New York plans to ban smartphones in schools, allowing basic phones only

My opinion is that if the ban takes place, there is probably not enough new dumb phones available on the market to cater thousands of students that will purchase them. the demand for dumbphone is so low I feel that people might be forced to reuse their parent's old phone or get used phones. thing is volte is required for a lot of networks so a lot of old phones will not make it.

yRaz said:

And this won't go over well since everything these days requires a smart phone. Authenticator app? Phone. My email requires a smart phone for 2 factor authentication, I don't even have an option to turn off 2 factor. My bank account requires I sign in from my phone every 2 days. My job posts my pay stub in " the app". My starbucks rewards requires I use my app. My gas card requires the app. We use NFC on our phones to log into laptops at work.

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...Pretty much all of those things don't sound like an emergency to a kid in class. They can go without, or dumbphone their parents.

Though, email might need to be setup differently. That one I'll give you.

This isn't the responsibility of the government to make it illegal, it's the responsibility of the parents to control their children's phone usage. If a parent wants to be a pushover, that's their fault.

m4a4 said:

...Pretty much all of those things don't sound like an emergency to a kid in class. They can go without, or dumbphone their parents.

Though, email might need to be setup differently. That one I'll give you.

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I'm not a kid so idk what the kids use phones for. My point was that the plague of phones being necessary has permeated all aspects of life. When I was in school even "dumb phones" weren't allowed. However, it also isn’t the government's job to tell me what my kid can and cannot have.

Maybe they're tired of kids filming things that are happening in schools and making it hard to push a narrative? Public schools are a joke these days and so is New York.

yRaz said:

However, it also isn’t the government's job to tell me what my kid can and cannot have.

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They certainly can when your kid enters a gov't run building. Unless you want that logic to be used with any (legal) item?
Maybe a kid brings in a boombox to blast music during class? Do you want them to tell that kid what they can and cannot have (or do) in the school?

yRaz said:

Maybe they're tired of kids filming things that are happening in schools and making it hard to push a narrative? Public schools are a joke these days and so is New York.

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Maybe, and they are a joke these days (along with New York), but it's also easy to see how dependent and addicted kids are these days to smartphones.
Tax dollars probably could be better spent tackling this another way, but I do see there being merit in removing such a big distraction...

In the case of a bona fide family emergency, call the school office and they can bring your child to the phone. For anything else, let them concentrate on their schoolwork. They should never have let smart or dumb phones into the building in the first place.

The world basically requires smartphones. If schools can't handle education in the presence of the tools that the world uses, one should seriously question the effectiveness of those schools, the policies that they operate under, and the level of preparedness for the world that those kids can expect to get.

m4a4 said:

They certainly can when your kid enters a gov't run building. Unless you want that logic to be used with any (legal) item?
Maybe a kid brings in a boombox to blast music during class? Do you want them to tell that kid what they can and cannot have (or do) in the school?

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You're missing the point or trying to undermine it entirely with a non sequitor. Cell phones were banned from schools when I was a kid so I don't know when or why smartphones became unbanned. also, do kids need to have 2 phones now? One for school and one for home? I'm not paying for 2 phones. Also, having one and using one are two different things. Schools these days are like jails, particularly inner city schools, where they have metal detectors and bag searchs upon entry. Am I suddenly going to go pick up my kids phone after work because if they leave it in their book bag?

human7 said:

The world basically requires smartphones. If schools can't handle education in the presence of the tools that the world uses, one should seriously question the effectiveness of those schools, the policies that they operate under, and the level of preparedness for the world that those kids can expect to get.

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There are plenty of jobs and settings where phone usage is not expected or even tolerated (during the actual work portion.) Think of the classroom as one of those.

As someone who does IT in a school, yeah, this is probably a good idea in theory. In practice, I can see it getting messy. Also, considering we're now pretty much required to supply kids with devices (laptops/ipads/chromebooks) at what point would parents then turn around and say "well, if this is the phone you're saying they can use, then you need to provide it" which would be messy. I feel like we started down that slippery slope by giving out laptops in the first place. I guess the blame goes back to the pandemic.

brucek said:

There are plenty of jobs and settings where phone usage is not expected or even tolerated (during the actual work portion.) Think of the classroom as one of those.

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Sure, but there's no reason to apply that to logic to all classrooms. Specific classrooms can and should prohibit the use of phones while teaching is happening, but the policy should not apply to all classes. Doing so would be quite counterproductive for subjects that would actually benefit from having them in class. Smartphones aren't bad tools for collaboration, note taking, looking up information, and so on. Teaching kids to be able to focus on the matter at hand while in the presence of tools that have the power to help or distract is also not a bad skill to teach. There are many jobs that benefit from the use of phones and other tools, a blanket ban is hardly the right response if the schools are to prepare students for the potential of having those jobs.

yRaz said:

Dumb phones? You mean phones?

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Yes, that's what they mean.

Great idea in my opinion! Not likely to go over well, but great idea! If companies/businesses had a shred of decency instead of being such blatantly predatory low-lives this wouldn't be needed, but here we are.

yRaz said:

You're missing the point or trying to undermine it entirely with a non sequitor. Cell phones were banned from schools when I was a kid so I don't know when or why smartphones became unbanned. also, do kids need to have 2 phones now? One for school and one for home? I'm not paying for 2 phones. Also, having one and using one are two different things. Schools these days are like jails, particularly inner city schools, where they have metal detectors and bag searchs upon entry. Am I suddenly going to go pick up my kids phone after work because if they leave it in their book bag?

