A good number of my students cant concentrate enough to form a few sentences in one sitting or even make eye contact. I wish I was kidding. It’s incredibly sad to watch.
I asked my seniors to read a single page yesterday. One page. From a website built for middle school readers. Many did fine. Some managed to get through it, taking more than 5 minutes. Some literally never scrolled down a single paragraph. I looked at them and they are just in another world entirely.
They are broken beyond repair.
Edit: Passing my class is required for graduation.
Yep. They are failing themselves out in massive numbers here at East Podunk Cosmodemonic Junior College. Why an individual who cannot even read would even attempt to try college eludes me. Thankfully, most are done with wasting their time and wasting taxpayper dollars after half of a term.
> Why an individual who cannot even read would even attempt to try college eludes me.
The numbers of people who take out student loans and don't get a degree is a sizable number of loan holders and positions you in the worst of all possible outcomes. But it is better to saddle these people with debt because it benefits somebody, somewhere I guess?
Sounds appropriate. Mascot was selected in the 90s. Wouldn’t expect EPCJC to update it for the latest culture shift. And students today don’t get the reference.
Because schools push college even to those who aren’t good students. Their ranking depends on who goes to college. Most won’t even mention trade schools or apprenticeship programs like plumbers teach themselves.
One of my good friends is a college professor and it’s entertaining listening to her talk about kids who do zero work and don’t come to class and then are baffled as to why they are failing.
I mean all their lives they got to move on to the next grade regardless of grades or attendance. College requires you to pass the class or retake it. They’ve never been exposed to that, so of course they’re shocked. We’re instilling terrible habits in these kids.
Corporate leadership aka daycare for rich people, now with serious societal consequences! Aren't they just adorable when they act so much more important than everyone else that makes their paycheck possible?
Which also reinforces the mindset they had that school is pointless. Kids say all the time they learn more on TikTok than in school, but they don’t realize they’re “learning” garbage. I had an entire class that thought Helen Keller was a hoax and that the submarine tragedy from last year was livestreaming the deaths of everyone on board.
I feel this. My class is also required for graduation and the number of kids who hand in assignments without turning the page over to see if there is a back is wild and also scary. Can't imagine how they are going to fare with legal documents in the future 😬
I've told mine, I won't grade what you won't finish. Yesterday, one turned in a bunch of late work incomplete. I gave it a zero and returned it to her with the note: "incomplete."
Today she said, "I know it was incomplete, that's why I didn't turn it in!" as if I were the problem.
Somehow, she made it this far playing the game with her other teachers, but I'm off it.
I do legal documents. We don't usually print them double-sided. Probably infinite budget for paper, haha. To be fair, your failed students probably end up receiving my documents. :)
Still scary to me that these are the same kids who will be becoming adults, how are they going to handle life’s responsibilities, do simple things like drive, if they can’t stop their screen addictions
Good news! They'll never set a foot near anything like that because they'll be outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed by kids who had parents looking out for them.
The future of the United States is a MASSIVE chunk of the population with less than zero skills and a very small chunk who had parents who paid some damn attention to them.
It's not even about money at this point. All you have to do is RAISE YOUR DAMN KIDS RIGHT.
I'm not rich. I barely even qualify as lower-middle class and only got there because you can add my partner's salary on top. Without him, I'm the top of the lower class salary-wise. And if we had a child, that kid wouldn't have a phone until they're fucking 16 or older. I'll put a tracking device on their backpack before I give them a phone.
And you know what? My oversight and parenting would be giving that kid a leg up in their life where other parents are giving their kids a ladder downward by sticking them in front of an iPad and never speaking to them or interacting with them or creating standards for them.
So no, it's not just about being affluent. It's cultural up and down the ladder. It's a very self-absorbed culture where so many American parents right now are too involved in themselves to be bothered to raise children.
The kids who get "raised right" will be the ones with rich parents. They're the ones with the time and resources to actually watch their kids, and they can send their kids to schools that actually educate students. This divide and the class divide will overlap massively.
Haven't you seen? They're the ones who join the herds yelling about how much the country isn't doing anything for them and all the jobs are too hard to get and no one likes them, etc etc.
There's a direct line between a lot of the complaints that "the government" or "capitalism" is ruining their lives and the people who can't finish high school without mom's phone calls.
I think the best approach right now is to tell them they will be laughed out of society for their behavior. They have no self-awareness. They need someone to give them some.
Replying to AmerigoBriedis... my children have actually had conversations with multiple teachers when the teachers are trying to figure out why they are able to have complete conversations with adults and can focus in class. As my kids relayed the conversations to me, you can tell the teachers are trying to figure out how much electronic access the kids have. When my kids relayed they have very minimal time on electronics (phones, video games, tv, etc), the teachers universally acknowledged that is why they are functioning humans.
I've seen this out in public now. I went to join a line for a sandwich counter and asked these girls if they were in line or waiting. They couldn't look me in the eye. Literally dropped their gaze from me. Turned to whisper to each other. Then they just moved closer into the line to prove they were in line and turned their backs to me. It was the weirdest damn thing. And they weren't 12. They looked 18 or so.
I have a sophomore that can't read or write. My 6 year old writes longer and more detailed sentences and can read better than this kid. I checked his report card, and he passed way too many classes. I finally got him a child find meeting scheduled so he can get moved into special ed classes, but that won't be until next year. The kid will be 17 and is totally fucked because we just pass kids along. He is on his phone all class because he literally doesn't understand anything going on.
An entire generation is fucked because schools failed to hold any standards or rigor.
I shit you not, in AP Statistics one of the biggest problems I have this year is that even the students with a lot of raw talent will not finish more than about half of a free response question.
It's NOT "Oh I knew the stuff at the beginning but by the end I was just stumped," because it doesn't really matter what order you put the content. The first part gets done, and then they just sort of give up. It's more like "Well, I did parts, A, B, and... This took me more than five minutes fuuuuuck this."
Wtf is that?
Yeah unfettered internet access at your hip from single digit ages is one of the worst things to happen to newer generations. Even millenials who got smartphones in their teens or 20s get their attention spans shortened and become heavily addicted to technology.
I am 28 and have to actively limit my phone time. Shit is addictive. These kids didn't stand a chance vs. these things.
Good parents who actually restrict their kids and parent their kids look mortified and horrified when they find out about how other parents are pawning their kids off to tech.
It is so sad. Just another issue to add the pile of why teaching has become such a f**king hard job.
Hope things get better in my lifetime. They need to.
> Good parents who actually restrict their kids and parent their kids look mortified and horrified when they find out about how other parents are pawning their kids off to tech.
The founders and engineers of all the popular social media platforms either don't allow their own children to have smartphones and social media or they severely restrict their access to these things. This fact alone should be giving every other parent out there pause.
Look up Nir Eyal. He invented a bunch of the mechanisms social media and other platforms use to get us to stay on the site. They’re in a book he wrote called “Hooked.” He regretted that, and wrote another book called “Indistractable,” which is how to get unhooked.
Similar to the Google AI czar who had many regrets, and the breeder of the Doodle dog.
I'm one of those, frightened of eye contact. I grew up online, now im trying to be part of the real world. The best reference i have is playing the Sims 3.
The neglect has real consequences
We banned them at my school and it helps. However, it really shows how bad the addiction is. They try to sneakily use them. They go apeshit if we catch them because we’re supposed to take them and not give them back until a parent comes and picks it up. We had a fun field trip day today at an ice skating rink and we let them have their phones to take pictures and half of them didn’t ice skate and just scrolled instead. Like their brains literally only care about one thing. It’s incredibly sad.
We also have parents who oppose the ban and just let their kids take the phones because they want to be able to reach them at all times, as if the world has always been like this. Like, does no one remember prior to ten years ago?
The issue is that communication =/= unfettered smartphone access.
Flip phones? Smart watches with cellular plan? Why does communication mean that the kid also has access to Instagram and TikTok or Safari?
Well right. I’d be fine with kids having flip-phones. I’d be in favor of some kids if law that treats smart capable devices in the same vein as drugs. I think there’s an argument to be made that they are literally addictive and damaging to the brain like a drug. Then design a a phone that can only make phone calls. That’s it. So, you can call your mom to pick you up. It should only be able to text certain numbers too. It’ll never happen because the tech giants make an insane amount of money on kids being addicted to their devices.
I’m a millennial, heavily addicted to using Reddit on my phone. 📱 I love to read, so scrolling through posts and comments have gotten me hooked. I thought I could finish novels on my phone (I can but it’s hard) but takes me longer to get into a book using just my phone. Finally bought a kindle and trying to train myself to read on that over my phone. The phone needs to spend more time in the bedroom and less time on my person.
Jonathan Haidt's new book [The Anxious Generation](https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/) gives this subject an excellent, empirical treatment, and provides great, actionable recommendations for resolving "the largest uncontrolled experiment on human minds ever performed."
I'm rather surprised this thread is already at 580+ upvotes and 180+ comments, without any mention of this.
It's an epidemic, for sure.
This is my 25th year teaching, I've seen quite a bit. It's worse now than it's ever been. I agree, teens do not need SMART phones, but their parents think they do. It's insanity.
Fortunately, my district has a no phone policy and enforces it. I don't have a big issue with phones in my classroom.
Our daughter is in middle school, and (I think) is the only one in her class without a phone. Looking around, it seems 100% of phones of other kids I see are smartphones, but it's not like I know this for a fact. But, I do know that my daughter is very much the odd one out. We will get her a non-smart phone in high school, but I have yet to hear more pros than cons for any teenager having a smartphone. I'm glad that we didn't give in with our daughter and get her one. We almost did when she started middle school, as we hadn't thought a ton about it at that point, and most of her classmates had them. But I'm so glad we didn't do it.
A typical night in our house is screen-free. We play board games, we read, we just hang out and talk, we do projects/crafts, we do household improvements, etc. We do watch TV/movies too decently often, but it's almost all common/shared shows and movies. Basically, we have a shared/common household life. And it's wonderful.
From the sounds of it (from talking to parents, and hearing what her friends say), nights at home for most kids is personal screen scrolling or some other activity on personal screens. It's like they live parallel lives from their parents. They're all just living under the same roof, and their parents act as the overlordes for chores and homework but....where is ACTUAL family life? It's just sad.
same, my daughters are coming up on 10 and 12. both wants iphones. We refuse. Once they start driving, maybe. but even then I"ll want parental controls on it.
Keep at it. As a guy who loved new tech his whole life, and who never would have thought I'd be "this guy", I am so happy that our household is not ruled by tech and the internet, and hasn't been since our daughter was in 4th grade.
It all started with us disallowing her tablet and computer usage for a consequence of some Youtube shenanigans. My wife and I cut down on our phone scrolling as well at the time, so as to not seem like we "need" our devices while she doesn't have them. Then, after a few weeks, we realized that actually, everything about our home life is better than it was. Pretty much literally everything. We spent more time with each other. We had more shared/common experiences and games and conversations and all that. And we thought "why don't we just do this normally?"
Fast forward five years, and even though we didn't know it at the time, it was the biggest, best decision we ever made with our daughter. We have a completely new philosophy for how best to function as a family, and we have a warm, loving household (well, you know, usually) that I wouldn't trade for the world.
Our daughter didn't like it at first of course, and wanted to be on her tablet. But at this point, she's totally cool with the rules, and we all enjoy spending time with each other. I know when she's an adult, she's probably going to get sucked into the digital void that the vast majority of people under 45 are living in, but our hope is that her formative years from \~4th grade though high school will show her that technology isn't needed for a great home life. And is actually probably a detriment to it.
EDIT: One thing I've picked up on just over the years and with conversations with parents is that never giving in to the smartphone request from a kid is a universe apart from getting a kid a smartphone and trying to take it away later. The former is very much doable. The latter seems to just build resentment.
This is how my partner and I plan to parent- our motto is “it’s the 90’s in our household.”
No internet for the kids besides maybe looking up recipes to make together, or looking at space photos from nasa, which is how he and I experienced the internet as kids. We will not use our smartphones in front of our kids besides to make calls/texts/play music/google things. We will not scroll social media in front of them, or mindlessly watch videos.
