School and phones.

[smoothg103rd]

I would imagine that there is a fair chance your level of educational achivement reflected that attitude.

Nah..

 

[Sean Renaud]

All well and good, but you're only talking about one color on the spectrum. There are also dumb kids and obstinate kids and ADD kids who are in that class and need to be paying attention. Hypothesizing about reasonable reasons kids might not need or be able to pay attention in class and how the system does not address those need is guaranteed to take us way off onto a tangent that does not address the immediacy of what needs to happen at that moment irrespective of the system's faults.

Kids IN class need to pay attention, and it is reasonable for the teacher to remove the vast majority of distractions that would inhibit that participation.

In the immediate the only thing (I see) as important is the effect on the class environment as a whole. Me sitting in a corner playing pokemon is only slightly more disruptive than my being absent. I'm quiet and out of the way and in the immediate you have to find a way to deal with me right then and there. And yes you can suspend me, send me to detention or what not if you feel that is the ideal way of dealing with the scenario. It's certainly not as bad as my being a full on distraction.

Which leads me back to my original point that I'm hesitant of any program that is simply black and white with no room for the person in the situation to make a judgement call. That's not to say parameters aren't necessary. They are. I'm just not sure if these ones are ideal.

But you don't need every single person in the building communicating that information. In a lockdown situation, allow ONLY teachers and administrators phone access with very specific instructions on what and how to communicate.

You don't need everybody doing anything. Simple organizational skills tell us that. I'm still not seeing the net detriment vs neutral here.

You know, to a Brit, the casual American acceptance that school shootings are a thing is just mind boggling.

Well for us it's just Tuesday.

 

[Sean]

Equally perplexing to us Yanks is how a Brit would take a series of tragedies like school shootings and assume based on nothing other than their mere occurrence that Americans "casually accept" them.

Need you be reminded that "Rule Britannia" contains an "L" and not a "D"?

I have to assume you haven't been reading this thread.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I have to assume you haven't been reading this thread.

No you don't, nor should you.

For that matter you don't even have to provided a rational argument based on posts within this thread for your assumption that a significant number of Americans "casually accept" school shootings, but it would carry slightly more integrity than merely lobbing debris out on the pitch from your seat in the grandstands.

And what does "casually accept" mean to you, anyway?

That neither you nor we can deny the reality of their past occurrences?

That we have no concerns about or desires to prevent future repetitions?

Other than the occasional brickbat, you don't seem to have much to contribute here anymore, and exhibit a disinclination to roll your sleeves up and mix it up with the riff raff. Why is that?

 

[BoyNextDoor]

At my kids' school, cell phones and tablets are allowed and encouraged. They sign an acceptable use policy and use them in the classroom for research purposes. The school has awesome wifi available. Each teacher is able to set his or her own expectations, and my oldest has a teacher who doesn't allow them. Do they use them to text or DM each other? Absolutely, and at about the same rate that my friends and I passed paper notes in class.

Our 10th grader has a phone which she takes to school. She knows the rules about non-use during classes and fully understands that if it is picked up at school for misuse, she'll also lose phone privileges at home.

I sub teach, now that I'm a gentleman of leisure, at three different schools and all of the kids have phones. Misuse is not a problem at any of the schools. The rules are clearly stated, they are discussed with the students at the beginning of each school year, as are the consequences of noncompliance, and they are consistently enforced. Not to say it never happens, but word gets around pretty quickly among the students when it does.

Totally agree. Their use should be welcomed and encouraged and there are no problems typically.

 

[Lancecastor]

Other than the occasional brickbat, you don't seem to have much to contribute here anymore, and exhibit a disinclination to roll your sleeves up and mix it up with the riff raff. Why is that?

He will get back to you after clearing it with LTR.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/man-walked-like-dog.jpg

 

[Sean]

Other than the occasional brickbat, you don't seem to have much to contribute here anymore, and exhibit a disinclination to roll your sleeves up and mix it up with the riff raff. Why is that?

Boredom.

 

[silver gurl]

Our daughter has since graduated but yes, a phone should not be out in the classroom. She was there to learn and not play on her phone. She had a hard enough time following math, without the distraction of texts and FB.

