Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/education/minnesota-middle-cellphone-ban/

by hammock • 3 years ago

181 211 3 years ago

This has to be done by the school, there is not a critical mass of parents able to stop existing momentum.

bonestamp22• 3 years ago

Yep, we had a pact with the parents of my kids and several of them caved early and now we look like the bad guys. That's ok, sometimes we have to be the bad guys. Hopefully, like me and my parents, the child appreciates later in life why the parent did things a certain way. Obviously, we have explained to them why they can't have phones yet, but they don't agree of course.

For when my kids do get phones, I want a way to disable social media in blocks for different mac addresses/different times. Anybody know of a device that I can bolt on to any network to add that functionality?

srcreigh• 3 years ago

Have you considered a pihole with a blocklist config which covers social media domains?

hammock• 3 years ago

we had a pact with the parents of my kids

Interesting. I wonder if putting some money (charity, etc) or other skin in the game would increase compliance and how many parents would agree to that. I could see this working at a small private school

gnicholas9• 3 years ago

There is the Wait Until Eighth campaign (though I personally think 9th makes much more sense, given the break between 8th and 9th grades. https://www.waituntil8th.org/

klyrs3• 3 years ago

Sounds like you live in a place with middle schools. Our system goes straight from elementary 7th grade to high school 8th grade. I grew up with middle schools and think they make a lot more sense.

That said, I'd rather a "wait until 18th"...

ilikeitdark• 3 years ago

A group of students and teachers in Barcelona are trying for a mobile phone ban as well.

christkv• 3 years ago

Our school in Oviedo (co-operative run school) has a no phones policy and it's great. No peer pressure since everyone is in the same boat.

johnea• 3 years ago

That article sucked 8-/

Just repeating the headline doesn't make an article, it is literaly 3 sentences long...

jjulius2• 3 years ago

Just repeating the headline doesn't make an article, it is literaly 3 sentences long...

This makes it sound like you only read the three bullet points underneath the headline and didn't bother scrolling further, down to the parts where the middle school principal discusses the policy (aka, the actual article).

trumangao• 3 years ago

didn't bother scrolling further

Is it really his fault, or is it horrible UI/UX design?

wavemode• 3 years ago

The news here for me is that grade schools nowadays are allowing phone use in the first place

ABeeSea• 3 years ago

Schools should just be allowed to have cell jammers.

timenova• 3 years ago

A blanket ban on cell phones in schools will hamper teachers and staff too. Plus, the usual reason why jamming is illegal in most countries: dialling emergency numbers!

pmorici• 3 years ago

I wonder if they could wire the jamming system into the fire alarm. Pulling the alarm turns off the jamming.

BobaFloutist• 3 years ago

Landlines do still exist.

mixmastamyk• 3 years ago

If only. Our school mandates big tech slavery. Use microsoft and google and more or do not graduate.

doublemint22033• 3 years ago

fellow teenager on hn spotted

lukev• 3 years ago

I'm a little surprised this is newsworthy... this is already the policy at my kid's middle school (NC public schools.)

Is it that uncommon? I get that it's probably harder to enforce into the upper grades...

HDThoreaun• 3 years ago

Most schools allow phones outside of class time. This policy bans phones on school grounds altogether

huytersd• 3 years ago

Just have a jammer on school premises and use mac auth for the wifi in addition to the the metal detectors at the entrance.

doublemint22033• 3 years ago

teachers/faculty?

easton• 3 years ago

The jammer will get you a visit from the friendly people at the FCC.

Much easier to just make your school have some thick walls that prevent cell signals :)

gnicholas9• 3 years ago

Even if fac/staff had a way around this, it would wreak havoc on parents and other visitors. I can't volunteer at my kid's school if it means I would be unreachable by my other kid's school. Or my spouse/doctor/etc.

triceratops• 3 years ago

Sounds illegal.

gnicholas9• 3 years ago

Same here. Our public school here in Menlo Park doesn't allow smartphones to be used at school, and I think even Apple Watches are technically prohibited.

technothrasher• 3 years ago

According to my high school junior, it's laughably impossible to enforce. They have to put their phones in the "phone hotel" at the beginning of the day and can only retrieve them at the end. Ok, so any kid who cares just brings an old phone to drop in the phone hotel and keeps their real phone with them. My son says he doesn't even bother with that trick, as anything he might want to do with his phone during the day (which is mostly either message friends or scroll social media) he can do with the computer he is required to have in class.

Flameancer3• 3 years ago

What district and how enforced is it? My mother is a teacher in CMS and while it’s a policy there it’s hardly ever enforced….mianly due to parents. When I grew up in NC (private school) you weren’t allowed to have phones in the class either and if caught you either had to give to the teacher or be sent to the principals office if you refused to comply. If you still didn’t comply you got suspended. Most would just give to the teacher if you got caught.