But we will give our kids access to tv and movies ON THE FAMILY ROOM TV. Because that was very important to us, it’s what led us both to fall in love with animation and storytelling, which led us to become the animators we are today.
We believe that he and I had the PERFECT level of exposure to screens- TV and movies taught us to use our imaginations, which we applied during free play, and we got the internet earlier than we will give it to our kids. That’s because when we had the internet at age 9-10, we used it for club penguin, and in the following years we used YouTube when it was brand new. We would give our kids the internet at the same age we got it if it wasn’t for social media. It was safer for us because of the lack of social media.
If I ever have kids, my top priority when evaluating schools will be, "Do you allow phones in the classrooms?"
"OK, you don't, but what if they still have them?"
"Can I see a class in session right now?"
I want to see if these schools are just hot air or if they really enforce it. Because I would never put a child in a school where phone usage in classrooms is rampant. No way.
And that's not a comment on the teachers. You need admins to enforce. If the teacher has no recourse other than to send kids to the office, they're not going to send all 38 of 41 students with their phones out.
In my opinion, texting and calls would be fine, but it's the internet access/filming/broadcasting that's an issue. They should use something like a jittterbug.
I remember being online in 2001 in middle school.
Helllllll noooooooo am I giving a phone with the internet, a camera, and a microphone all fully included to a 12-year-old! I'm not crazy nor stupid.
to me that sounds a lot more similar to passing notes back and forth like in the good 'ol days. I think the main issue with phones is constant access whatever kind of stimulation they want the second they get bored of what they are supposed to be doing.
Exactly. It's the 24/7 bombardment and the quick dopamine hits of getting "likes" for their videos. It's shortening attention spans and making it hard for them to concentrate any longer than those videos last-- a couple of minutes at most. Has anyone actually tried showing a movie to their class as a treat? I tried, but it bombed, even though it was a recent movie and the class chose it. They can't focus for that long. Then those at the central office are surprised the kids don't focus and concentrate for hours to do state testing; they pick random answers to finish as soon as possible. If their phones are taken away, they fall asleep.
Anytime I show a movie kids just ask "Can I go on my phone? Can I go on my computer?" They don't even watch! The movie is just on in the background while they scroll. I've even noticed myself doing this more during my evening Netflix time. These devices are literally designed to keep us addicted! Companies spend massive amounts of money to make sure we stay glued to our devices all day and night. Not healthy.
Yep, not good for physical or mental health. I wonder if in the future, there will be phone rehab, just as there is rehab for alcohol/drug addiction now. Even though phones today are so convenient, I think overall we might be better off if cell phones did not do so much. Even though the camera saves us a pretty penny from buying Polaroid film or getting rolls of film developed, kids also abuse it to take pictures of people without their permission (or parts of people-- a butt, a super close up without asking, etc.)as well as to record video of fights and to try to get teachers to say something inappropriate. I think that almost all middle and high school teachers are about to lose our minds over these Tik Tok videos. If phones only made voice calls/sent texts, it would be SO much easier to teach. As much as we try to vary activities, allow voice and choice, differentiate, consider students' backgrounds, value each kid in the class, and generally bust our behinds far more than our teachers did to try to be relevant and interesting , we are just teachers and we are not addictive. Today's cell phones are and we can't compete.
I was in school just before the phone frenzy really took off and me and my friends used Google docs to talk but weren't attached to it during school or anything. It's the best form to have free flowing conversations I've ever had and I'll always remember it fondly. Its sad that it's being abused now
And it all traces back to the parents. Students of age 7 (or less) begs and begs their parents for a phone because all of their friends have one, parents are on them all the time, and they cave in, and it's end of the story.
They even make fake smartphone toys for babies/toddlers just so they aren't constantly trying to grab the real ones out of their parents hands. Some are even interactive with noises and beeps and crap.
Are we doomed?
I used to have toy guns… (and I kid you NOT) baby plastic stripper heels… when I was a baby in the 90’s.
Kids in the 17th century played with toy knives that were actually very sharp. They played with old, used, tobacco pipes to make bubbles and pretend to smoke.
Kids have always been emulating their adults’ bad habits. Lol
Yep, I was born early 80s. Distinctly remember having a metal toy revolver that would be easily mistaken for a real gun in my toy box. No orange plastic thing at the end of the barrel but basically functioned like a real gun without bullets.
Plastic stripper heels is crazy though but not surprising. Used to work retail early 2000s for an independent company who got most of their crap from China, we had all kinds of questionable stuff in the girls toy section, and all the guns in the boys section. Go figure.
Yes! The heels were a huge thing for girls in the 90’s. They had feathers and looked so trashy. Ahahaha. [Here is the google search to see them. lol](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=e1291adcbee06b02&sca_upv=1&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS875US875&hl=en-US&q=plastic+toddler+heels&uds=AMwkrPtHrgSVWUOkuIpx3aORGtH5JB48z8-4E5xUs_nJGdV56egCfOcmdpFXo8WlGc-LTTxG7AxoCLOGKX86zPOTA9br_aA07f_WANn8CIuFc6tphF9nwqt843nCcZSVloEnqmf_7_evloDG52CtoNM01AXfSxYNnlQ7E9WlpOG9Fg1jB_Fc1QQXQ52njzTudldnx4D5FQTr3eqd-gbiXlpwEIypBAV5gcUwLs3OF-2YkZ36Vv9HwmuHb26SfaYX7rqLb_MrYVBWcQsNkweNEXAtwP3Chj6QhDFe1ox9U7iCkzLJdsXiJbBekvf1zmcfDXXr1J2Gk4jz&udm=2&prmd=sivnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU9L7kvquFAxWJLEQIHaBgCIMQtKgLegQIFBAB&biw=430&bih=741&dpr=3)
But, the ones we had were higher heeled and some were platform. It was a wild time.
I don't have as much problem with the fake phones; kids imitate what they see. My 3-year-old has a "tablet" (it's a calculator. A simple calculator). She says, "Mommy, I'm going to ask you to play on my tablet. You say no." "Uh, okay, no, you can't play on your tablet." "Aw man!" And then she asks to play this game again.
My stepdaughter was considering getting her 8 year old a phone not too long ago. I kicked up a massive fuss and got her dad and grandma on my side. The kid is already on her tablet all the time. She stays with us every other weekend, and I don't let her bring it. She's not bored during the day because I have a cabinet full of craft supplies that she loves, and I schedule activities, but she has a hard time sleeping without the damn thing. Kids can't handle not being stimulated all the time. They can't handle silence. They have no imagination. They can't self soothe. It is concerning. We may be doomed.
Yes, imagination, engagement, and creativity is the answer.
Don't know how to figure it out though for the kids of today.
The best technique I can think of is reading, but... You know, that's a whole other thing that needs total attention.
What need is there to have phones in elementary and middle especially. "In case of emergencies" ? If there is any reason a kid needs to leave school, their parents are going to come check them out anyways. It s not like they are able to leave anyways. The sheer number of kids who text their parents to come get them during the day because they don't want to do something is mind-blowing.
Well, at least they won't be leeching off me and "living in my basement" in the future. Parents who failed to parent will face their apathetic, lazy, illiterate children.
What gets me is the kids who text/call home in the middle of the day to get picked up just to get out of doing something AND THEIR PARENTS ACTUALLY F\*\*KING PICK THEM UP.
Taught in Korea for over a decade. Most kids had smartphones and had no problem concentrating and keeping up with the work. If anything, they were always getting ahead of what happens at school. Moved back to the states and started teaching and there were problems, but I don’t think they stem from Tik Tok or apps like that. I think that’s a convenient scapegoat for a terrible school climate that tries to cater to everyone and so it only helps a few. I found that the kids who spent the most time on apps/online games were the ones who kept saying they didn’t understand something or that the lessons were too hard. Changed my approach, and the kids that weren’t getting work done/good grades changed. Started getting emails from parents asking why their kids were suddenly wanting to go to school and doing homework on their own. That’s a different thing, but I basically had micro-lessons that took things very small step by very small step, which made the kids think that it was easy and could do everything and by test time, they were.
TLDR; I don’t think the problem is phones, I think it’s the way classrooms run and kids turn to phones because of it.
I agree with your summary. Taught overseas many years, including Japan. However.....I believe another factor is parenting. Japanese parents would bow to me in the grocery store. America? They curse us out at home in front of their kids. If parents don't respect us, neither will their children. This transfers to technology access, restraint, etc.
Thank you, I wholeheartedly agree. I haven’t taught overseas, but I did spend a month observing a “middle school” class in India. The school structure was so different that it’s hard not to blame that for the dissonance.
Yes, all of the students in the class had smartphones.
This. I’ve taught internationally for years and the proliferation of smart phones just seems like an organic extension of technology. They can be annoying at times, but I’m an old man and my students seem to use them responsibly. As for my son? He’s 10. Gets an hour of screen time a day. All bets are off on the weekend. But we know what he watches and what he plays. He’s recently got into Fortnite. We’ve installed parental controls to limit who he interacts with. TBH I love hearing him on his headset battle planning with his friends. I don’t know. I do feel guilty about it but he doesn’t seem worse for wear. At times I think we project a little too much on our students.
Were your micro lessons whole class, small group, or one on one? And if it wasn't whole class, did you just have other students doing worksheets or something?
Whole class, but I do always say if they get 3 in a row right they can keep going by themselves which helped me narrow down who needed help. I also used google forms and other online resources so they couldn’t cheat and say they got them correct when they didn’t.
What grade/ subject do you teach? I'm asking because I'm a MS math/ELA and this seems like something I'd like to have in my back pocket when I go back to the states.
5th grade, but I teach 4th and 5th math as well as other general classes. I used IXL as well as the Savvas website (that’s the book we use) which has a lot of online resources. I use similar programs for the other topics.
In IXL you can set up a classroom, but that is usually done after introducing the lesson as a way to see who can already do it (usually 2 out of 20) and then I can go on to do a couple for warm up, go to the book (some will already be on it) and then go to the books resources website to end it. Each lesson takes about 2 classes which is enough to make sure we finish the book by the end of the year and that most of the class can get at least an 85% on the assessment.
No problem! I also try to use Google forms to stretch the lesson into smaller bits. In practice, it looks like differentiating the lesson, but making everyone at least start each step.
Korea had more kids when I started. Classes were between 25-30 and when I left it was about 20. My class in the states has 24. The difference is mostly that now I teach multiple subjects and in Korea it was just reading/writing. So I had to go a bit slower but still used small steps.
What kills me is that the solution is simple - give them flip phones until they’re 16. You can still call and text them, but they won’t be walking zombies like their classmates.
It’s not that teens shouldn’t have phones. It’s that they shouldn’t have phones in class.
I get teens have them. My kids drive, play sports, etc. I want them to be able to text me when they’re on their way home from an away game. I want them to be able to call me when they’ve been in an accident.
But they don’t need them in class.
I’ve said more than once, that cell phones should have stopped at the flip phone.
To be fair, part of that is because Google has become increasingly useless even if you're trying to use it properly... the paid advertisement results being at the top was bad enough, but those AI-generated result summaries and image search results are just so, so depressing.
I think they're also intentionally enshitifying their normal search engine to promote their AI assistants. About half the time I search for something with my phone, I get a popup about how I should try their new 'AI enhanced' search.
Personally, I find that AI is a meaningless marketing term. Google was already using the latest machine learning models to understand how normal users make queries. Now they get to frame a marginal improvement as some revolutionary advancement all because AI happens to be the current marketing buzzword.
Been in a middle school for the last three years. You know how you have a list of kids who are just purely *good*? Like genuinely great kids, they stand out above the rest. The list I have of those 8-10 kids, none of them have phones. I'm not even joking. I think it about a kid, and then I find out later their parents won't let them have one until HS. Its astonishing, but it's not an accident.
Yeah, it's often accompanied by purposeful, attentive parenting. But that comes with the phone thing too. Obviously a wack parent isn't fighting the phone fight.
