Should Cell Phones Be Banned in Schools?

by SodaHead Living Posted 2012/07/27 21:10:44

Related Topics: Cell Phones, School, Back To School, Teachers, students

2,553 votes
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	Yes, it's only a distraction!	682 votes	27%
	No, sometimes it's a necessity.	666 votes	26%
	No, please don't take away my phone!	185 votes	7%
	How about just turning it off during class?	1,020 votes	40%

Is it just us or did summer swing by faster than usual this time around? With August just around the corner, "Back to School" is the thing on everyone's mind. Well, if you're a student, parent or teacher at least.

It's almost time to swap bathing suits for books. And while you don't have to complete any tests or do any homework quite yet, we think now's the optimal time to get your mind juices flowing with our quick, 8-Question "Back to School" Survey. Don't worry: No matter the answer, we'll give you an "A+" anyway.

+24

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RS 2012/07/30 16:39:29

No, sometimes it's a necessity.

+6
In the post 9/11 world cell phones have become a need not a luxury. I ama teacher and I understand the distractions cell phones can cause but I also understand the distractions computers cause and we force kids to have them. Frankly as both a teacher and a parent I say YES to cell phones. The big possitive as a teacher is that the kids don't have to ask me to go the office to make a call.
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geo353 2012/07/30 16:59:59

Yes, it's only a distraction!

It seems I went thru 12 years of school without once needing a phone(not even to call home) Ahone in school is not necessaryTeachers have enough disstractionsWhy add to their problems

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You Kno... to geo353 2012/07/30 18:09:08

Not everyone is so lucky to be in your case. For some it's an assurance more than anything.

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skyking 2012/07/30 16:59:15

Yes, it's only a distraction!

+2
cell phones should be banned everywhere!!

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Mike Le... to skyking 2012/07/30 17:04:56

+1
You're 85 years old aren't you? OH NO THE RADIATION IS GONNA KILL US!

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You Kno... to skyking 2012/07/30 18:02:20

total point of having a mobile device.

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od3052004 2012/07/30 16:45:33
Peggy 2012/07/30 16:43:46

No, sometimes it's a necessity.

+4
As a teacher I hate the distraction of cell phones. However, with the violence in the world and all the craziness I believe it is necessary.

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Glenda.... to Peggy 2012/07/31 06:00:38

+1
As a teacher...wouldn't formal education be appropriate? Not talking about a six week class but something the student and parent would be required to attend if the child Carries a phone during orientation week? Just a thought then there would be no questions on what is/what isn't acceptable.

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Peggy to Glenda.... 2012/08/01 02:34:25

Good idea!

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Simi Dave 2012/07/30 16:43:13

Yes, it's only a distraction!

There is not one single, solitary reason a kid needs a cell phone whilst at school.

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BSINCO to Simi Dave 2012/07/30 17:27:20

+3
Wait till your kid catches evidence of mistreatment by the school staff with that phone and you will change your tune real fast. To much faith is put in the institutions of higher learning and i for one appreciate cell phones and their capability to hold educators/administrators accountable.

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Simi Dave to BSINCO 2012/07/31 22:34:42

Actually, you give a real good example. A real good one. Two years ago, my son did just this with his iPhone. He got in trouble for using the phone in class, and no action was taken against the teacher - at least, nothing visible to the public.

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Lex to Simi Dave 2012/07/30 18:16:54

Oh really? I'm one of those kids that walk home and if something happens and I'm phone less I'm screwed so you need to think harder.

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Glenda.... to Lex 2012/07/31 06:05:55

You can honestly say if someone wanted to hurt you just because they could you wouldn't want to dial 911? Should you see a van pull up and grab your classmate and force them inside you could just say, "Ooh well I guess I can report it when I get home. Best of luck buddy-, better you than me"?

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Simi Dave to Lex 2012/07/31 22:36:39

But you don’t need it IN SCHOOL, and that is the point here. My daughter has a crappy little cell phone just for walking home, and since there aren’t any more pay phones, nor too many people whose house she could run away to she carries it.

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Aksana 2012/07/30 16:42:19

Yes, it's only a distraction!

yes

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RS 2012/07/30 16:39:29

No, sometimes it's a necessity.

+6
In the post 9/11 world cell phones have become a need not a luxury. I ama teacher and I understand the distractions cell phones can cause but I also understand the distractions computers cause and we force kids to have them. Frankly as both a teacher and a parent I say YES to cell phones. The big possitive as a teacher is that the kids don't have to ask me to go the office to make a call.

