In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning.
The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes.
On the other hand, this is how we know about teachers doing things they absolutely shouldn’t do.
I read books in class. I drew pictures in class. I just looked out the window and daydreamed. Kids aren’t going to pay attention just because you take away their phones.
EDIT: I’m honestly amazed people are against that. Are you not aware that this is why we have videos like this that expose racist teachers?
https://abc7.com/fontana-sequoia-middle-school-teacher-racial-slur/13092208/
I’m bored and could use the downvotes, so here are a bunch more examples of students filming teachers doing things that are unacceptable or just plain illegal in class because they have their phones:
https://www.wdbo.com/news/news/local/student-films-teacher-whipping-students-belt/nmJzW/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/student-teacher-qanon-video-shouting-b1951071.html
https://www.yourtango.com/news/video-math-teacher-mimicking-native-american-culture
https://www.yourtango.com/news/california-teacher-robert-bean-threatening-slam-student-against-wall
Wow, that math one! They did the same thing in my kid’s math class! It was during Covid, so the teacher recorded it himself without a second thought! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!
I hear what you’re saying about recording. But Im not sure phones in class are the answer.
I don’t know what other answer there is to stop teachers getting away with this shit. The racism and sexual harassment I saw on display when I was going to school in Indiana in the 80s and 90s was not a secret. But since it was always the teacher’s word against the kid’s, the teacher always got away with it. The only time I can think of that it didn’t happen was when a very devoted girl and her family in my high school spent a lot of time and money in court suing a teacher who sexually harassed her in middle school. He had his job the whole time (he was finally fired when he lost the case).
I think the exposing teachers part is even more important. I edited my post to show a link to a student who filmed a teacher being racist above.
Here’s another link to another incident to show that isn’t a one-off
https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article275311416.html
I got all kinds of mistreatment by teachers in school and saw even worse stuff happen to other kids. Racism, sexual harassment, violent threats, etc. But we didn’t have phones with cameras in them back in the early 90s, so they got away with it. They can’t anymore… unless they ban phones, of course.
EDIT: I don’t suppose one of the many downvoters would take the time to explain why giving children the ability to expose teachers like this should be taken away from them in the name of getting kids to pay attention.
EDIT: I don’t suppose one of the many downvoters would take the time to explain why giving children the ability to expose teachers like this should be taken away from them in the name of getting kids to pay attention.
To give you a genuine response, it is at least conceivable that the potential harm caused by allowing students with adolescent brains constant access to platforms that are explicitly and intentionally designed to be as addictive and distracting as possible is greater than the positive impact of outing the occasional bigoted teacher.
I’m not saying this is definitively the case because I’m neither a sociologist nor a psychologist, but I think it’s fair to say that we can objectively state that this is at least possible.
Teachers can be shit without being racists: https://youtu.be/ha8RN1iWrug