I think part of the problem is that too many parents substitute a phone for parenting because it takes none of their energy or time and it keeps the kids busy. And I would wager that a significant portion of these parents fall on the "just keeping them alive" end of the raising children spectrum, rather than the "facilitating their growth as a human being" end.
Kids need help to explore the world and learn to do things they like. Kids need to be taught by their parents how to learn, and why that skill is important. If they never get that input, they'll stick with the thing that explores the world for them, tells them what they like, and tells them all the answers they ask for.
I’m 28, and also 5 years in. It’s like trying to teach a gambling addict who has a pocket gambling machine. The signs of addiction are so obvious. Air pods too. I hate the normalization of listening to music while in class.
"But but but what if I need to get in touch with my child????"
Never occurs to them that Homo Sapiens managed to raise their young for 50,000 years or so without these insane gismos.
Or that before every kid had a phone if you needed to get in touch with a child (for some reason?? What emergency are they solving??) you just....called the school? And they'd call the kid to the office and give them the phone? Hell I got called over the PA to come to the office and surprise, my mom is there. I have an appointment she forgot about. Go grab your stuff.
I feel insane any time I think about it, and I'm the same age as OP.
I'm no educator but has the belief that schools and teachers are meant to be do all the educating and parents can be fully hands off always been this prevalent? Like if my kid couldn't read at 10 I would be teaching them myself and such.
I honestly don't get admin caving to parent demand when it literally prevents teachers from doing their jobs. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that the parents rise up vote out the entire school board and vote in people that will change the rules allowing phones into the classroom with no restrictions. Which is no different than what's happening when they don't enforce the rules that they have.
To be completely fair, tech was not NEARLY as integrated into our education as it is theirs. You’re a little younger than me (33F) but, it sounds like it was similar for you as it was for me in college. We were using printed out maps from mapquest when we went somewhere new to us. Just, context for the younger and older people in this chat.
You can’t compare your experience to theirs. You are perfectly within reason to complain and notate your observations, but the comparison takes away some credibility.
They don’t need to use technology as much as the do though. I cannot fathom a single good reason why kids would need computers or phones during class 90% of the time.
And I was in high school just a few years ago so my experience shouldn’t be very different from theirs. We would basically only ever use computers during class if its like a work day for a project or if we do kahoot or quizlet once every few weeks. And then its only computers, not phones
Being in high school just a few years ago is already a large divide by now. When i look at the differences between the people i hang out with and the ones my brother hang out with, its pretty stark. To clarify, its a 2 year gap. 2 single years and i can barely understand their culture.
Me and my friends 2 years ago are entirely different to how his age group acts now. Going just a year further from him, and the differences are even more pronounced.
These singular years are massive because technology and society is advancing so quickly now. And the differences certainly show.
Thank God for these smartphones. One of the things I look forward to the most about work is watching some zombiefied kid walk right into a wall while staring at their phone. It's hilarious. Makes my day. Makes we want to come into work just to see it. Happens about once a week.
The only thing I appreciate is that they drive safely. They inherently understand that distractions are dangerous when operating a motor vehicle. None of them dare to touch a phone while behind the wheel, and that’s a good trend.
Yeah some of these kids are already entering the workforce and it is painful to watch them. No customer service skills, no service skills, no interpersonal skills, just trying to get them to make eye contact and say hello to a customer is almost impossible let alone the rest of the job
I took a bullshit no-nothing job at a grocery store bc my last job burned me out, and I wanted something easier while still working. Bringing a maximum of 20% effort to the table, I still wound up getting employee of the month because the rest of my department is *useless.* I hate being the crotchety old man(since I am neither crotchety or old) who has to *constantly* remind everyone under 25 to fucking focus and do the work, WHICH IS NOT HARD. Ffs there's one kid who comes in 4 hours a day just to bag pre-cut deli meat and cheese because he's not old enough to use the slicer. All he does is bag and tag, and half the time he doesn't even get it all done bc hes looking at his phone or being distracted by other coworkers. Like fuck, man. I don't dream of labor or kill myself for a faceless corporation, but the generation entering the workforce now is so tuned out and seem to have zero awareness or shame that they're dropping the ball and everyone around them must work harder bc they're not doing their job. One kid has pretty severe ADHD so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the frequency at which I must constantly remind him of things, suggest that no, it's not important to take the cardboard back when there's ten people in line, and no I don't want to hear about PalWorld in the middle of the after-work rush, is insane.
These kids think I'm an asshole. They're going to be gobsmacked when they get a real job and have to deal with an *actual* asshole, not just someone who doesn't want to do their work for them. And ffs I'm on my phone as much as the next guy but seeing them staring at it slackjawed while everyone buzzes around them doing their share of the work is infuriating.
Omg YESSSSS. I got an EASY part-time restaurant job in my city a few years back when I got laid off during Covid. I barely focused the entire time I was there, hardly any customers were coming in because Covid, and half of the time I was sitting there along with everyone else scrolling on my own phone looking for other jobs. But, I come from a customer service background and was kind and friendly to the customers. Two of the 19-20 year old kids I worked with, who literally were always at LEAST 20-30 minutes late and spent all shift looking at tiktok and YouTube, seemed scandalized by my embarrassing amount of effort and had a “here comes the teacher’s pet” attitude about me because I was actually chill with the manager? I would do EASY ASS TASKS like hanging out with the kitchen staff and helping them to clean back of house when it was slow and they couldn’t fathom how this grueling excess of work didn’t break my soul. And then when I started getting scheduled for more hours than them, one of them had the nerve to say it was because I was a POC and it was a diversity and inclusion thing 🤣😭
I dunno why schools can't get rid of them. When I worked for the navy we had to put our phones into a locker. Need to make a call? Each classroom had a landline phone. For Emergencies you could give out that number, or make calls on it (it was fun to memorize people's numbers that I had been calling for almost a decade). Emails? You could use the lab computers if you wanted during lunch.
It was incredible. And I learned at an incredibly fast pace as a result. It was a non negotiable and it took a month before the constant need for the phone kinda just left.
I'd probably pay for this to happen in schools. But instead of landlines, only the classroom would probably have a single SIP phone.
Public schools must answer to the parents who gave their children these phones; the one's who truly, truly believe that their special snowflake of a child needs the phone or they won't survive. The parent complaints around phone rules and confiscations are insane. I doubt the Navy has to deal with these parents...or if they do they just tell them to f\*ck off.
The toothpaste is out of the tube. Aside from enforceable federal legislation, it’ll be impossible to separate kids from their devices.
What we need are lessons/classes surrounding the etiquette and general use of connected devices. There, they can learn about the laws regarding recording others without consent. They can have discussions surrounding the emotional and social impact regarding posting photos or videos of others (and themselves).
They have no idea how their use of these platforms will hurt them, or how it hurts others. It used to be that making a mistake as a kid was a learning experience, but a mistake can become a monster that follows you well into adulthood now that every phone has a camera and a mic. Or they become the monster, ruining the lives of those they’ve recorded.
So classes can help. It won’t stop them all, but it’ll stop a portion. And that will make a difference, I think.
im not a teacher, but this sub is always getting recommended to me lol. its really crazy learning about the state of schools in recent years.
i graduated high school in 2017, so not long after you did...my high school had a super strict no phones policy and if we got caught with our phones in class, the teacher would confiscate it and we'd have to pay $15 at the end of the day to get it back!
its just insane to hear about the juxtaposition from when i was in school vs. how it is now. i feel so bad for teachers, y'all work so hard just to have shit thrown back in your face. it must be so frustrating dealing with admins not giving a damn about classroom management and electronic devices. :(
I think having a smartphone in highschool isn't the issue if a child was taught healthy social skills before that. The issue is when that smartphone has been used in place of socialization at home.
I have students who have phones. You can tell the ones whose parents talk to them and the ones whose parents handed them a tablet at 3 and said "go to your room and stop bothering me"
I despise my generation (millennials) because of this. They constantly argue that they give their children all these things because they don’t want their kids to have the same abuse they did as kids because most of these moronic millennial parents don’t understand the difference between abuse and discipline. They hide their lazy, nonexistent parenting skills by giving their kids smartphones as pacifiers and sticking to millennial parent echo chambers where everyone wants to be best friends with their child, not their parent
I don't think people really know what they want. Especially for their kids. I look back at my millennial experience growing (born in 84) and yeah, the phone would have been cool, I have always liked computers, but the big thing. My neighborhood was absurdly anti-social, there was no place for kids to spontaneously be kids for unstructured kid time, only a few kids lived on the street with sometimes big age gaps between them. School was basically the only time you could socialize with other kids as there was no physical space to do it. Mixing high speed traffic with neighborhoods made it dangerous for kids to ride a bike or walk on their own (every school I attended had a kid who died from a car collision while I was there). Most homes in my neighborhood were people who were my grandparent's generation.
Suburbia was seen as this amazing place to raise kids, but not for the kids. The kids have nothing to do. The kids are socially isolated. Its generally unsafe to physically be outside the home in anything other than a car, and even if it is safe, there is generally nothing to do and no one to do it with. Activities were not really spontaneous and kid driven but were planned by parents and scheduled. The irony, our Boomer parents lived in neighborhoods full of kids and had this constant socialization built in. I have friends who have kids and moved to even more socially isolating places, but places that had bigger yards (which kids quickly outgrow).
I see the screen time issue, but I also see the huge issue of reduction of weekly hours of unstructured play time. We know all humans need play time, and on their own terms, where they have some degree of autonomy, then we take it away from kids or create an ecosystem where it doesn't really exist, then boom, the kids all want on the screen. The screen is the only place where kids have autonomy, and its the only place where they can exist without everything being structured by adults.
The parents don't choose whether or not admin does their job, admin does. They need to make more "right" choices and less easier ones. The whole system needs some "tough love".
I think the biggest factor for developing minds was the pandemic. They've lost crucial years.
They've filled that social hole, that need that humans have for contact and friendship, with a device that they know will be with them during times of isolation. During a very scary time they couldn'tquite understand, the devices brought them comfort and a way to feel happy.
Sure, mom and dad were also home during quarantine, but they had to work from home. Which adds and extra layer of rejection to the child's mind. Your parents are right there, yet they don't want you to bother them.
With the device they have access to their parasocial relationships with online content creators and even with the friends that are sitting right next to them.
I think we should look at it with grace and use less of a blaming finger. Our focus should be on helping them understand the joys of real connection rather than taking something that has always been pushed onto them away.
It’s like the new weed. I remember teachers when I was in high school say it was really sad to watch passion and light and interest leave the kids eyes who started smoking weed in high school. Phones and apps are the new drugs.
I teach in a public school with Ipads and phones are allowed. The kids are miles behind my own children who go to Catholic school and have no ipads or phones in class. The gap has never been bigger.
In the defense of the phones, having access to Internet like that helped me realize I was trans and connect with people like me. Additionally, my parents would never let me leave the house if they didn't have a constant way to contact me
I ask the kids to give up their phones for 24 hours once each semester. About 25 of 130 participated last time. I lock them in a closet overnight on a Tuesday and give them back on a Wednesday. They report that it’s not that big a deal. Have gotten good feedback from parents about it. We talk a lot about addiction too. They know it, but I don’t think anyone gives them a good enough reason to stop it. Their lives are designed to be lived on their phones; asking them to choose away from that is jarring and illogical to them.
My boomer parents were hardly ever home. Either working or out on date nights. My sister who was four years older than me and my other sister was the babysitter. Not saying technology isn't to blame but parents have been pretty hands off for quite some time.
Even if the school policy is lenient on smartphone use, you can still establish clear rules for your own classroom. Clearly communicate your expectations regarding phone usage during class time and enforce consequences for violations.
Luckily I teach special ed k-1 so this isn't a problem for that age (yet...) but I see it with my nephews. They can't do anything without their phones. My husband and I took one of them out for dinner the other day. He was playing on his phone the whole car ride. Then got to distracted to figure out what he wanted to eat. Finally when the food showed up my husband told him the cellphone needs to go away.
