What is your ethical or pedagogical justification for students using their phones on your campus?
That’s a question I'd like to ask everyone who runs a school of any kind, but especially those who run schools of a few hundred people. Admittedly, my belief that the smartphone is the worst invention ever resides in this question, but that’s why I ask.
As it happens the four schools which I've been associated with of late all sit on grounds that mean no person works or studies more than a five-minute walk away from someone else. But at all of them, the kids are on their phones all the time as if they were each going to school in their own galaxy.
Why?
I mean “why?” other than that the kids (and the adults too) are addicted?
Everyone knows the scene of the kid of four or five walking down a grocery aisle or by the candy and saying to mom or dad, “Gimme. I want it." Some parents give in. Some hold out. But most parents do not buy all the candy their kid wants all the time or serve it to them for dinner. The benefits the phone offers students are of minimal caloric nutrition at best and yet it is all they consume when on campus.
So far as I can tell every school on the planet is shirking its parental responsibility. And I am at a loss to understand the reason other than that it would be a gigantic pain to say “no.”
Can we honestly justify this as adults and educators?
If anyone has any thoughts, I am game to hear them as I plan to return to this topic next week.
But until tomorrow, look after yourself,
--erm