Published: August 4, 2008
Print
EmailKatie Spruill, a rising 10th grader at Grassfield High School in Chesapeake, has seen a teenager’s nightmare come true: A teacher takes away a cell phone.
Hers hasn’t been confiscated because she hasn’t broken the rules, she notes, “but, yeah, it happens a lot.”
“I think the student gets it back at the end of the day,” Katie says. “But if she’s caught with one in class again, she gets ISS (in-school suspension), I think. Fellow students also bring Ipods to school, and they’re supposed to be locked way in a locker, just like cell phones. Usually they are – but sometimes not. And more than a few times, students have broken into lockers and stolen Ipods, cell phones and other electronics."
“The same thing happens with shoes, though,” Katie notes. “So they’d have to tell you to not bring anything, even pencils, if they wanted to stop the stealing that goes on.”
Katie and what she estimates to be about 80 percent of her fellow students with cell phones and MP3 players are all in the same boat: They’ve never known a time without texting and tomes of tunes at their finger tips. As a member of a sports team, Katie likes to have music to listen to on long bus rides to games, and her phone makes it much easier to coordinate after-game carpooling with her mother.
She’d hate to go without either – like students in Norfolk must. But a committee of leaders and teachers in Chesapeake was thinking about banning cell phones completely from schools after rumors spread by cell phone this past spring about a big fight at Western Branch. According to a report in The Virginian-Pilot, hundreds of students stayed home or were picked up early on the rumored day.
Now the Chesapeake School Board is talking about standardizing its policy, because it appears that schools are enforcing rules about electronics inconsistently. Parents, stayed tuned for an updated policy as the Board works on this issue.
It appears Virginia Beach recently updated its policy, too. Its web site notes, under a banner of 2008-2009 school year, that students in high school are allowed to have phones, but they must be turned off and stored in a locker.
Virginia Beach parent Ivan Sanchez is not happy with the school system’s policy. His youngest daughter had her phone confiscated at Corporate Landing Middle School this past year. “In my opinion this is the school system not catching up to modern technologies that would allow rapid communication in case there is an emergency in school,” Ivan says. “In addition…my wife and I have found ourselves stuck in traffic behind a traffic accident unable to tell our young pre-teen that we were running late. I believe this leaves the child in an uncompromising and even dangerous position.”
Ivan would still like the schools to adopt a broader policy. Even when his older daughter at Landstown High School was allowed to have a cell phone in her possession but couldn’t use it, he worried.
“Knowing my daughter has a cell phone on her at all times brings me a great deal of comfort knowing if an emergency was to arise in her school, such as a school shooting, she’d be able to call for help,” Ivan says. “[But] the school states even in the case of an emergency the students must use a classroom phone to call for assistance. However, to me, that’s not realistic. What if, God forbid, there was a shooting and you heard it while you were in the bathroom? Shouldn’t the student be equipped to call for help?”
This concerned father is right: We’re blessed as a society to have cell phones. Sure, some children will allow themselves to be distracted by them during class. Some will use them to cheat. Some will steal their classmates’ cool, new phones.
But these are the same kids who would be distracted by anything, or would cheat another way, or steal something else.
The answer is to allow the phones in class, turned off during instruction and to vibrate between class and during lunch, and to welcome MP3 players and other small electronics during free time, too – with the exception that head phones are used. Any rule breaking, stealing or abuse of technology (spreading rumors/taking inappropriate pictures) should be severely punished – with all students made aware of the rules by signing a contract.
Virginia Beach’s web site has a message from the schools’ superintendent: “I would also like to ask every parent to discuss with your children that sending threatening text messages intended to cause harm to students and staff, via a cell phone or posting them on a social networking site, has serious consequences.” He’s off to a good start.
Parents must also promise to be patient and not expect their child to respond to a text or return a call until the child is out of class. Having parents sign a waiver, too, upholding the rules and recognizing that there’s little that the school can do about electronics theft might help.
Then teachers and administrators should tap into today’s technology and look for new lessons to teach and new ways to teach them.
PBS.org published a story in May on cell phones in school, and a student from New Zealand chimed to share how his teachers have used the technology creatively:
“My English teacher once told us to convert a poem into txt language,” he shared in the comments section. “My art teacher gave us homework to take a photo of our hand next to a plant with our camera phones and bring them to school and draw the captured image. Surprise! Everyone did their homework!”
Technology can also shorten the generation gap:
Amanda E. Brooker, manager of school and community relations and a lacrosse coach for the Green Bay Area Public School District, texts her captains when she needs to change their practice schedule – and the students love that she’s embraced the new technology.
And Margo Balinski, a former Missouri public school teacher for 12 years, wasn’t a huge fan of electronics in the classroom, but even she found a way to use it to her advantage:
“When I taught 5th grade, sometimes we would have a reward we worked toward for good behavior. Students could pick what they wanted the reward to be, and sometimes they chose bringing electronic games or music to school,” Margo explains. “It also encourages students to work toward something they really want since many of them are consumed with their electronics, and they want to bring them to school to share with their friends.”