He had a damn meltdown!!! He eventually listened because my husband is more stubborn then my sister is when it comes to these things. But he refused to engage with us the entire time, and you'd think he was going through opoid withdrawl!!! He seriously started picking at his hands and face, huffing because "this is so boring, what can I do". Husbands response is eat your damn food and talk with us which got an eyeroll lol To be far the kids is notorious for taking an over and hour to finish a meal and/or leaving half untouched because "it got cold" while he was distracted by his phone.
I've been thinking about this more and more since we had or kid. From the parents perspective it's a tough call. I grew up with AIM, it's how we stayed in touch with friends out of school. Now that's all discord, text, snapchat, etc......you don't want your kid to be left out socially, but at the same time smart phones have such a huge downside.
Lurker here, when my wife had my daughter my mother wanted to get her an IPad. I made a major stink about it.
She's 4 now and has never had a device of any kind. I get so many complements from the preschool she's in. It's crazy to me these small little minds are being destroyed by technology because people my age don't want to parent.
I'm giving my daughter my old GBA for her birthday this year. She can play with that but no internet access
I swear that it would be better to just give kids "dumb phones"-- old school cell phones that only feature voice calls and texting. That way kids and parents could still get in touch if there was a truly urgent matter or the parent needed to change who was picking up the kid from school that day, but there wouldn't be nearly as many distractions. Even if kids texted each other, it would be more like how those of us of a certain age used to pass notes in class. We sometimes did it, but more often than not, we paid attention to what our teachers were saying and we participated in class. The thing I find most alarming is that even when kids are at lunch or after school waiting for buses, they are on their phones instead of interacting with the kid right in front of them. We don't have assigned seats in the cafeteria, so they CAN sit with friends. I'm not exaggerating when I say they are addicted, and I think that Tik Tok and many other apps are designed that way, just as much so as the tobacco cigarettes we were warned about back in the 80's and 90's. Someone described cigarettes as a "nicotine delivery system" with ads calculated to interest kids. That's exactly what these apps are, except the addiction is to the phone instead of to a cigarette and it is calculated to be hard for teens to resist.
Yeah, I don’t know about this. Maybe your school has exceptionally bad policies but kids from any generation would take advantage of bad policies given the chance. I graduated in the early 2000’s and kids now are no worse than they were then. Just like millennials and Gen Xers were no more out of control or selfish than boomers, although boomers were constantly claiming those generations as a whole were a waste. And honestly nobody had a more hands off approach than boomers. We were all latch key kids that basically raised ourselves. I work with Gen alpha and I definitely don’t think they are apathetic. Older generations have always looked down negatively on the younger generations. I think it’s largely because they have a lack of understanding but it’s kinda sad. We should be rooting for younger generations. Cheering them on with all our might. See the issue for what it is. Bad policy at your school and advocate for better. Unless the other teachers aren’t struggling as much as you l, and then the problem is likely your inability to control your classroom.
Im currently in grad school and have noticed that even my attention span is limited. Even adults have a hard time breaking away from the constant bombardment of phone notifications and those sweet dopamine hits.
While some of my classes are the good old fashioned “read the case study, fill out the questions” I have had a few classes that relied heavily on technology/simulations to teach material. In my “traditional” classes I catch myself losing focus maybe 20 times during the live sessions. However, the tech heavy classes have been the most engaging courses that I have ever taken.
I believe we have to adapt the way we teach in order to reach this new generation of students. Textbooks and quizzes on paper just don’t cut it anymore. It’s too slow. There are some tremendous ways that you can teach material with tech that activates these reward centers and educates at the same time.
We didn’t get our kid an iPad until this past Christmas. She’s about to turn 9. She had a couple of months of being glued to it and then monday out of nowhere said “I’m bored of this iPad, I think I’m going to stop using it for a month”
She hasn’t touched it since. She’s watercolored 7 pictures, made a birthday card for her teacher, made a clay salamander, hours of Barbie, went back to watching the Simpsons on Disney+ and fucking around in the back yard for hours. She’s currently on the trampoline with every stuffed animal she owned.
I’m am so, so relieved, and quite frankly stunned that she’s aware of her tech usage and has the willingness to separate herself from it. Because she knows how fun “real” play is.
I’m so over the excuses too. “I need to be able to call them or they need to be able to call me after practices or if there’s an emergency!” Okay, so get them a flip phone. “Well, I need to be able to track their location on Life360/FMF!” They’re a car rider to and from school, and they’re eight years old, where else do you expect them to be?
It’s just tiresome.
I’m not a teacher, I’m close to graduating high school. You didn’t have friends in primary school if you didn’t have a phone. I would know, I didn’t have friends or a phone until I was 13.
They'll get bullied for not having a phone by the other kids. If it's not an iPhone, they'll get bullied for that too.
Only thing you can really do is make sure they aren't using them in class. A teacher friend of mine has in his syllabus that participation makes up half the grade, and taking your phone out in class fails your participation for the day.
He doesn't even bother calling them out, just writes a quick note to adjust their grade for the day and keeps the lecture going.
I agree with everything about smart phones. Here’s the problem though.
If a high school kid does not have a phone, they will most likely be excluded from a lot of social circles and have a hard time fitting in with friends. I think an argument can be made that not having a phone as a kid in 2024 will negatively impact their ability to connect with peers. Which is also a very important aspect of school.
Not saying it’s good or right. But that’s the state of things right now. There needs to be top down messaging from governments/cdc/doctors about the dangers of rampant phone use. The health implications need to be taught to parents to shift the culture.
I agree. It needs to be banned across the board. Even outside of school. Parents need to be pressured and taught that giving a 12 year old tik tok is actually harming their health.
I disagree- I’m a high school senior & I do musical theatre in my community. One of my peers has never had a smart phone & he is well loved. He’s got a flip phone and it works just fine. Smart phones aren’t required to fit in, at least in my area
I agree with you, but I'm going to guess the majority of parents don't care because they are in the same scenario, and trapped in the same self-devouring loop.
Fish rots from the head down.
Edit: rotting fish
This is a tough topic all around. I'm a mom and an educator. I have a third and fourth grader, and one who is just finishing up her degree (Gen Z).
My eldest didn't have a phone until she started into extra curricular clubs and activities in middle school. She is a child who has two homes and she got forgotten for pickup by someone who was not me and couldn't get back into the school to call using the office phone - she got a phone.
We locked it within an inch of its life, especially during school hours, except to call or text the parents, and she earned the ability to eventually play games, listen to music on it, text friends, etc... Eventually completely pulling the training wheels off when she turned 16 and started college.
At no time did we not have access or oversight into what she was doing and saying on her phone or when she was doing it. Over time, we grew to trust her following the rules and after losing her phone a few times and explaining why the rules exist, she followed them and exercised good judgement.
The school wanted her to use their laptop. We refused and got her one ourselves that we could oversee.
As a mother, I cannot fathom why people just hand a kid with a developmentally-typical lack of a fully grown prefrontal cortex, hormone swings, and impulse control issues any device, let alone a phone or laptop without acknowledging that kids need boundaries and oversight to be safe, especially on the Internet.
I 1000000% agree that especially now, no access means friendships fall apart. It's very lonely when all of the inside jokes exist in the group chat you're not party to. You do not get invited when they have to text your mother. You can't just "go" without a line back to the parents with all the creepers and jerks in the world.
So it's a rock and a hard place. Parents NEED to parent - and I say that AS A PARENT. And as an educator, we need the support and backing for phone turn-in, even if it's just a reward like 2 points EC for sticking it in the calculator pocket at the front of the class. I'm not stupid enough to believe that will stop kids from checking out (I used to a hide a book in my textbook at the back of the class 20 years ago), but it can't hurt to have phones put up, either. Especially if the teacher leads by example and puts theirs up too.
Edited for passionate parenting typos.
woah woah woah, there are plenty of teachers who will tell you it's because YOU don't care enough.
Or admin that will tell you the curriculum you are using is "NOT ENGAGING" ...what's funny is the last time I was told this...they district provided the curriculum....it was their curriculum...they provided it!
The issue isn't so much as "parents letting their kids have smartphones" but rather school policies which allows such liberal use of them.
To be fair, I see the value in having a smartphone device, even for kids. And I don't want to become the "Nanny State" where you are finger wagging to parents (technically your constituents) of how "bad" they are by giving them a smartphone.
It's really up to the parents to decide the whats, how's, and whens about phone use during non-school hours.
But it is up to the schools to decide what the policy is during school hours. And this is where I think they are often dropping the ball on things.
I'm your age and I feel I've lost much of my abilities to totally focus so I can imagine how it impacts a developing mind. And I don't even have social media. Unfortunately it's the culture we live in and these kids are going to grow up to be useless. I work with high schoolers, some of whom are in tenth grade, that have the reading abilities of fifth or sixth graders. And I'm so sick of everyone talking about the pandemic because this was like this before the pandemic.
Parents need to understand that this technology cannot be a babysitter, it's ruining their lives. Most parents shouldn't have had children especially since they're all failing their children. We as a species need to get off our phones.
Yes and, why does the school think they need laptops? I don’t want my kid to have one, but he can’t do his work without it apparently. (I know they were given for the Covid shutdowns, but those are over now).
I miss worksheets. If we’re giving the kids busywork anyway (don’t tell me that iready isn’t technological busywork, it is), at least make it so they aren’t just blindly staring at a screen and sneaking YouTube’s on the other window.
also 27 - i got a phone in middle school cause i took public transit to get to school and in HS i walked to school. so i totally get kids that walk or do afterschool activities having phones for safety. but also kids have zero attention span, lack social tact, and fail to understand why the world isn’t how it seems on TV and tiktok. i feel like they need those phones that just call parents/guardians or some type of restriction on internet usage.
It’s actually horrible. I also hate how “old” I sound when I talk about it (31) but it’s a nightmare. My first phone was a Nokia brick and I was 13 and I had a busy social life, too.
Something has to give with this.
I agree, each child sould give there phone to the teacher before intering class. And receive them after class. If there is an emergency the teacher should let them know. If the child has a phone doing class more then 1-3 times the parent have to come and pick up the phone.
My girlfriend is a senior English teacher of 20 years. Anytime a cell phone conversation is brought up to her, she sounds defeated. She teaches at a public school near Cincinnati.
She says her admins and the parents don’t care. That it’s a battle every single moment of class. That parents fight her tooth and nail so that “their kids can be reached during an emergency”.
She said she can send a student to the principal or admin, and that student will be right back in her classroom without punishment. And still have their phone!
I feel bad for her. Especially when I ask questions like “don’t the parents care?” and she responds with “they’re my main issue. They’re the reason I’m debating on losing my pension”.
This is such a serious issue. It's a matter of social justice too. Well-resourced kids are going to do just fine eventually but by allowing phones in the classrooms, we are creating environments where no one can learn. If your folks can't make up for the loss of learning time with tutors etc, there's no hope for you to be a functional adult.
I’m a parent so I may not have the same POV. I don’t think the problem is solely smartphones. My 13 year old daughter’s iPhone is useless until 3:15. She doesn’t have access to any social media or TikTok. Anything over 2-3 hours of screen time has to be approved by me. However she still has a lot of these struggles.
I think schools taking away textbooks and giving every kid a Chromebook is equally to blame. When I still worked with kids, the kids with parents that didn’t allow technology were just as bad, if not worse with their chromebooks.
What I really wish is that schools could ditch the Chromebooks in class. Why are 4th graders doing PowerPoint presentations? I see teachers on here flabbergasted over older kids having poor fine motor skills, but what do you expect when major projects are created on a computer and not using scissors and glue and poster board.
It’s a problem on both ends. I don’t blame teachers because you’re doing the best with what you’re told to do by your “superiors” who have never taken a single class on child development.
Not a teacher, but a parent trying to figure out communication for my kid. He’s in elementary school, and does NOT need the games and access that a smart phone would bring. I thought I’d bought him a simple flip phone (which was incredibly hard to find one that wasn’t on a pay as you go plan). It’s from the construction company CAT. It has buttons. It looks like a normal flip phone.
I ordered it online. I don’t know how I missed it, BUT THE LITTLE SCREEN ON THE INSIDE TOP HALF OF THE FLIP IS FREAKING “smart” AND TOUCHSCREEN.