If she had it out and was using it, I am fine with the teacher taking it from her. In fact I think one did. They took it for the day. I said, to bad.

We did not have cell phones and somehow, we managed to survive.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

Boredom.

And yet you sit through the show for little purpose other than to cast your dissenting vote as to its redeeming value. How sad.

 

[Sean]

And yet you sit through the show for little purpose other than to cast your dissenting vote as to its redeeming value. How sad.

Actually, I tend to be doing something else and can't be arsed putting any effort into posting on Lit. The same old arguments, the same intransigent morons. It's a wonder I can overcome the ennui enough to post anything, to be honest.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Thanks, I thought it was chuckle-worthy.


We also went through "this" with electronic calculators....and before that, Ish probably remembers when slide rulers weren't allowed in class during Trig tests.

You're slipping.

The use of the abacus while calculating taels of silver...

 

[BabblingBrooke]

We did not have cell phones and somehow, we managed to survive.

We passed notes, which we wrote during class while pretending to take notes. Or at least this is what my peers did. We did the same thing, just the low tech version.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I don't care if my students have their phones in hand at all times. They cannot pass my classes that way and the few who try end up staring at a big 0 on the wall when final grades come out.

It falls to the teacher to stay ahead of technology and for exams to be tech-proof.

Of course, they're paying a lot of money to sit in my class so if they want to waste it, that's their privilege.

What do you teach?

Discipline.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We never had to worry about locking doors or being allowed to wander around after school after walking home from school...



Nowadays, that sort of free-range activity gets CPS called in to see if the parents should be usurped and the children taken over by the State.

 

[may_I_please]

Missed 5 pages and can't be bothered

 

[Sean Renaud]

Our daughter has since graduated but yes, a phone should not be out in the classroom. She was there to learn and not play on her phone. She had a hard enough time following math, without the distraction of texts and FB.

If she had it out and was using it, I am fine with the teacher taking it from her. In fact I think one did. They took it for the day. I said, to bad.

We did not have cell phones and somehow, we managed to survive.

You lived in a simpler world. Your parents (or grandparents at least) didn't have phones go back a little farther and they didn't have television, cars or even radio. They didn't explode though. Can we have a better reason?

We passed notes, which we wrote during class while pretending to take notes. Or at least this is what my peers did. We did the same thing, just the low tech version.

The question, at least in respect to the original post is how disruptive are you to class. You were probably WORSE than your modern counterparts. Passing notes often required students in between you and there instead of the modern day version.

 

[BabblingBrooke]

The question, at least in respect to the original post is how disruptive are you to class. You were probably WORSE than your modern counterparts. Passing notes often required students in between you and there instead of the modern day version.

Right, passing it down the row required every student in the row to participate and they all became aware. Shooting a note (folded up like a paper football) across the classroom distracted most.

Important fact, I just tried and can still fold a piece of paper like I did for school notes. It's apparently like riding a bike.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I have mad origami skills!

 

[Sean Renaud]

Eat an entire bushel of cocks. I tried to make a fortune teller (that crab claw thingy) and to call my endevour an epic failure is to down grade epic from Godzilla to pessismitic lizard.

 

[BabblingBrooke]

Botched my first fortune teller attempt, but nailed the second!

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

Wow. People are deeply retarded.

Of course kids should have Cell Phones these days. Even if you're stupid enough to buy into Ishy's little theory of how a school shooting goes down and pretend like his beliefs on gun control don't contradict this the reality is that peace of mind goes a fair way and parents and children who feel that they are "in control" of a situation are simply easier to work with than those in a blind panic. So even if the Cell phone is functionally of no more use than Dumbo's Feather andbody who remembers the movie can tell you, that fucking feather gave an elephant the confidence to fucking fly.

