What Should We Do About Cell Phones?
It's happening in some schools, and I know a lot of my colleagues will love the idea. I've got mixed feelings. Certainly I spend more time than I'd like to looking out for cell phone use, and certainly I also have more phones confiscated than I'd like to. (Ideally, it would be zero).
For me at least, most cell phone use is stopped with a word or a look. Students know I'm a pain in the ass and generally put them away when signaled. Of course, there are those who take extreme measures, like challenging me, and that doesn't end well for them.
Once, in fact, after I called the dean on a repeat offender, he announced, "I put the fucking phone away." I'm not sure how that was supposed to improve the situation. After that, when the dean came, he punched the wall outside with his fist and was removed from my class permanently.
More frequently it's about me bending over in some odd position to see the phone underneath the table or desk. Now here's the thing--I've got varying degrees of patience, and the phone is not the only thing that tries my patience. Sometimes students come in late every single day, and I hate that. I will call home, and I will speak to the student, and I will do whatever I can think of to alter that behavior. But by the time that student uses a phone in my class, my patience may be exhausted, and mom or dad could have to come in and pick up the phone.
This may discourage a student from lateness, or whatever habit I'd like to see discouraged, or it may not. But it couldn't hurt to try after everything else has failed. I've seen teachers get bad write-ups on rating sheets because too many students came late, or because they failed to challenge them. I've also seen teachers get letters in file for the way they spoke to them when they arrived, Why did you challenge the student? Why didn't you wait until you could speak privately? So that's a lose-lose when you're dealing with some supervisors.
Maybe the phones discourage things students used to do back when I was in high school. Maybe there are fewer notes being passed. I don't have a statistical study. However, as long as there have been classrooms, there have been students who didn't want to be in them, students who watched the clock and searched for something, anything other than CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: What Should We Do About Cell Phones?