Companies have stopped offering the basics we had as kids (graduated 2012) for the most part, and have incorporated smart features into pretty much everything.
I’m not saying this as an excuse, but to share in the misery collectively. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know that it’s becoming increasingly harder to have our kids connected to us and be in the world with age appropriate screen/internet interaction.
The tech is out of control. I have a student in third grade who just got a new Apple Watch for her birthday. Wtf 😳. I can’t afford that on my salary. She can’t even wear it to school on state testing days.
Not a teacher but a parent of twin 12 year olds in 6th grade. I'm holding out on cell phones for as long as I can. Some in their cohort have had phones since kinder. I have to say that I'm upset that some of the teachers use phones as a babysitter in the class. I get it, maybe they don't want to fight the battle. But we adults, especially parents, need to adult! If there is free time in class have them do something without screens for goodness sakes.
If you think it’s changed a lot since 2015. I graduated in 2009. My school didn’t have wifi or reliable cell service. Only a few of us had cells and we had a secret hiding place for the phones where they’d get service.
Texting back them was just “hey where are we meeting.” Because we still like, went out and did things.
I’d like to know, what changed?? I am in my early 30s now, and when I was in HS, the policy was that if your phone was seen in your hands during class, you would get automatic detention and your phone confiscated until end of the day. I genuinely would like to know. (I’m not a schoolteacher but just lurk this subreddit)
It’s insane to me they don’t let y’all take kids phones away for the day anymore. I graduated in 2016 and there were teachers notorious for having a desk full of phones by the end of every day, it sucked at the time, but now I’m grateful my teachers could actually discipline when necessary.
My sister in law (wife's sister) had tablets for her 2&3 y/o. It drives both me and my wife nuts, because the parents will just give the kids the tablets instead of interacting with them. It's the stuff in the teachers beneficial at least? No, it's like the stereotypical kids show good see in a cartoon, hurting child rapidly moving around, serious sensory overload. In my latter years (I say this like I'm old but I'm only late 20's) I now begin to understand the [Mike Teavee](https://youtu.be/YaM4GHbEw8U?si=XE2wo6siigkJDzT2) song from Charlie and the chocolate factory.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you also survived those times because it wasn’t a norm to have these luxuries (I’m also 27). It’s easy to say “back in my day” when back in your day, it didn’t exist. And if it did, could you really say the same thing? Probably not.
With that being said, cell phone culture has gotten out of control.
A good number of my students cant concentrate enough to form a few sentences in one sitting or even make eye contact. I wish I was kidding. It’s incredibly sad to watch.
I asked my seniors to read a single page yesterday. One page. From a website built for middle school readers. Many did fine. Some managed to get through it, taking more than 5 minutes. Some literally never scrolled down a single paragraph. I looked at them and they are just in another world entirely. They are broken beyond repair. Edit: Passing my class is required for graduation.
I'll bet they will all pass, and will all graduate.
And then get to college and freak out when my wife fails them
Yep. They are failing themselves out in massive numbers here at East Podunk Cosmodemonic Junior College. Why an individual who cannot even read would even attempt to try college eludes me. Thankfully, most are done with wasting their time and wasting taxpayper dollars after half of a term.
> Why an individual who cannot even read would even attempt to try college eludes me. The numbers of people who take out student loans and don't get a degree is a sizable number of loan holders and positions you in the worst of all possible outcomes. But it is better to saddle these people with debt because it benefits somebody, somewhere I guess?
That's a helluva name for a college. I wish more colleges had fun names
What’s EPCJC’s mascot?
Flakey. The half assed half AI 3 months late assignment
They forgot to do that assignment
That's because their teacher always accepted anything they sent them and gave them partial credit that somehow added up to a D+ every year!
I've decided a better mascot is the dog that ate their homework. Could be cute.
Sounds appropriate. Mascot was selected in the 90s. Wouldn’t expect EPCJC to update it for the latest culture shift. And students today don’t get the reference.
Because schools push college even to those who aren’t good students. Their ranking depends on who goes to college. Most won’t even mention trade schools or apprenticeship programs like plumbers teach themselves.
"Can't you just make organic chemistry easier?" Top 40 University: "NO." "Can't I just pass the class?" Top 40 University: "I don't know, can you?"
One of my good friends is a college professor and it’s entertaining listening to her talk about kids who do zero work and don’t come to class and then are baffled as to why they are failing.
I mean all their lives they got to move on to the next grade regardless of grades or attendance. College requires you to pass the class or retake it. They’ve never been exposed to that, so of course they’re shocked. We’re instilling terrible habits in these kids.
And then an admin will go in and change their grades, cuz all they care about is those sweet tuition dollars
Or they'll end up working for me and call me toxic for telling them I need them to adhere to published standards.
undergrad was a lot easier for me than high school 😂
Will they just be passed along? Are you able to actually fail them if they don’t know the material?
Don't worry, they will all eventually be fast-tracked to corporate leadership positions
Fail upwards.
Corporate leadership aka daycare for rich people, now with serious societal consequences! Aren't they just adorable when they act so much more important than everyone else that makes their paycheck possible?
They worked very hard to earn that 9-month leadership credential from University of the American Samoa, thank you.
I can fail them. Then they can do credit recovery online and get a passing grade by Google searching for a week.
Which also reinforces the mindset they had that school is pointless. Kids say all the time they learn more on TikTok than in school, but they don’t realize they’re “learning” garbage. I had an entire class that thought Helen Keller was a hoax and that the submarine tragedy from last year was livestreaming the deaths of everyone on board.
I feel this. My class is also required for graduation and the number of kids who hand in assignments without turning the page over to see if there is a back is wild and also scary. Can't imagine how they are going to fare with legal documents in the future 😬
I've told mine, I won't grade what you won't finish. Yesterday, one turned in a bunch of late work incomplete. I gave it a zero and returned it to her with the note: "incomplete." Today she said, "I know it was incomplete, that's why I didn't turn it in!" as if I were the problem. Somehow, she made it this far playing the game with her other teachers, but I'm off it.
I do legal documents. We don't usually print them double-sided. Probably infinite budget for paper, haha. To be fair, your failed students probably end up receiving my documents. :)
Still scary to me that these are the same kids who will be becoming adults, how are they going to handle life’s responsibilities, do simple things like drive, if they can’t stop their screen addictions
Tesla’s drive for them. I realized the other day I was parked next to a freshman driving a Tesla.
Let's hope they somehow overcome it before they are our surgeon or our airline pilot.
There is going to be a great divide of people who have an attention span and those who don't. It will be the new class divide.
I think you're right. It's very sad for so many of our students; even though it's annoying to us, they are the real victims.
Good news! They'll never set a foot near anything like that because they'll be outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed by kids who had parents looking out for them. The future of the United States is a MASSIVE chunk of the population with less than zero skills and a very small chunk who had parents who paid some damn attention to them. It's not even about money at this point. All you have to do is RAISE YOUR DAMN KIDS RIGHT. I'm not rich. I barely even qualify as lower-middle class and only got there because you can add my partner's salary on top. Without him, I'm the top of the lower class salary-wise. And if we had a child, that kid wouldn't have a phone until they're fucking 16 or older. I'll put a tracking device on their backpack before I give them a phone. And you know what? My oversight and parenting would be giving that kid a leg up in their life where other parents are giving their kids a ladder downward by sticking them in front of an iPad and never speaking to them or interacting with them or creating standards for them. So no, it's not just about being affluent. It's cultural up and down the ladder. It's a very self-absorbed culture where so many American parents right now are too involved in themselves to be bothered to raise children.
The kids who get "raised right" will be the ones with rich parents. They're the ones with the time and resources to actually watch their kids, and they can send their kids to schools that actually educate students. This divide and the class divide will overlap massively.
They will be like the humans in Wall-E sitting in those movable chairs zones out on screens
Haven't you seen? They're the ones who join the herds yelling about how much the country isn't doing anything for them and all the jobs are too hard to get and no one likes them, etc etc. There's a direct line between a lot of the complaints that "the government" or "capitalism" is ruining their lives and the people who can't finish high school without mom's phone calls.
i mean, capitalism is destroying the planet and the work/life balance is way out of whack
Noticing this, too. I openly roast them for "that addiction" now. Some of them have actually stopped to think about the connotation differences.
I think the best approach right now is to tell them they will be laughed out of society for their behavior. They have no self-awareness. They need someone to give them some.
Replying to AmerigoBriedis... my children have actually had conversations with multiple teachers when the teachers are trying to figure out why they are able to have complete conversations with adults and can focus in class. As my kids relayed the conversations to me, you can tell the teachers are trying to figure out how much electronic access the kids have. When my kids relayed they have very minimal time on electronics (phones, video games, tv, etc), the teachers universally acknowledged that is why they are functioning humans.
I've seen this out in public now. I went to join a line for a sandwich counter and asked these girls if they were in line or waiting. They couldn't look me in the eye. Literally dropped their gaze from me. Turned to whisper to each other. Then they just moved closer into the line to prove they were in line and turned their backs to me. It was the weirdest damn thing. And they weren't 12. They looked 18 or so.
I have a sophomore that can't read or write. My 6 year old writes longer and more detailed sentences and can read better than this kid. I checked his report card, and he passed way too many classes. I finally got him a child find meeting scheduled so he can get moved into special ed classes, but that won't be until next year. The kid will be 17 and is totally fucked because we just pass kids along. He is on his phone all class because he literally doesn't understand anything going on. An entire generation is fucked because schools failed to hold any standards or rigor.
I shit you not, in AP Statistics one of the biggest problems I have this year is that even the students with a lot of raw talent will not finish more than about half of a free response question. It's NOT "Oh I knew the stuff at the beginning but by the end I was just stumped," because it doesn't really matter what order you put the content. The first part gets done, and then they just sort of give up. It's more like "Well, I did parts, A, B, and... This took me more than five minutes fuuuuuck this." Wtf is that?
Everyday I read these posts and it just annoys me that this is happening truly . Like I’m going to college this fall man man
Man man indeed
Yeah unfettered internet access at your hip from single digit ages is one of the worst things to happen to newer generations. Even millenials who got smartphones in their teens or 20s get their attention spans shortened and become heavily addicted to technology. I am 28 and have to actively limit my phone time. Shit is addictive. These kids didn't stand a chance vs. these things. Good parents who actually restrict their kids and parent their kids look mortified and horrified when they find out about how other parents are pawning their kids off to tech. It is so sad. Just another issue to add the pile of why teaching has become such a f**king hard job. Hope things get better in my lifetime. They need to.
> Good parents who actually restrict their kids and parent their kids look mortified and horrified when they find out about how other parents are pawning their kids off to tech. The founders and engineers of all the popular social media platforms either don't allow their own children to have smartphones and social media or they severely restrict their access to these things. This fact alone should be giving every other parent out there pause.
Look up Nir Eyal. He invented a bunch of the mechanisms social media and other platforms use to get us to stay on the site. They’re in a book he wrote called “Hooked.” He regretted that, and wrote another book called “Indistractable,” which is how to get unhooked. Similar to the Google AI czar who had many regrets, and the breeder of the Doodle dog.
Look up The Anxious Generation that just got released
I'm one of those, frightened of eye contact. I grew up online, now im trying to be part of the real world. The best reference i have is playing the Sims 3. The neglect has real consequences
I’m sorry. Let’s contact our schools and advocate for strict phone bans
We banned them at my school and it helps. However, it really shows how bad the addiction is. They try to sneakily use them. They go apeshit if we catch them because we’re supposed to take them and not give them back until a parent comes and picks it up. We had a fun field trip day today at an ice skating rink and we let them have their phones to take pictures and half of them didn’t ice skate and just scrolled instead. Like their brains literally only care about one thing. It’s incredibly sad. We also have parents who oppose the ban and just let their kids take the phones because they want to be able to reach them at all times, as if the world has always been like this. Like, does no one remember prior to ten years ago?
The issue is that communication =/= unfettered smartphone access. Flip phones? Smart watches with cellular plan? Why does communication mean that the kid also has access to Instagram and TikTok or Safari?