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nightowl to RS 2012/07/30 17:42:29

+1
Ummmm....huh?

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You Kno... to nightowl 2012/07/30 18:04:39

^ even though it is a distraction it is no more a distraction then the school already puts on students, a cellphone is even a convenience, is somewhere around what he is saying.

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Arse-Whole to RS 2012/07/30 18:43:20

+3
This is the dumbest response from an (I assume) adult I have ever come across. Necessity? The 100's of millions of texts being sent during class everyday are worth the 1 in a million chance that an airplane might crash into a non educational building? They don't have to ask to go to the office to make a personal call? As if they have any right to make a call during school hours? What planet are you from? And how the hell did you ever become a certified teacher? Oh yeah. Government schools.

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RS to Arse-Whole 2012/07/30 22:04:01 (edited)

Let me tell you that this is not my rule it is the school systems across the US. After 9/11 it was decided that people had the right to a certain amount of communication. I am not saying that I agree across the board but here is the thinking...Say a student comes to me to use the phone and I say no and lets say and (this was a real case) that the student is checking up to see if their sick grandmother with cancer is still alive in hospital and I say as the teacher..."NO, sit down." I can be attacked by the family for being insensitive. Remember that the cell phone must be off unless permission is granted by the teacher or a state of emergency arises.

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Arse-Whole to RS 2012/07/31 06:30:47

+1
I guess in my day parents communicated with the schools and teachers a lot better than yours does. Clearly, there are exceptional circumstances. But to just give every student that pass for any conceivable "emergency" is just reckless as an educator and an administration. I remember waiting in 5th grade through half the day that I would be pulled out of class at some point and headed to my uncles funeral. All of my teachers knew and prepared by seating me in the desk closest to the door in every class to cause minimal distraction to the rest of the class when I had to leave. Do you just take the word of any of your students as gold? If you give a teenager an inch they'll take a mile. This isn't some stubborn old man philosophy. This is common sense. You were a teenager once, right? You almost sound like the first year substitute every class takes advantage of from 3rd grade through 12th.

I don't mean to be an ass but come on man. Arming every kid in your class with a smart phone "just in case" is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. And another reason my child will attend a private school.

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RS to Arse-Whole 2012/07/31 14:18:21

I agree. The problem is more the legal system and how they enjoy making money off of frivelous suits. I have been teaching 19 years now. I could tell you stories that would make your toes curl. The system is a mess but nobody wants to fight the right fights to fix it. And I am not so much talking about the quality of the actual education. For instance...lets take another subject...one that is called ZERO tolerance. Now in about 90% of school systems they have a ZERO tolerance for any form of violence. IT sounds great but whenever you have beuracracy you have stupidity. In my dayif a fight broke out the teacher punished the one who through the first punch...now both kids get equal punishment. In my first year teaching I witnessed from a distance a kid jumped by three kids for lunch money. As I ran down the hall to stop it the little guy started to defend himself. I consider this correct and natural. I did not understand the rule yet so I sent him to the nurse and the took the three loosers to the office. It was there that they noticed one of the thugs had a fat lip. Soi they said that I had to right up the little guy who was jumped. I said he was defending himself!!! They did not care. So the next time that happened about 3 years later I lied and said the big b...

I agree. The problem is more the legal system and how they enjoy making money off of frivelous suits. I have been teaching 19 years now. I could tell you stories that would make your toes curl. The system is a mess but nobody wants to fight the right fights to fix it. And I am not so much talking about the quality of the actual education. For instance...lets take another subject...one that is called ZERO tolerance. Now in about 90% of school systems they have a ZERO tolerance for any form of violence. IT sounds great but whenever you have beuracracy you have stupidity. In my dayif a fight broke out the teacher punished the one who through the first punch...now both kids get equal punishment. In my first year teaching I witnessed from a distance a kid jumped by three kids for lunch money. As I ran down the hall to stop it the little guy started to defend himself. I consider this correct and natural. I did not understand the rule yet so I sent him to the nurse and the took the three loosers to the office. It was there that they noticed one of the thugs had a fat lip. Soi they said that I had to right up the little guy who was jumped. I said he was defending himself!!! They did not care. So the next time that happened about 3 years later I lied and said the big bully fell. I see you have the Duke as your pic. trust me your first impression of me was a bit off. I am an old fashioned guy who knows what is right and what is wrong but I can only fight the system so much and I would rather fight and rage against the machine to mess with bullys then to worry about cell phone use. In the world we have the right to self defense...in a school you leave that right at the door.
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Arse-Whole to RS 2012/07/31 21:57:11

