No Smartphones in the Classroom?
Panic in the Streets!
I read an article in the Wall Street Journal this week titled “How to Help Students Panicked by School Smartphone Bans.” It was subtitled “Parents and teachers need to reassure young people that they can navigate their days without screens.”
My first thought was, why is the WSJ printing satire? This was not April Fools’ Day. Then I realized, in the current jargon, “OMG! This is, like, totally real!”
I understand panic when your car is stalled on railroad tracks and the train is 100 feet away. I understand panic when a grizzly has decided to charge you from the same distance and your Glock G20 Gen 5 misfires. But “panicked” by not being able to see one stupid TikTok prank after another? Panicked?
The article was written by two concerned and caring education consultants, one of whom founded an organization “to help schools teach face-to-face communication.”
Excuse me? Face-to-face and body-to-body communication comes naturally, without any instruction or insertion of technology. From the back seat of any car on a road trip…
“Mom! He hit me!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
Mom: “Don’t make me stop this car.”
You see? No smartphones were used in the making of this typical family scenario. What is un-natural is when children have had a handheld electronic babysitter for so long that their first instinct is to send Mom a text when something goes wrong – from the playground, from the mall, and…from the classroom?
Of course not! No one texts Mom about anything from the classroom. They are texting the boy or girl sitting in the very next row.
“This is sooooo boring.”
“I know! Why do we have to learn dumb things like math when my phone has a calculator app?”
“Anything else I really need to know I can just ask Siri, right? PS – Do you think Aaron (or Erin) likes me?”
The thrust of the authors’ article is that these preteens and teens need our compassion and our assistance to help them deal with the reality that some school districts “are instituting bans on internet-connected devices during the school day… [which] should also help address the mental health crisis among adolescents.”
As often happens in this age of the expert, typical teenage angst is being elevated to a mental health crisis. Allow me to summarize the four areas of concern and the authors’ possible solution to this major national calamity:
“Talk to students about the reason for these limits.”
“Adults might help students reflect by posing questions such as: What about this change makes you nervous? What do you think you’ll miss the most? Do you see an upside in limiting your phone use while at school?”
Seriously? Does anyone really believe that trying to reason (or even engage) with a collection of confusing, exhilarating, and disturbing hormones that we call a teenager will have any effect?
“By naming their fears and feelings, students can become more self-aware about their smartphone habits, which is an essential first step toward using these devices more responsibly.”
Talking to preteens and teenagers about the reasons for any limits, whether the subject is smartphones, dating someone 20 years their senior, driving with six boys in the car the day after they are given their license, etc. will fall on deaf ears. They don’t want to hear this fuddy-duddy stuff.
My parents had a simple response when I or my sister felt the crushing blow of limitations on our desire to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. After trying the solutions above from well-meaning experts, our parents simply said, “Because I said so.” End of discussion.
“Reset home-school boundaries.”
“Parents and educators need to help children navigate being disconnected from home for much of the school day. Today’s students are accustomed to constant communication with their parents: for consolation after a bad grade, advice on social drama and last-minute changes to after-school plans.”
Who are they kidding? Most teenagers feel the flush of freedom the minute they walk out the door for the school day! Away from home is exactly where they interact face-to-face with others, others who are unlikely to coddle them or instinctively agree with them. This is when they take their first puff of a cigarette (OK, these days, vape) and realize it is a disgusting, unseemly, nasty thing to do that leaves them with foul breath and a headache. This is when they begin to realize that members of the opposite sex are a constant befuddlement. (This feeling never fully goes away, so get used to it.) This is also when they realize they can have family and friends – and they may not approve of each other.
“Concerns about contacting children in emergencies, such as a school shooting, have led parents themselves to become forceful opponents of phone bans in school districts across the country.”
That might be a real parental concern, though I imagine it is much more often simply that their child doesn’t seem to need them as much, so the parent initiates the call. Either way, give the kids a cell phone (vs. a smartphone.) You remember those, a phone that could make and receive phone calls. No camera. No apps. No calculator. No AI answers to read verbatim to the teacher when answering a question.
Hey, it was good enough for the Neanderthals.
“Model a balanced relationship with technology.”
“Removing smartphones from schools should not be seen as a ban on all technology. Tutoring videos, class-messaging boards and hybrid learning arrangements all offer real benefits… At home, parents can also clarify when and where tech is appropriate—and when it is not. This might take the form of instituting phone-free times and places, such as the dinner table and bedrooms after certain hours.”
I agree. Those of us of a prior generation always looked forward to seeing grainy movies during class time. Especially the sex education movies. (The duck-and-cover movies demonstrating how to slide under your desk to survive the initial effects of a nuclear blast, not so much.) Visual learning is important and effective.
But one form of visual learning is outflanking all others these days: from the age of one or two, kids see Mom and Dad tied to their own smartphones. As we grow up, we often model our parents’ behavior. And later, reject it, of course.
Parents, first parent yourselves.
“Teach face-to-face communication skills.”
“For adolescents who have grown up on screens, the mechanics of face-to-face communication can seem daunting… When children are forced to interact without their devices, some communication skills flourish naturally. Researchers have noticed that children are better at reading nonverbal cues at summer camps that ban smartphones.”
Well, yeah. We humans have been given the gift of five senses. Allowing kids to spend their waking hours on smartphones yields no use of smell, little of hearing and touch (except haptics,) a very truncated view of vision, and very little taste, in every sense of the word. A walk of only a few blocks without a smartphone in the three-dimensional real world might provide true stimulation for all five.
“Students also appreciate being taught how to handle social interaction. At home, parents can reinforce the importance and the mechanics of face-to-face interactions by engaging in screen-free conversations as often as possible… It is also wise to encourage adolescents to speak clearly, make eye contact and notice things like tone as they go about their daily lives.
Hmmm. I remember being instructed as a very wee lad, when introduced to an adult, to call them Mr., Ms. or Mrs., to look them in the eye, and to return a firm handshake. “Social interaction” is a consultant buzzword for talking to other people, playing in the fresh air, and saying hello to other kids to see if you might like them, dislike them, or maybe one day marry them.
Wrapping up, yes, a ban on in-classroom smartphones might be a big deal for this generation. But everything is a big deal to a teenager! (Remember?)
I think the tone of the consultants’ article is that we, the unwashed, need benevolent and longer-educated (though not necessarily better-educated) experts to channel the rest of us who can’t make as intelligent a decision as they can. It perpetuates the progressive’s idea that educating the rest of us is necessary to keep people (including teenagers) on the “correct” path via proper conditioning. Pavlov, are you listening from the grave?
Every generation faces its dangers. This generation may not live up to the elder generations’ expectations. That’s okay. Our grandparents despaired that we would never make it, and their grandparents shook their heads and thought the same about them.
Coping with change is part of becoming an adult. Maybe if today’s adults showed how to handle change by example, it would not be so difficult for the kids.
Of course, when dealing with petulant and sullen teen appeals in spite of all you have done by example, there is always those words we do not hear often enough these days:
“Because I said so.”
“Get over it.” And…
“No.”
© Joseph L. Shaefer 2024