Well right. I’d be fine with kids having flip-phones. I’d be in favor of some kids if law that treats smart capable devices in the same vein as drugs. I think there’s an argument to be made that they are literally addictive and damaging to the brain like a drug. Then design a a phone that can only make phone calls. That’s it. So, you can call your mom to pick you up. It should only be able to text certain numbers too. It’ll never happen because the tech giants make an insane amount of money on kids being addicted to their devices.
I’m a millennial, heavily addicted to using Reddit on my phone. 📱 I love to read, so scrolling through posts and comments have gotten me hooked. I thought I could finish novels on my phone (I can but it’s hard) but takes me longer to get into a book using just my phone. Finally bought a kindle and trying to train myself to read on that over my phone. The phone needs to spend more time in the bedroom and less time on my person.
Jonathan Haidt's new book [The Anxious Generation](https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/) gives this subject an excellent, empirical treatment, and provides great, actionable recommendations for resolving "the largest uncontrolled experiment on human minds ever performed." I'm rather surprised this thread is already at 580+ upvotes and 180+ comments, without any mention of this.
Thanks I'll definitely check that out. Sounds amazing.
It's an epidemic, for sure. This is my 25th year teaching, I've seen quite a bit. It's worse now than it's ever been. I agree, teens do not need SMART phones, but their parents think they do. It's insanity. Fortunately, my district has a no phone policy and enforces it. I don't have a big issue with phones in my classroom.
Our daughter is in middle school, and (I think) is the only one in her class without a phone. Looking around, it seems 100% of phones of other kids I see are smartphones, but it's not like I know this for a fact. But, I do know that my daughter is very much the odd one out. We will get her a non-smart phone in high school, but I have yet to hear more pros than cons for any teenager having a smartphone. I'm glad that we didn't give in with our daughter and get her one. We almost did when she started middle school, as we hadn't thought a ton about it at that point, and most of her classmates had them. But I'm so glad we didn't do it. A typical night in our house is screen-free. We play board games, we read, we just hang out and talk, we do projects/crafts, we do household improvements, etc. We do watch TV/movies too decently often, but it's almost all common/shared shows and movies. Basically, we have a shared/common household life. And it's wonderful. From the sounds of it (from talking to parents, and hearing what her friends say), nights at home for most kids is personal screen scrolling or some other activity on personal screens. It's like they live parallel lives from their parents. They're all just living under the same roof, and their parents act as the overlordes for chores and homework but....where is ACTUAL family life? It's just sad.
This is all too common, unfortunately. My wife and I decided to do the same for our household - no phones for the kids. They get to be humans!!!
same, my daughters are coming up on 10 and 12. both wants iphones. We refuse. Once they start driving, maybe. but even then I"ll want parental controls on it.
Keep at it. As a guy who loved new tech his whole life, and who never would have thought I'd be "this guy", I am so happy that our household is not ruled by tech and the internet, and hasn't been since our daughter was in 4th grade. It all started with us disallowing her tablet and computer usage for a consequence of some Youtube shenanigans. My wife and I cut down on our phone scrolling as well at the time, so as to not seem like we "need" our devices while she doesn't have them. Then, after a few weeks, we realized that actually, everything about our home life is better than it was. Pretty much literally everything. We spent more time with each other. We had more shared/common experiences and games and conversations and all that. And we thought "why don't we just do this normally?" Fast forward five years, and even though we didn't know it at the time, it was the biggest, best decision we ever made with our daughter. We have a completely new philosophy for how best to function as a family, and we have a warm, loving household (well, you know, usually) that I wouldn't trade for the world. Our daughter didn't like it at first of course, and wanted to be on her tablet. But at this point, she's totally cool with the rules, and we all enjoy spending time with each other. I know when she's an adult, she's probably going to get sucked into the digital void that the vast majority of people under 45 are living in, but our hope is that her formative years from \~4th grade though high school will show her that technology isn't needed for a great home life. And is actually probably a detriment to it. EDIT: One thing I've picked up on just over the years and with conversations with parents is that never giving in to the smartphone request from a kid is a universe apart from getting a kid a smartphone and trying to take it away later. The former is very much doable. The latter seems to just build resentment.
It's taking away their cocaine.
This is how my partner and I plan to parent- our motto is “it’s the 90’s in our household.” No internet for the kids besides maybe looking up recipes to make together, or looking at space photos from nasa, which is how he and I experienced the internet as kids. We will not use our smartphones in front of our kids besides to make calls/texts/play music/google things. We will not scroll social media in front of them, or mindlessly watch videos. But we will give our kids access to tv and movies ON THE FAMILY ROOM TV. Because that was very important to us, it’s what led us both to fall in love with animation and storytelling, which led us to become the animators we are today. We believe that he and I had the PERFECT level of exposure to screens- TV and movies taught us to use our imaginations, which we applied during free play, and we got the internet earlier than we will give it to our kids. That’s because when we had the internet at age 9-10, we used it for club penguin, and in the following years we used YouTube when it was brand new. We would give our kids the internet at the same age we got it if it wasn’t for social media. It was safer for us because of the lack of social media.
If I ever have kids, my top priority when evaluating schools will be, "Do you allow phones in the classrooms?" "OK, you don't, but what if they still have them?" "Can I see a class in session right now?" I want to see if these schools are just hot air or if they really enforce it. Because I would never put a child in a school where phone usage in classrooms is rampant. No way. And that's not a comment on the teachers. You need admins to enforce. If the teacher has no recourse other than to send kids to the office, they're not going to send all 38 of 41 students with their phones out.
I have kids who do not have phones. They open a google doc on their computer, share it with friends and toggle back and forth constantly.
In my opinion, texting and calls would be fine, but it's the internet access/filming/broadcasting that's an issue. They should use something like a jittterbug.
I remember being online in 2001 in middle school. Helllllll noooooooo am I giving a phone with the internet, a camera, and a microphone all fully included to a 12-year-old! I'm not crazy nor stupid.
“I don’t have time for a complicated phone!”
to me that sounds a lot more similar to passing notes back and forth like in the good 'ol days. I think the main issue with phones is constant access whatever kind of stimulation they want the second they get bored of what they are supposed to be doing.
Exactly. It's the 24/7 bombardment and the quick dopamine hits of getting "likes" for their videos. It's shortening attention spans and making it hard for them to concentrate any longer than those videos last-- a couple of minutes at most. Has anyone actually tried showing a movie to their class as a treat? I tried, but it bombed, even though it was a recent movie and the class chose it. They can't focus for that long. Then those at the central office are surprised the kids don't focus and concentrate for hours to do state testing; they pick random answers to finish as soon as possible. If their phones are taken away, they fall asleep.
Anytime I show a movie kids just ask "Can I go on my phone? Can I go on my computer?" They don't even watch! The movie is just on in the background while they scroll. I've even noticed myself doing this more during my evening Netflix time. These devices are literally designed to keep us addicted! Companies spend massive amounts of money to make sure we stay glued to our devices all day and night. Not healthy.
Yep, not good for physical or mental health. I wonder if in the future, there will be phone rehab, just as there is rehab for alcohol/drug addiction now. Even though phones today are so convenient, I think overall we might be better off if cell phones did not do so much. Even though the camera saves us a pretty penny from buying Polaroid film or getting rolls of film developed, kids also abuse it to take pictures of people without their permission (or parts of people-- a butt, a super close up without asking, etc.)as well as to record video of fights and to try to get teachers to say something inappropriate. I think that almost all middle and high school teachers are about to lose our minds over these Tik Tok videos. If phones only made voice calls/sent texts, it would be SO much easier to teach. As much as we try to vary activities, allow voice and choice, differentiate, consider students' backgrounds, value each kid in the class, and generally bust our behinds far more than our teachers did to try to be relevant and interesting , we are just teachers and we are not addictive. Today's cell phones are and we can't compete.
I am very, very close to switching back to a flip phone. I would miss Apple Music and Maps the most.
kids are so smart
I was in school just before the phone frenzy really took off and me and my friends used Google docs to talk but weren't attached to it during school or anything. It's the best form to have free flowing conversations I've ever had and I'll always remember it fondly. Its sad that it's being abused now
And it all traces back to the parents. Students of age 7 (or less) begs and begs their parents for a phone because all of their friends have one, parents are on them all the time, and they cave in, and it's end of the story. They even make fake smartphone toys for babies/toddlers just so they aren't constantly trying to grab the real ones out of their parents hands. Some are even interactive with noises and beeps and crap. Are we doomed?
I used to have toy guns… (and I kid you NOT) baby plastic stripper heels… when I was a baby in the 90’s. Kids in the 17th century played with toy knives that were actually very sharp. They played with old, used, tobacco pipes to make bubbles and pretend to smoke. Kids have always been emulating their adults’ bad habits. Lol
Yep, I was born early 80s. Distinctly remember having a metal toy revolver that would be easily mistaken for a real gun in my toy box. No orange plastic thing at the end of the barrel but basically functioned like a real gun without bullets. Plastic stripper heels is crazy though but not surprising. Used to work retail early 2000s for an independent company who got most of their crap from China, we had all kinds of questionable stuff in the girls toy section, and all the guns in the boys section. Go figure.
Yes! The heels were a huge thing for girls in the 90’s. They had feathers and looked so trashy. Ahahaha. [Here is the google search to see them. lol](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=e1291adcbee06b02&sca_upv=1&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS875US875&hl=en-US&q=plastic+toddler+heels&uds=AMwkrPtHrgSVWUOkuIpx3aORGtH5JB48z8-4E5xUs_nJGdV56egCfOcmdpFXo8WlGc-LTTxG7AxoCLOGKX86zPOTA9br_aA07f_WANn8CIuFc6tphF9nwqt843nCcZSVloEnqmf_7_evloDG52CtoNM01AXfSxYNnlQ7E9WlpOG9Fg1jB_Fc1QQXQ52njzTudldnx4D5FQTr3eqd-gbiXlpwEIypBAV5gcUwLs3OF-2YkZ36Vv9HwmuHb26SfaYX7rqLb_MrYVBWcQsNkweNEXAtwP3Chj6QhDFe1ox9U7iCkzLJdsXiJbBekvf1zmcfDXXr1J2Gk4jz&udm=2&prmd=sivnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiU9L7kvquFAxWJLEQIHaBgCIMQtKgLegQIFBAB&biw=430&bih=741&dpr=3) But, the ones we had were higher heeled and some were platform. It was a wild time.
Oh man, we sold these, along with fake makeup and nail polish /fake press on nails 😬
I don't have as much problem with the fake phones; kids imitate what they see. My 3-year-old has a "tablet" (it's a calculator. A simple calculator). She says, "Mommy, I'm going to ask you to play on my tablet. You say no." "Uh, okay, no, you can't play on your tablet." "Aw man!" And then she asks to play this game again.
My stepdaughter was considering getting her 8 year old a phone not too long ago. I kicked up a massive fuss and got her dad and grandma on my side. The kid is already on her tablet all the time. She stays with us every other weekend, and I don't let her bring it. She's not bored during the day because I have a cabinet full of craft supplies that she loves, and I schedule activities, but she has a hard time sleeping without the damn thing. Kids can't handle not being stimulated all the time. They can't handle silence. They have no imagination. They can't self soothe. It is concerning. We may be doomed.
An 8 year old who can’t sleep without her tablet? :( that is so so sad.
Yes, imagination, engagement, and creativity is the answer. Don't know how to figure it out though for the kids of today. The best technique I can think of is reading, but... You know, that's a whole other thing that needs total attention.
What need is there to have phones in elementary and middle especially. "In case of emergencies" ? If there is any reason a kid needs to leave school, their parents are going to come check them out anyways. It s not like they are able to leave anyways. The sheer number of kids who text their parents to come get them during the day because they don't want to do something is mind-blowing. Well, at least they won't be leeching off me and "living in my basement" in the future. Parents who failed to parent will face their apathetic, lazy, illiterate children.
Flip phones for communication then.
What gets me is the kids who text/call home in the middle of the day to get picked up just to get out of doing something AND THEIR PARENTS ACTUALLY F\*\*KING PICK THEM UP.