Meanwhile I would bring my PSP to school and just leave it in my locker as it was the perfect MP3 device to walk home from school with, or use it for football/track game days.

donatj2• 3 years ago

As a former student of a Minnesota district right outside Minneapolis, it's interesting to me that they were allowed at all.

When I was in school in the late 90's / early aughts we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property. We all had them of course, but if they were seen they could be confiscated - I think it was largely an empty threat but I never saw anyone push it. Some teachers would happily allow you to use them in class.

They were also VERY suspicious any time you had your graphing calculator out outside math class, and some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

Gameboy or anything of the like certainly would not have flown. I remember my friend actually getting special permission to bring his laptop in.

tempsy2• 3 years ago

This is a weird comment. Did you really think most schools widely police cell phone usage in the year 2023?

donatj2• 3 years ago

I am well aware that they don't police it.

What I am questioning is the why. Why did it stop. Why have the attitudes towards personal technology in schools swung so quickly?

Phones in schools seem like nothing but a distraction.

urda• 3 years ago

They should but many do not. The students do not need to be on their phones during school hours. They are there to learn.

rimunroe• 3 years ago

Is that such an odd thought? I know about this, but can easily imagine others being unaware of it. It seems like a reasonable thing to expect

nonethewiser• 3 years ago

Of course. Because they obviously need to.

talldatethrow15• 3 years ago

Delete

lozenge2• 3 years ago

"They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up."

And what do you want her to do? Stop the lesson until the student respects her? Remove the student from the classroom?

s1artibartfast13• 3 years ago

she has trouble controlling her own students because I believe they themselves have realized she's inconsistent and illogical, so anything goes. They do something, she says something they don't respect, they continue, she gives up

This really shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Even 2 year old children can understand authority, power dynamics, and contests of will. For that matter, a 6 month old puppy will understand the same.

I pretty strongly disagree with the rest of what you said about state curriculum.

ksenzee5• 3 years ago

People will think poorly that I’m talking down a romantic partner

Well, yes. Relationships don’t do well when one of the partners has this much contempt for the other. There’s a difference between knowing in your own mind she’s not the best at her job, and calling her a “ditzy” “illogical” “girl” in public.

josephcsible2• 3 years ago

some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

Do you mean school-issued calculators, or personally owned ones?

WolfeReader3• 3 years ago

Personally owned, in my former school's case.

recursive• 3 years ago

I presume personally owned ones.

But they shouldn't be allowed to control what's on a personal device.

Minor students seem to have a different standard for rights. Schools regularly have dress codes and stuff. Presumably they'd say "you can have games on your calculator if you want, you just can't bring it to school."

libraryatnight• 3 years ago

This was always a curiosity to me, too. Same in my schools, no gameboys, graphing calc use monitored and restricted to specific classes, whether cheating or distraction things weren't allowed - smart phones are all those things and more.

It didn't feel oppressive, either, it felt appropriate - like setting a tone, even when we were defying the rules lol

johnnyanmac2• 3 years ago

It was just annoying to me. They take away trading cards and game boys and at the same time this was when they were removing monkey bars and tether ball courts due to lawsuits.

What do you want students to do during recess? There's only 1 full basketball court and 2 single courts. We only had access to half the grass field for whatever reason so that limited soccer (and yeah, no full contact so Murica Football was soft banned. You could throw the pig skin and that's it).

If that's a shared experience, it's no wonder my generation is so scrutinous of authority.

1letterunixname• 3 years ago

Glad I didn't have to endure such an unreasonable "culture of no".

In the late 90's in California, we had an open campus (no fences) and the classrooms were freestanding buildings without enclosed halls. Some students went to lunch at businesses a few blocks away. The cool kids would enroll in one period that included floating permission, so you could basically leave campus whenever you wanted. There was far more weed and ritalin than smoking or drinking. Because of parental pressures, there weren't many students who were lazy or fuck-ups.

HP 48G(X) represent. IR beam compilers, apps, and games to each other. Also, the very powerful universal remote app that could control any TV at a long distance. No one else ever touched my calculator except to verify clear memory for placement tests.

The computer lab was full of absolute shit PS/2 25 and 30, and PCjrs, but that wasn't a problem because of the laissez-faire un-management and lack of control freaks that didn't stifle creativity and exploration.

In my estimation, 97% of my graduating class went to college. Of that cohort, most ultimately became millionaires with a few centimillionaires, and a few became moderate names in academia and professional trades. (I once made the mistake of unwittingly agreeing to a blind date with someone from my graduating class, but she (a dentist) was so embarrassingly inconsiderate, unrelatable, ill-mannered, and late that I had to cut it short. Some people are just so awful that they're entertaining clichés and good story fodder.)

monksy• 3 years ago

https://themarkup.org/machine-learning/2023/11/30/he-wanted-...

I'm just going to leave that there.

arp242• 3 years ago

we weren't even supposed to have our Discman or early MP3 players on school property

Or your Tamagotchi! That was probably much more similar.

