Posts Tagged ‘Opinions’
Do phones, gadgets belong in school?
Printed in the Daily Herald on September 16 2006.
Despite the popular belief that high school is solely about reading, writing and arithmetic, it is actually a set of hallways where teenagers go to desperately try to grow up, and become “important.”
Gaining this grown-up significance is marked by certain status symbols — college classes, good grades, jobs, involvement in clubs, achievement in sports or performing arts, sitting at the popular places during lunch, or even the fierce indifference toward these.
However, the most prominent tangible evidence of this gained importance is a cell phone. Being influential enough to have the need to be easily contacted at any time is an exciting responsibility.
But how many “important” teenagers actually must have a cell phone in school? If it is essential that they are contacted during school hours, the caller can just phone the school’s office and their message will be relayed promptly.
Do we allow students to maintain their pride, and keep the cell phones, or do we ban the gadgets from school, which would dispose of classroom interruptions and the constant problem of theft?
Let the students bring their grown-up toys to school, but remind them that theft is not the school’s problem, and that any sort of phone-related classroom interruptions will be followed with specific consequences.
As for iPods and the like, the policy should be similar. When the student’s ears should not be full of teacher’s words, why not let them listen to their music?
Schools should just be sure to inform the students of where and when headphones are not allowed, and the consequences for breaking these rules.
For most students, writing an essay in peace is a practical impossibility. To have music in your ear, a music that speaks to you and keeps the right side of your brain awake, will produce a superior paper.
There is a delicate balance between allowing students to express their individuality and keeping a school safe, efficient and disciplined. Through explicit explanation by teachers and administrators of the boundaries placed on the freedoms technology brings to teenagers, the line will remain unbreached, and entropy, at least on a grand scale, will not ensue.