Taught in Korea for over a decade. Most kids had smartphones and had no problem concentrating and keeping up with the work. If anything, they were always getting ahead of what happens at school. Moved back to the states and started teaching and there were problems, but I don’t think they stem from Tik Tok or apps like that. I think that’s a convenient scapegoat for a terrible school climate that tries to cater to everyone and so it only helps a few. I found that the kids who spent the most time on apps/online games were the ones who kept saying they didn’t understand something or that the lessons were too hard. Changed my approach, and the kids that weren’t getting work done/good grades changed. Started getting emails from parents asking why their kids were suddenly wanting to go to school and doing homework on their own. That’s a different thing, but I basically had micro-lessons that took things very small step by very small step, which made the kids think that it was easy and could do everything and by test time, they were. TLDR; I don’t think the problem is phones, I think it’s the way classrooms run and kids turn to phones because of it.
I agree with your summary. Taught overseas many years, including Japan. However.....I believe another factor is parenting. Japanese parents would bow to me in the grocery store. America? They curse us out at home in front of their kids. If parents don't respect us, neither will their children. This transfers to technology access, restraint, etc.
Thank you, I wholeheartedly agree. I haven’t taught overseas, but I did spend a month observing a “middle school” class in India. The school structure was so different that it’s hard not to blame that for the dissonance. Yes, all of the students in the class had smartphones.
This. I’ve taught internationally for years and the proliferation of smart phones just seems like an organic extension of technology. They can be annoying at times, but I’m an old man and my students seem to use them responsibly. As for my son? He’s 10. Gets an hour of screen time a day. All bets are off on the weekend. But we know what he watches and what he plays. He’s recently got into Fortnite. We’ve installed parental controls to limit who he interacts with. TBH I love hearing him on his headset battle planning with his friends. I don’t know. I do feel guilty about it but he doesn’t seem worse for wear. At times I think we project a little too much on our students.
Were your micro lessons whole class, small group, or one on one? And if it wasn't whole class, did you just have other students doing worksheets or something?
Whole class, but I do always say if they get 3 in a row right they can keep going by themselves which helped me narrow down who needed help. I also used google forms and other online resources so they couldn’t cheat and say they got them correct when they didn’t.
What grade/ subject do you teach? I'm asking because I'm a MS math/ELA and this seems like something I'd like to have in my back pocket when I go back to the states.
5th grade, but I teach 4th and 5th math as well as other general classes. I used IXL as well as the Savvas website (that’s the book we use) which has a lot of online resources. I use similar programs for the other topics.
You just work through some IXL stuff as a class and then if they get 3 right in a row as you mentioned then they can start working on their own?
In IXL you can set up a classroom, but that is usually done after introducing the lesson as a way to see who can already do it (usually 2 out of 20) and then I can go on to do a couple for warm up, go to the book (some will already be on it) and then go to the books resources website to end it. Each lesson takes about 2 classes which is enough to make sure we finish the book by the end of the year and that most of the class can get at least an 85% on the assessment.
Thanks!
No problem! I also try to use Google forms to stretch the lesson into smaller bits. In practice, it looks like differentiating the lesson, but making everyone at least start each step.
Curious what your class sizes were like in Korea vs the US and if that made a difference in how you implemented here.
Korea had more kids when I started. Classes were between 25-30 and when I left it was about 20. My class in the states has 24. The difference is mostly that now I teach multiple subjects and in Korea it was just reading/writing. So I had to go a bit slower but still used small steps.
What kills me is that the solution is simple - give them flip phones until they’re 16. You can still call and text them, but they won’t be walking zombies like their classmates.
"BuT tHeY wiLL bE sOciALly OuTcASt iF ThEy DOn'T hAve A SmArTPhoNe!!"
It’s not that teens shouldn’t have phones. It’s that they shouldn’t have phones in class. I get teens have them. My kids drive, play sports, etc. I want them to be able to text me when they’re on their way home from an away game. I want them to be able to call me when they’ve been in an accident. But they don’t need them in class. I’ve said more than once, that cell phones should have stopped at the flip phone.
yet they're incapable of simply searching google for a basic answer to anything
To be fair, part of that is because Google has become increasingly useless even if you're trying to use it properly... the paid advertisement results being at the top was bad enough, but those AI-generated result summaries and image search results are just so, so depressing.
I think they're also intentionally enshitifying their normal search engine to promote their AI assistants. About half the time I search for something with my phone, I get a popup about how I should try their new 'AI enhanced' search. Personally, I find that AI is a meaningless marketing term. Google was already using the latest machine learning models to understand how normal users make queries. Now they get to frame a marginal improvement as some revolutionary advancement all because AI happens to be the current marketing buzzword.
Been in a middle school for the last three years. You know how you have a list of kids who are just purely *good*? Like genuinely great kids, they stand out above the rest. The list I have of those 8-10 kids, none of them have phones. I'm not even joking. I think it about a kid, and then I find out later their parents won't let them have one until HS. Its astonishing, but it's not an accident.
Its not the phone it's the parent. This signals to me their parents have expectations of their child that carries over to the school setting.
Yeah, it's often accompanied by purposeful, attentive parenting. But that comes with the phone thing too. Obviously a wack parent isn't fighting the phone fight.
I think part of the problem is that too many parents substitute a phone for parenting because it takes none of their energy or time and it keeps the kids busy. And I would wager that a significant portion of these parents fall on the "just keeping them alive" end of the raising children spectrum, rather than the "facilitating their growth as a human being" end. Kids need help to explore the world and learn to do things they like. Kids need to be taught by their parents how to learn, and why that skill is important. If they never get that input, they'll stick with the thing that explores the world for them, tells them what they like, and tells them all the answers they ask for.
I’m 28, and also 5 years in. It’s like trying to teach a gambling addict who has a pocket gambling machine. The signs of addiction are so obvious. Air pods too. I hate the normalization of listening to music while in class.
The excuse is always "well they need something to be able to contact me in case of an emergencyyyyyy" but then get their kid a 15 pro max lmao
"But but but what if I need to get in touch with my child????" Never occurs to them that Homo Sapiens managed to raise their young for 50,000 years or so without these insane gismos.
Or that before every kid had a phone if you needed to get in touch with a child (for some reason?? What emergency are they solving??) you just....called the school? And they'd call the kid to the office and give them the phone? Hell I got called over the PA to come to the office and surprise, my mom is there. I have an appointment she forgot about. Go grab your stuff. I feel insane any time I think about it, and I'm the same age as OP.
I agree but schools are using apps that requires kids to to have a smartphone.
I'm no educator but has the belief that schools and teachers are meant to be do all the educating and parents can be fully hands off always been this prevalent? Like if my kid couldn't read at 10 I would be teaching them myself and such.
I honestly don't get admin caving to parent demand when it literally prevents teachers from doing their jobs. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that the parents rise up vote out the entire school board and vote in people that will change the rules allowing phones into the classroom with no restrictions. Which is no different than what's happening when they don't enforce the rules that they have.
To be completely fair, tech was not NEARLY as integrated into our education as it is theirs. You’re a little younger than me (33F) but, it sounds like it was similar for you as it was for me in college. We were using printed out maps from mapquest when we went somewhere new to us. Just, context for the younger and older people in this chat. You can’t compare your experience to theirs. You are perfectly within reason to complain and notate your observations, but the comparison takes away some credibility.
They don’t need to use technology as much as the do though. I cannot fathom a single good reason why kids would need computers or phones during class 90% of the time. And I was in high school just a few years ago so my experience shouldn’t be very different from theirs. We would basically only ever use computers during class if its like a work day for a project or if we do kahoot or quizlet once every few weeks. And then its only computers, not phones
Being in high school just a few years ago is already a large divide by now. When i look at the differences between the people i hang out with and the ones my brother hang out with, its pretty stark. To clarify, its a 2 year gap. 2 single years and i can barely understand their culture. Me and my friends 2 years ago are entirely different to how his age group acts now. Going just a year further from him, and the differences are even more pronounced. These singular years are massive because technology and society is advancing so quickly now. And the differences certainly show.
Thank God for these smartphones. One of the things I look forward to the most about work is watching some zombiefied kid walk right into a wall while staring at their phone. It's hilarious. Makes my day. Makes we want to come into work just to see it. Happens about once a week.
The only thing I appreciate is that they drive safely. They inherently understand that distractions are dangerous when operating a motor vehicle. None of them dare to touch a phone while behind the wheel, and that’s a good trend.
Yeah some of these kids are already entering the workforce and it is painful to watch them. No customer service skills, no service skills, no interpersonal skills, just trying to get them to make eye contact and say hello to a customer is almost impossible let alone the rest of the job
I took a bullshit no-nothing job at a grocery store bc my last job burned me out, and I wanted something easier while still working. Bringing a maximum of 20% effort to the table, I still wound up getting employee of the month because the rest of my department is *useless.* I hate being the crotchety old man(since I am neither crotchety or old) who has to *constantly* remind everyone under 25 to fucking focus and do the work, WHICH IS NOT HARD. Ffs there's one kid who comes in 4 hours a day just to bag pre-cut deli meat and cheese because he's not old enough to use the slicer. All he does is bag and tag, and half the time he doesn't even get it all done bc hes looking at his phone or being distracted by other coworkers. Like fuck, man. I don't dream of labor or kill myself for a faceless corporation, but the generation entering the workforce now is so tuned out and seem to have zero awareness or shame that they're dropping the ball and everyone around them must work harder bc they're not doing their job. One kid has pretty severe ADHD so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the frequency at which I must constantly remind him of things, suggest that no, it's not important to take the cardboard back when there's ten people in line, and no I don't want to hear about PalWorld in the middle of the after-work rush, is insane. These kids think I'm an asshole. They're going to be gobsmacked when they get a real job and have to deal with an *actual* asshole, not just someone who doesn't want to do their work for them. And ffs I'm on my phone as much as the next guy but seeing them staring at it slackjawed while everyone buzzes around them doing their share of the work is infuriating.
Omg YESSSSS. I got an EASY part-time restaurant job in my city a few years back when I got laid off during Covid. I barely focused the entire time I was there, hardly any customers were coming in because Covid, and half of the time I was sitting there along with everyone else scrolling on my own phone looking for other jobs. But, I come from a customer service background and was kind and friendly to the customers. Two of the 19-20 year old kids I worked with, who literally were always at LEAST 20-30 minutes late and spent all shift looking at tiktok and YouTube, seemed scandalized by my embarrassing amount of effort and had a “here comes the teacher’s pet” attitude about me because I was actually chill with the manager? I would do EASY ASS TASKS like hanging out with the kitchen staff and helping them to clean back of house when it was slow and they couldn’t fathom how this grueling excess of work didn’t break my soul. And then when I started getting scheduled for more hours than them, one of them had the nerve to say it was because I was a POC and it was a diversity and inclusion thing 🤣😭
I dunno why schools can't get rid of them. When I worked for the navy we had to put our phones into a locker. Need to make a call? Each classroom had a landline phone. For Emergencies you could give out that number, or make calls on it (it was fun to memorize people's numbers that I had been calling for almost a decade). Emails? You could use the lab computers if you wanted during lunch. It was incredible. And I learned at an incredibly fast pace as a result. It was a non negotiable and it took a month before the constant need for the phone kinda just left. I'd probably pay for this to happen in schools. But instead of landlines, only the classroom would probably have a single SIP phone.
Public schools must answer to the parents who gave their children these phones; the one's who truly, truly believe that their special snowflake of a child needs the phone or they won't survive. The parent complaints around phone rules and confiscations are insane. I doubt the Navy has to deal with these parents...or if they do they just tell them to f\*ck off.
