I personally think that responsible smartphone use should be learned and practiced, rather than outright banning them.
I think this shows that adults are terribly addicted to their devices and think if they can’t stop using them, children won’t either. They certainly can’t teach how to use phones responsibly if they can’t do it themselves. Unfortunately for children the result is an outright ban.
If anything i feel that the smartphone use shows how fucking terrible the school system is, we should fix the system so students are actually interested in learning and aren’t simply doing it because we threaten them with what is effectively a death sentence in a very roundabout way.
Kids don’t know what is interesting until they encounter it. I didn’t know Calculus was awesome until I was in a place to understand it, for instance. School opened my eyes to many interesting things that I would have had no clue about otherwise.
Smartphones are a major problem in schools. They are highly addictive and distract students to a high degree. An young developing mind (which some adults seem to forget about) has less control over addictions and such than a fully developed mind. Adults recognize they are addicted to their phones. Kids are also addicted, but it’s a bigger problem because it is hampering their learning.
I taught in the public high schools in Canada. Phones are a major fucking problem and kids would rather Snapchat/play stupid games/or look at Instagram than do just about anything else.
Personally, since kids seem to think that they can’t live without their phones, when you go into the classroom have the teacher pick up the phones and leave them on his or her desk in full view.
They can have their phone returned at the end of the class period. This should be done in every school and class. Kids are failing miserably because they are more worried about their phone and what their friends are doing rather than learning.
I also believe a child under the age of 15 should not have a mobile phone as there is too much negativity on the internet and social media platforms that they don’t need access to. Not to mention the free porn sites.
We as parents are responsible for how our children behave. And most parents now a days don’t want to take the time with their kids to teach them responsible habits. Of course it is hard to teach responsible habits when your face is glued to a 6” screen doom-scrolling Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok etc.
I can’t imagine UNESCO has any authority over my local school board, but ultimately I agree that there should be heavy limits on kids’ ability to use them while at school. Don’t know if I would go so far as to ban them though.
what the actual authoritian shit is this
UNESCO doesn’t bear any authority, so the answer would be “none at all” or something like that, I guess…
authoritarianism is an attitude. one can propose authoritarianism without being an authority.
We absolutely need to be teaching kids how to put their phones down and pay attention. Just banning them is a shortcut - kids need to learn to resist the urge itself.