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What are you talking about? You said

yRaz said:

However, it also isn’t the government's job to tell me what my kid can and cannot have.

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and I called out that line of thinking with

m4a4 said:

They certainly can when your kid enters a gov't run building.

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All you needed to reply was "oh yeah, in this context, they can. My bad. I just wish they weren't needed for everything" but you've gone on another tangent totally ignoring context, again.

So, whatever. You can continue with your nonsensical comments without me if you aren't going to follow context.

If Meta is against something it's probably a good idea

m4a4 said:

What are you talking about? You said

and I called out that line of thinking with


All you needed to reply was "oh yeah, in this context, they can. My bad. I just wish they weren't needed for everything" but you've gone on another tangent totally ignoring context, again.

So, whatever. You can continue with your nonsensical comments without me if you aren't going to follow context.

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Isn't it nice how we no longer see schools as a place to learn and they're now "government buildings"?

yRaz said:

Isn't it nice how we no longer see schools as a place to learn and they're now "government buildings"?

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They’ve always been considered govt buildings, when you talk about legal matters, you get the legal definition. Consider tinker vs Des Moines

Back in the "old days", you would call the office, who could contact your child within minutes!


has been the need to reach their children at all times, for both emergencies and routine scheduling issues

Turn the classrooms into "faraday cages". Once the kids go in, the connectivity drops to ZERO.

p51d007 said:

Turn the classrooms into "faraday cages". Once the kids go in, the connectivity drops to ZERO.

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Too expensive. But, kids have offline apps that they can still distract themselves with anyways.

human7 said:

Sure, but there's no reason to apply that to logic to all classrooms. Specific classrooms can and should prohibit the use of phones while teaching is happening, but the policy should not apply to all classes. Doing so would be quite counterproductive for subjects that would actually benefit from having them in class. Smartphones aren't bad tools for collaboration, note taking, looking up information, and so on. Teaching kids to be able to focus on the matter at hand while in the presence of tools that have the power to help or distract is also not a bad skill to teach. There are many jobs that benefit from the use of phones and other tools, a blanket ban is hardly the right response if the schools are to prepare students for the potential of having those jobs.

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Yeah, and there's probably an eight year old somewhere who could benefit from a license to operate a bulldozer, but I'm still fine with the KISS approach: no bulldozers and no phones in circumstances where common sense tells you it's a lot more likely to cause problems that confer benefits.

I have zero concern that kids won't be getting plenty of smart phone exposure outside the classroom. They'll be prepared for phone usage just fine.

human7 said:

The world basically requires smartphones. If schools can't handle education in the presence of the tools that the world uses, one should seriously question the effectiveness of those schools,

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Speak to a teacher sometime. The students refuse to get off the phones during class; they text continually through any and all lessons. Worse, there are apps now that, if you simply point the cell phone camera at a test, the phone will give you all the test's answers. And whatever you'll respond with as an easy 'solution' to this problem has already been tried -- and failed.

brucek said:

no phones in circumstances where common sense tells you it's a lot more likely to cause problems that confer benefits.

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The benefits for having smartphones in school greatly outweighs any detrimental affects their presence might have. Ignoring their utility outside of campus simply removes the schools ability to educate, discipline, and protect students in that space. Additionally, there are plenty of legitimate academic use cases for smartphones.

Endymio said:

Speak to a teacher sometime. The students refuse to get off the phones during class; they text continually through any and all lessons.

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If the solution is to simply blanket ban, what does that do for their ability to focus in the face of distraction? Where are the learning opportunities for how to use that technology in a formal (academic, professional, etc.) setting? What about when the next pervasive technology comes about? Do you expect young adults to be productive in the workforce if they were educated in settings totally foreign to how those workplaces work (without the connectivity and tools they will have)?

It goes beyond that, too. Socializing happens online. Schools are not just about learning subject matter, they are about teaching people how to socialize. If schools completely eliminate the online socialization on their campuses, they eliminate opportunities for constructive dialogue between students, teachers, and counselors on how to socialize online.

Endymio said:

Worse, there are apps now that, if you simply point the cell phone camera at a test, the phone will give you all the test's answers.

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For lower grades I would agree this is a problem. In high school and beyond, for most subjects, if the test can be beaten that easily, it isn't a particularly effective test, and probably testing mundane skills such as rote memorization.

This is just a more sophisticated re-spin of the "is the calculator allowed" problem. If the calculator "wouldn't help answer the questions" there's no reason to ban it (the student should learn when to use and not to use the tools they have), and if it would help then it should be allowed (but the test should still be difficult enough to not be a plug and chug test, or it isn't a test).

Either way it is up to educators to develop curricula that are best for their students and subject matter. Blanket bans take that power away from the educators in the same way that standardized tests treat all students the same regardless of their personalities or skillsets.

I maintain that the pedagogy in regards to smartphones should be left up to the educators, not reside in a blanket ban enforced by a state or institution.