Our school wasn't too strict about walkmans and the like, because no one was really distracted by it during classes. Tamagotchis on the other hand...

Vicinity9635• 3 years ago

They were also VERY suspicious any time you had your graphing calculator out outside math class, and some of the ruder study hall attendants would clear your calculators memory of games.

That would have been a huge bummer becuase I wasn't playing games on mine, I was writing programs. It was actually the start of my professional programming career technically. I sold a copy of the program I wrote via link cable to a fellow student for $1... 8 years before apple was selling $1 mobile apps ;)

Flameancer3• 3 years ago

Crazy because I started playing games on the calc and then at something in HS I got a new Ti-84 and student read the full manual and realized you could actually code programs in that thing.

twright0• 3 years ago

The very first thing you did is write a program that prints a pixel-perfect "memory reset successfully" message to the screen as if you had just cleared it yourself :)

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

I had a TI Voyage 200 in highschool and wrote programs to solve whatever new problems were assigned and that's part of the reason I'm not very good at math.

bknight1983• 3 years ago

Brings back great memories of my TI-83. Wrote my first program on it (text based SimCity). It’s somewhere on the 10s of 3.5 disks sitting in my closet

Octokiddie• 3 years ago

“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.” -- Frederik Pohl

Car, meet traffic jam. But few, if any saw this one coming. Oddly enough, today's readers would find any story based on this premise mundane - kind of like a story about a traffic jam.

From the article:

“We do see a huge, huge difference in the way students are connecting with each other,” Smith said, later adding: “Just a short two years ago, they spent more time just looking down at their phones every moment that they could, and so it has become the culture of our building, and again, the kids seem happy.”

In the 1990s, a cell phone was an expensive toy. Today it's almost impossible to function as a member of society without one. Everyone, even, kids under 8, simply must own one of these damned devices, carry it around at all times, and respond to its every demand.

Public schools were a mess before all of this. But the cell phone has turned all of the problems in school up to 11. It has done so while offering little to nothing in return.

riversflow3• 3 years ago

Everyone, even, kids under 8

Is this satire? I don’t need a smartphone, anything that lets me answer a call would work, and I’m in my 30s. Always connected internet isn’t necessary, it’s a crutch.

WolfeReader3• 3 years ago

The sentence you're quoting is an exaggerated expression of a common viewpoint. Not exactly satire.

The unexaggerated version would be "Many people, including children and their parents, feel compelled to buy smartphones in order to fully participate in modern society." Whether they are right to feel that way is a good point to ponder.

If all of your friends and family communicate with video calls, do you want to be the one guy with a flip phone? Maybe you do! But not everyone shares that view.

harryfyx• 3 years ago

To recommend good science fiction, "Three Body Problem" from Liu. He predicts the "traffic jam" and all other social impacts from tech.

hackernewds2• 3 years ago

he is a computer engineer by training after all.

hackernewds2• 3 years ago

Today it's almost impossible to function as a member of society without one. Everyone, even, kids under 8, simply must own one of these damned devices, carry it around at all times, and respond to its every demand.

the fallacy of limited choices. you could most certainly make-do with a dumb phone.

I for one, would buy a phone that had a strong camera + only basic features built with the aim of reducing distractions.

duxup• 3 years ago

One of the issues was cellphones in the bathroom. I don’t think the staff wanted be constantly patrolling and dealing with kids in the bathroom.

I can tell you I’m happy to not be getting constant emails about cell phones that you just know parents who don’t care aren’t reading/ won’t do anything.

I have a child in that specific school.

elbasti• 3 years ago

The analogy couldn't be more perfect--social media is modern-day cigarettes.

Timwi• 3 years ago

“Our European visitors are important to us.

This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.”

Translation:

Thank God for American visitors because we don't have to care about their privacy.

irrational2• 3 years ago

Is this like how office workers "seem happy" after being forced to return to office? We have no data, but we are sure they are happy now. My work did lots of surveys about work from home, but have done zero surveys since forcing everyone to return to office. Gee... I wonder why?

WheatMillington2• 3 years ago

How did this become about WFH?

irrational2• 3 years ago

Analogy

NetOpWibby• 3 years ago

Anecdotally, my daughter lost her phone for a bit over the summer due to poor behavior. She reported feeling relieved she didn't have her phone after a day or so.

MrDresden• 3 years ago

This has been trialled in schools here in Iceland, and from interviews and surveys it would seem the kids love not having their phone.

Reading some interview transcripts I remember them mentioning that the kids felt that since their whole social group was without a phone (everyone in the school had to leave their phones at home or in storage boxes) at the same time they did not feel like there was anything that they might be missing out on, and subsequently could rather relax and focus on face-to-face interactions instead.

olgeni• 3 years ago

"Our European visitors are important to us", says the page blocking the content since years :D

ThePowerOfFuet• 3 years ago

Our European visitors are important to us.
This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.

Minnesota middle school students 'seem happy' after cellphone ban

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