The one day, one week, one year policy one of those things like Zero Tolerance for weapons. It sounds all good and well but I can easily see this falling apart in practice. What qualifies as disrupting a class and why? Is me with my head down texting disruptive to the class? Speaking personally playing Pokemon my gameboy or setting up Dungeons and Dragons quests was what kept me from being disruptive in plenty of classes in high school. Volume off of course just not bothering anybody. Is it ringing a disruption? I would say that it is, but I've been to enough business meetings and seminars to know that asking full grown adults in a professional environment to put their phones on silent or off is apparently asking a great deal because almost without fail ONE does go off. I can only imagine kids being worse. What about just having a seat that happens to be in the wrong location? I know at my old office I had to make a point of leaving my cell in my car on Thursdays because the meeting room had speakers that reacted with my cell. If someone called/texted me even if the fucker was on silent being too close to a speaker would have it flip the fuck out.

Besides how long will it take between now and when the schools figure out that giving kids Ipads (or a similar device) is the common sense approach anyway. I find it baffling they haven't started moving in that direction already.




I doubt it. Those things are illegal for a reason.

Some schools have moved towards tablets.

Keep in mind that this is a thread started by Ish. He never provides a cite or even the name of the district so that someone else could check and see if this really is a district policy.

 

[Sean Renaud]

In this particular case there isn't a lot of reason for him to. Either you think the policy is sound or you don't. A case of it actually happening isn't really important.

 

[Ishmael]

In a Columbine scenario, crisis manager Ish has decided it is preferable to keep ALL parents in the dark so that even the parents of kids who have been safely evacuated can create panic traffic jams on the surface streets around the school and nearby hospitals, thus impeding emergency vehicles.

God forbid a kid got through to his parents and said, "I'm okay, but don't come to school. They've taken us to a church basement a mile away."

Could the parents get that info from the TV? Sure. But now there's a third place they wouldn't know where the kid is if they haven't heard from him directly. Now we potentially have three cars on the street: dad driving to school, mom driving to the hospital and grandpa driving to the church.

Kids still in the danger zone sheltering in place obviously need to turn their GODDAMN PHONES OFF IMMEDIATELY! But that's hardly a reason for kids not to have a cell phone generally or for kids out of danger not to make quick contact with their parents and update them on their condition if the system can handle it.

And as for "blocking important calls that need to go through," I'm sure he isn't talking about dedicated EMS radio frequencies carrying police and fire voice traffic. By definition he has to be talking about "important" calls going through the public telephone network which are somehow still not important enough to have their own dedicated channel.

Hey, Ish! Did you know that you and 23 of your buddies can all chip in and lease a dedicated T-1 for anywhere from $212 to $1,200 a month? That pretty much allows you to bypass ALL public network congestion. In fact, that's a major reason the service is offered. Does it work if your lines are physically cut. No, of course not, but I think you get the idea.

Critical communicators subjecting themselves to the vagaries of the public phone network tend to have their vital links disrupted on Mothers Day as well. Now how stupid is that?

Very well counselor.

First of at no time have I opined as to whether kids should have phones or not. It's a technological fact that many, if not most, do. I'm not distressed at all. Further, my dispute was not about whether the child should have a phone or not, merely the parent(s) that think Columbine is the primary reason for the child to have the phone to begin with. I suspect that that is merely an emotional 'hot button' they've pulled out of their ass and the real reasons have to do with the convenience of the parent. (Not to mention peer pressure, "But Moooooooom,, all the other kids have one!")

The last thing on the first responders minds are head counts, names, or catering to distraught parents. They have far more important things to do and parents and children obsessed with making phone contact are nothing more than an irritation at the least, but mostly a hindrance. I'm certain that they're aware of the anxiety that the parents are feeling, but I would hope that they spent their time concentrating on their job.

So let's focus here, my statement is merely that the 'Columbine' excuse for the kid having a phone to begin with, real or an emotional ploy, is lame.

Ishmael

 

[Lancecastor]

If most of the paticipants in this thread are in 8th Grade and posting while in school, who should they fear more...

Teacher.... Or Laurel?

 

[kbate]

If most of the paticipants in this thread are in 8th Grade and posting while in school, who should they fear more...

Teacher.... Or Laurel?

That depends where the participant lives and attends school. In Texas, Florida, South Carolina and Montana, the teacher is packing and might just kill them for pulling out a phone, especially if it has a gun-shaped .gif as its background. In most states, they should fear Laurel, who will ban them for thinking about sex, running with scissors or tweeting without permission.