+1
Okay. It's clear now I didn't take your initial response with a grain of salt. And after reading back through my posts I apologize for somehow making my comments personal. They were directed more at the state of our education system and you're the poor guy that caught the brunt of it. I'm not a teacher myself but both my parents were. Both my mothers parents were and my sister is a teacher married to a principal. So the dinner table conversation usually involves all of them airing out their frustrations with what they can and can't do and how little control they actually have over their students. And I never cared much until I had a kid of my own who is starting her preschool this year. I want her mind focused on learning. I want her life structured to a T. And that's just the hours that I'm not going over her homework with her at home. Obviously she will have a cell phone when she gets older but just like any privilege she has, it will be taken away when abused. That right there is a great lesson our administrators could teach their students. And I know it's rarely in a teacher's power to have that kind of control. By taking away a students phone you become subject to investigation and ridicule from their stubborn parents and all that noise. What really blows my mind is the f...

Okay. It's clear now I didn't take your initial response with a grain of salt. And after reading back through my posts I apologize for somehow making my comments personal. They were directed more at the state of our education system and you're the poor guy that caught the brunt of it. I'm not a teacher myself but both my parents were. Both my mothers parents were and my sister is a teacher married to a principal. So the dinner table conversation usually involves all of them airing out their frustrations with what they can and can't do and how little control they actually have over their students. And I never cared much until I had a kid of my own who is starting her preschool this year. I want her mind focused on learning. I want her life structured to a T. And that's just the hours that I'm not going over her homework with her at home. Obviously she will have a cell phone when she gets older but just like any privilege she has, it will be taken away when abused. That right there is a great lesson our administrators could teach their students. And I know it's rarely in a teacher's power to have that kind of control. By taking away a students phone you become subject to investigation and ridicule from their stubborn parents and all that noise. What really blows my mind is the fighting policies. You're 100% right about that. Just a few short years ago it would almost be common practice for a teacher to show the kid getting picked on a few pointers for next time. But now the kid just has to take a beating or get expelled for defending himself. What is this world coming to?
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The NJ ... to RS 2012/08/09 23:55:50

Do you not READ??? Do you not have SPELL CHECK??? Are you sending home notes to parents with misspellings? It's FRIVOLOUS, BUREAUCRACY, THREW, LOSERS, WRITE, BULLIES. Egads.

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The NJ ... to Arse-Whole 2012/08/09 23:51:33

I think I love you. Great post.

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The NJ ... to RS 2012/08/09 23:51:00

That is NOT a school rule. I've never heard of this. In fact, I can't imagine that any decent school would not want to be WITH a child when he/she got bad news.

If kids want to check on any "home messages", they can access their phone when they go to their locker.

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RS to The NJ ... 2012/08/10 04:47:57

I never said they could text in class. I said they were able to call home if they needed to. I also never said I thought it was the perfect situation only that it was done.

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me to RS 2012/07/30 18:47:25

+2
I'm not arguing with you..I voted the same category for similar reasons.

BUT THIS part is amazing to me. Are you serious when you say:
" The big possitive as a teacher is that the kids don't have to ask me to go the office to make a call."??
This is not within my experience as a student, albeit a long, long time ago. When I was in grade school/high school I never had the need to make a call so urgent I'd have to ask permission to leave class to go to the office to make a call and never saw any other student do that either. There were breaks between classes students could use for that, plus lunch breaks, there were also some pay phones so you didn't HAVE to go to the office to make a call but you could if you didn't have any money for the phones. I went to the office a couple times to make a call to my Dad to see if it was okay for me to go to a friend's house after school but that kind of thing could be done between classes. Who these kids need to call that urgently to need to leave class.? Just wondering.

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RS to me 2012/07/30 22:00:34

Funny you ask...I agree and most of the time I am sure they are goofing off however, if a student makes a request to use the phone and it is not over and over again we MUST let them make a call. It is the law. Students are not let make calls on lunch as they are to be in the lunchroom. The world has changed and not for the best. The thinking is...say I deney a student the right to make a call and they are say checking to see if their grandmother who is sick with cancer is still alive. I can then be attacked by the family.

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me to RS 2012/08/03 23:32:42

Thanks for the answer! It was a simpler world when I was in gs/hs. LOL.

