when it comes to tech engineered to hook you and grab your attention. It bypasses the frontal lobe entirely.
At this point I don’t even know anyone who managed to use something like Instagram “occasionally” or in controlled manner. It’s way too addictive for this, and usage spirals out of control pretty fast.
I do agree with you generally though, schools should only use evidence-based interventions or none at all, no exceptions. In healthcare rolling out a drug without randomized control trial would be called heresy.
But when government does it, it makes it mandatory for all kids immediately, and then ignores increasing pile of evidence how it’s bad for decades
Digital literacy should be exactly about not getting used by tech engineered to hook you and grab your attention, instead using the tech to give you actual value.
It’s tough.
Kids are going to use their phones for random bullshit in class no matter what if they are allowed, but phones in general can be a fantastic learning tool used in the classroom.
I wonder if we might eventually see schools distribute phones like they do laptops, even though that in itself is rare. It would allow the school to lock them down during school hours. Maybe include some option to buy out the phone/number when a student leaves.
A common complaint of not allowing phones is that students can’t contact their parents quickly in an emergency or vice versa. A locked down phone with “emergency contacts” fixes that issue.