A big topic of discussion lately has been the new stipulations on the phone policy and whether or not it’s fair. Most people would say that it’s not fair, but I feel that bigger problems could arise from students not learning the importance of self-control and learning how to work with the distractions of having access to their phones at school.
Although students already don’t have much self-control, which is why we have the phone policy in place, banning phones could worsen the problem at hand. According to Conscious Discipline, “There is no denying that cellphone bans cut the external distractions that are plaguing schools across the nation. However, they can also act as a band-aid to avoid addressing the bigger issue at hand: lacking the self-control to say ‘no’” to screentime temptation.” Therefore instead of relying solely on banning phones, schools should focus on teaching students strategies to build self-control and manage their own screen time ensuring they develop lifelong skills rather than temporary compliance.
Banning phones may withhold the distraction during school hours, but when we go home the distraction is still there sitting right in our hands and a lot of people won’t know how to just put it down. An article from light speed systems discusses how 95% of teens owning smartphones, it’s important that students learn to manage their device use in real-world settings. Allowing cell phones in school with proper guidelines gives students the chance to develop the self-regulation skills they’ll need for life beyond the classroom. Teaching students how to manage their attention, can teach self-control. There could be other guidelines and regulations that could be set in place to help with phones as a healthy medium, rather than just taking them away.
Along with the phone ban not teaching us important life skills, it is also not a teacher’s job to spend their hours watching kids for whether, or not they have a phone in their hand. nea.org emphasizes this idea as well In an interview with a teacher he describes how It was exhausting to have to monitor phone usage all day and not what he is here to do. Teachers don’t want to be the phone police, they want to teach.
The phone ban overall could cause students to struggle with self-discipline and learning how to deal with distractions on their own. Since the problem was just removed for them, students could struggle in the future to get things done in a timely manner because they won’t know how to remove themselves from the distraction.