The example you give of the grandmother terminally ill, though, that has changed. They didn't allow constant calls for kids to check on that kind of thing. It would be the other way around..A family member would call the school if there was a big change, and the kid would be called to the office to take the call. The family member/friend/relative/caretaker might need to give them news (good or bad) or come to school and get them or get permission for the kid to come home early and the like. The caretaker/family member would call the school, talk to the office, make whatever arrangements necessary. Then the office would ring the classroom, teacher would take the call, and advise the student they were to go to the office to either take the call or call back the family member. I know how this went very well because my Mom died of cancer when I was in the sixth grade and was in the hospital a few weeks before that, so I got a few of those calls.

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RS to me 2012/08/04 03:14:22

Great points.

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The NJ ... to RS 2012/08/09 23:57:44

DENY

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RS to The NJ ... 2012/08/10 04:44:57

An obvious typo NJ or is it a problem staying on topic at 72?

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The NJ ... to RS 2012/08/09 23:47:22 (edited)

"positive" has one s in it. You sure you're a teacher?

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RS to The NJ ... 2012/08/10 04:42:06

It is 2 am when I write this stuff and am spending enough time answering. I do not even look at my rtypos and I am not a spelling teacher. If you understood civics better you would be interested in the points being made more than a typo or spelling error made in the middle of the night.

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The NJ ... to RS 2012/09/11 19:27:28

People who cannot spell are people who do not read.

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nightowl to RS 2012/09/17 23:58:01

Oh and another "PosSitive" of being a teacher is that they're usually better spellers than you. Sorry I just had to...the irony was just too irresistible. Just messing with you...

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AngelMilitia 2012/07/30 16:37:11

How about just turning it off during class?

My actual vote is for none of the above, why do we so rarely get that option.

Get rid of the schools, not the cell phones.

This would be ideal! If everyone went back to teaching their own children then gays could teach their ideals and Pagans could teach theirs and oh yes christians could teach their purposely messed up book too. But that is true freedom! Being able to defend one's self from the delusions of one's neighbors. Then We could remember why the words say "Congress shall make... (what's that?) no law... (really?!? there is a law that says Congress can't do something, fancy that) and guess what they can't make laws about; RELIGION. Oh, wonderful! This means that schools are actually illegal based on the constitution!? Oooo. I wonder what court run by Red Coats would agree with me on that one?

What?!? Wait, why are schools non-constitutional based on the first amendment?

Answer, because all education is religious or will eventually step on someone's religious toes. Most learning is based on someone's belief system. Even math and science must give way to being a belief system because the fool down the way who believes the earth is flat can not and should not be forced to change his beliefs. Making science better than the fool will only make bullies out of educate...

My actual vote is for none of the above, why do we so rarely get that option.

Get rid of the schools, not the cell phones.

This would be ideal! If everyone went back to teaching their own children then gays could teach their ideals and Pagans could teach theirs and oh yes christians could teach their purposely messed up book too. But that is true freedom! Being able to defend one's self from the delusions of one's neighbors. Then We could remember why the words say "Congress shall make... (what's that?) no law... (really?!? there is a law that says Congress can't do something, fancy that) and guess what they can't make laws about; RELIGION. Oh, wonderful! This means that schools are actually illegal based on the constitution!? Oooo. I wonder what court run by Red Coats would agree with me on that one?

What?!? Wait, why are schools non-constitutional based on the first amendment?

Answer, because all education is religious or will eventually step on someone's religious toes. Most learning is based on someone's belief system. Even math and science must give way to being a belief system because the fool down the way who believes the earth is flat can not and should not be forced to change his beliefs. Making science better than the fool will only make bullies out of educated people.

Having phones disrupt our schools is only the most recent of signs that the system is wrong, not the distraction. Parents, stop being lazy and selfish. Take your kids out of the schools and go back to your real job of educating them. The animals in the forest are acting like better parents, they don't let strangers raise their young. Why are we?
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Digman14 2012/07/30 16:28:21

How about just turning it off during class?

I can understand if a loved one is in the hospital or you have an important meeting/outing to be notified about, but the teacher should be informed. When my grandpa died Freshman year, I had my phone on all day and I told every teacher that I needed to have it on for this reason. They all said it was fine and wished my grandfather the best. I forgot to tell my second to last teacher, and when the call came that he'd died, I was in NO position to talk to the teacher about it.

In other circumstances, it isn't really needed to be off (only silent) during class after your work is done just as long as you don't distract others. In the hallway between classes, it's fine to get a text (or 50) out to people, and after school, there shouldn't be a rule.

However, I do recognize that urge to send out one last text after getting a reply, so that could pose an issue.

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