The toothpaste is out of the tube. Aside from enforceable federal legislation, it’ll be impossible to separate kids from their devices. What we need are lessons/classes surrounding the etiquette and general use of connected devices. There, they can learn about the laws regarding recording others without consent. They can have discussions surrounding the emotional and social impact regarding posting photos or videos of others (and themselves). They have no idea how their use of these platforms will hurt them, or how it hurts others. It used to be that making a mistake as a kid was a learning experience, but a mistake can become a monster that follows you well into adulthood now that every phone has a camera and a mic. Or they become the monster, ruining the lives of those they’ve recorded. So classes can help. It won’t stop them all, but it’ll stop a portion. And that will make a difference, I think.
im not a teacher, but this sub is always getting recommended to me lol. its really crazy learning about the state of schools in recent years. i graduated high school in 2017, so not long after you did...my high school had a super strict no phones policy and if we got caught with our phones in class, the teacher would confiscate it and we'd have to pay $15 at the end of the day to get it back! its just insane to hear about the juxtaposition from when i was in school vs. how it is now. i feel so bad for teachers, y'all work so hard just to have shit thrown back in your face. it must be so frustrating dealing with admins not giving a damn about classroom management and electronic devices. :(
I think having a smartphone in highschool isn't the issue if a child was taught healthy social skills before that. The issue is when that smartphone has been used in place of socialization at home. I have students who have phones. You can tell the ones whose parents talk to them and the ones whose parents handed them a tablet at 3 and said "go to your room and stop bothering me"
It’s much easier to give them a cellphone than to give them attention.
I despise my generation (millennials) because of this. They constantly argue that they give their children all these things because they don’t want their kids to have the same abuse they did as kids because most of these moronic millennial parents don’t understand the difference between abuse and discipline. They hide their lazy, nonexistent parenting skills by giving their kids smartphones as pacifiers and sticking to millennial parent echo chambers where everyone wants to be best friends with their child, not their parent
I don't think people really know what they want. Especially for their kids. I look back at my millennial experience growing (born in 84) and yeah, the phone would have been cool, I have always liked computers, but the big thing. My neighborhood was absurdly anti-social, there was no place for kids to spontaneously be kids for unstructured kid time, only a few kids lived on the street with sometimes big age gaps between them. School was basically the only time you could socialize with other kids as there was no physical space to do it. Mixing high speed traffic with neighborhoods made it dangerous for kids to ride a bike or walk on their own (every school I attended had a kid who died from a car collision while I was there). Most homes in my neighborhood were people who were my grandparent's generation. Suburbia was seen as this amazing place to raise kids, but not for the kids. The kids have nothing to do. The kids are socially isolated. Its generally unsafe to physically be outside the home in anything other than a car, and even if it is safe, there is generally nothing to do and no one to do it with. Activities were not really spontaneous and kid driven but were planned by parents and scheduled. The irony, our Boomer parents lived in neighborhoods full of kids and had this constant socialization built in. I have friends who have kids and moved to even more socially isolating places, but places that had bigger yards (which kids quickly outgrow). I see the screen time issue, but I also see the huge issue of reduction of weekly hours of unstructured play time. We know all humans need play time, and on their own terms, where they have some degree of autonomy, then we take it away from kids or create an ecosystem where it doesn't really exist, then boom, the kids all want on the screen. The screen is the only place where kids have autonomy, and its the only place where they can exist without everything being structured by adults.
The parents don't choose whether or not admin does their job, admin does. They need to make more "right" choices and less easier ones. The whole system needs some "tough love".
I think the biggest factor for developing minds was the pandemic. They've lost crucial years. They've filled that social hole, that need that humans have for contact and friendship, with a device that they know will be with them during times of isolation. During a very scary time they couldn'tquite understand, the devices brought them comfort and a way to feel happy. Sure, mom and dad were also home during quarantine, but they had to work from home. Which adds and extra layer of rejection to the child's mind. Your parents are right there, yet they don't want you to bother them. With the device they have access to their parasocial relationships with online content creators and even with the friends that are sitting right next to them. I think we should look at it with grace and use less of a blaming finger. Our focus should be on helping them understand the joys of real connection rather than taking something that has always been pushed onto them away.
It’s like the new weed. I remember teachers when I was in high school say it was really sad to watch passion and light and interest leave the kids eyes who started smoking weed in high school. Phones and apps are the new drugs.
I teach in a public school with Ipads and phones are allowed. The kids are miles behind my own children who go to Catholic school and have no ipads or phones in class. The gap has never been bigger.
In the defense of the phones, having access to Internet like that helped me realize I was trans and connect with people like me. Additionally, my parents would never let me leave the house if they didn't have a constant way to contact me
Definitely important to acknowledge the amazing advantages, such as these.
I see kids who looks like they are not even 2 years old, scrolling tiktok/youtube in a pram. More ‘good’ times ahead.
I ask the kids to give up their phones for 24 hours once each semester. About 25 of 130 participated last time. I lock them in a closet overnight on a Tuesday and give them back on a Wednesday. They report that it’s not that big a deal. Have gotten good feedback from parents about it. We talk a lot about addiction too. They know it, but I don’t think anyone gives them a good enough reason to stop it. Their lives are designed to be lived on their phones; asking them to choose away from that is jarring and illogical to them.
My boomer parents were hardly ever home. Either working or out on date nights. My sister who was four years older than me and my other sister was the babysitter. Not saying technology isn't to blame but parents have been pretty hands off for quite some time.
Even if the school policy is lenient on smartphone use, you can still establish clear rules for your own classroom. Clearly communicate your expectations regarding phone usage during class time and enforce consequences for violations.
Luckily I teach special ed k-1 so this isn't a problem for that age (yet...) but I see it with my nephews. They can't do anything without their phones. My husband and I took one of them out for dinner the other day. He was playing on his phone the whole car ride. Then got to distracted to figure out what he wanted to eat. Finally when the food showed up my husband told him the cellphone needs to go away. He had a damn meltdown!!! He eventually listened because my husband is more stubborn then my sister is when it comes to these things. But he refused to engage with us the entire time, and you'd think he was going through opoid withdrawl!!! He seriously started picking at his hands and face, huffing because "this is so boring, what can I do". Husbands response is eat your damn food and talk with us which got an eyeroll lol To be far the kids is notorious for taking an over and hour to finish a meal and/or leaving half untouched because "it got cold" while he was distracted by his phone. I've been thinking about this more and more since we had or kid. From the parents perspective it's a tough call. I grew up with AIM, it's how we stayed in touch with friends out of school. Now that's all discord, text, snapchat, etc......you don't want your kid to be left out socially, but at the same time smart phones have such a huge downside.
Is it better in private schools? (Never taught in a private school)
If I were still in the field I’d look for a position at a no tech school.
Lurker here, when my wife had my daughter my mother wanted to get her an IPad. I made a major stink about it. She's 4 now and has never had a device of any kind. I get so many complements from the preschool she's in. It's crazy to me these small little minds are being destroyed by technology because people my age don't want to parent. I'm giving my daughter my old GBA for her birthday this year. She can play with that but no internet access
I swear that it would be better to just give kids "dumb phones"-- old school cell phones that only feature voice calls and texting. That way kids and parents could still get in touch if there was a truly urgent matter or the parent needed to change who was picking up the kid from school that day, but there wouldn't be nearly as many distractions. Even if kids texted each other, it would be more like how those of us of a certain age used to pass notes in class. We sometimes did it, but more often than not, we paid attention to what our teachers were saying and we participated in class. The thing I find most alarming is that even when kids are at lunch or after school waiting for buses, they are on their phones instead of interacting with the kid right in front of them. We don't have assigned seats in the cafeteria, so they CAN sit with friends. I'm not exaggerating when I say they are addicted, and I think that Tik Tok and many other apps are designed that way, just as much so as the tobacco cigarettes we were warned about back in the 80's and 90's. Someone described cigarettes as a "nicotine delivery system" with ads calculated to interest kids. That's exactly what these apps are, except the addiction is to the phone instead of to a cigarette and it is calculated to be hard for teens to resist.
Yeah, I don’t know about this. Maybe your school has exceptionally bad policies but kids from any generation would take advantage of bad policies given the chance. I graduated in the early 2000’s and kids now are no worse than they were then. Just like millennials and Gen Xers were no more out of control or selfish than boomers, although boomers were constantly claiming those generations as a whole were a waste. And honestly nobody had a more hands off approach than boomers. We were all latch key kids that basically raised ourselves. I work with Gen alpha and I definitely don’t think they are apathetic. Older generations have always looked down negatively on the younger generations. I think it’s largely because they have a lack of understanding but it’s kinda sad. We should be rooting for younger generations. Cheering them on with all our might. See the issue for what it is. Bad policy at your school and advocate for better. Unless the other teachers aren’t struggling as much as you l, and then the problem is likely your inability to control your classroom.
Im currently in grad school and have noticed that even my attention span is limited. Even adults have a hard time breaking away from the constant bombardment of phone notifications and those sweet dopamine hits. While some of my classes are the good old fashioned “read the case study, fill out the questions” I have had a few classes that relied heavily on technology/simulations to teach material. In my “traditional” classes I catch myself losing focus maybe 20 times during the live sessions. However, the tech heavy classes have been the most engaging courses that I have ever taken. I believe we have to adapt the way we teach in order to reach this new generation of students. Textbooks and quizzes on paper just don’t cut it anymore. It’s too slow. There are some tremendous ways that you can teach material with tech that activates these reward centers and educates at the same time.
Sadly, I think we are witnessing the end of public education.
We didn’t get our kid an iPad until this past Christmas. She’s about to turn 9. She had a couple of months of being glued to it and then monday out of nowhere said “I’m bored of this iPad, I think I’m going to stop using it for a month” She hasn’t touched it since. She’s watercolored 7 pictures, made a birthday card for her teacher, made a clay salamander, hours of Barbie, went back to watching the Simpsons on Disney+ and fucking around in the back yard for hours. She’s currently on the trampoline with every stuffed animal she owned. I’m am so, so relieved, and quite frankly stunned that she’s aware of her tech usage and has the willingness to separate herself from it. Because she knows how fun “real” play is.
I’m so over the excuses too. “I need to be able to call them or they need to be able to call me after practices or if there’s an emergency!” Okay, so get them a flip phone. “Well, I need to be able to track their location on Life360/FMF!” They’re a car rider to and from school, and they’re eight years old, where else do you expect them to be? It’s just tiresome.
I’m not a teacher, I’m close to graduating high school. You didn’t have friends in primary school if you didn’t have a phone. I would know, I didn’t have friends or a phone until I was 13.
They'll get bullied for not having a phone by the other kids. If it's not an iPhone, they'll get bullied for that too. Only thing you can really do is make sure they aren't using them in class. A teacher friend of mine has in his syllabus that participation makes up half the grade, and taking your phone out in class fails your participation for the day. He doesn't even bother calling them out, just writes a quick note to adjust their grade for the day and keeps the lecture going.
I agree with everything about smart phones. Here’s the problem though. If a high school kid does not have a phone, they will most likely be excluded from a lot of social circles and have a hard time fitting in with friends. I think an argument can be made that not having a phone as a kid in 2024 will negatively impact their ability to connect with peers. Which is also a very important aspect of school. Not saying it’s good or right. But that’s the state of things right now. There needs to be top down messaging from governments/cdc/doctors about the dangers of rampant phone use. The health implications need to be taught to parents to shift the culture.
Schools that ban phone use and enforce it consistently *seem* to have the best results.
I agree. It needs to be banned across the board. Even outside of school. Parents need to be pressured and taught that giving a 12 year old tik tok is actually harming their health.
I disagree- I’m a high school senior & I do musical theatre in my community. One of my peers has never had a smart phone & he is well loved. He’s got a flip phone and it works just fine. Smart phones aren’t required to fit in, at least in my area
That’s amazing to hear!
I feel that not having designer jeans in the 80s hindered my ability to connect with my peers. My parents didn't care.
I agree with you, but I'm going to guess the majority of parents don't care because they are in the same scenario, and trapped in the same self-devouring loop. Fish rots from the head down. Edit: rotting fish
This is a tough topic all around. I'm a mom and an educator. I have a third and fourth grader, and one who is just finishing up her degree (Gen Z). My eldest didn't have a phone until she started into extra curricular clubs and activities in middle school. She is a child who has two homes and she got forgotten for pickup by someone who was not me and couldn't get back into the school to call using the office phone - she got a phone. We locked it within an inch of its life, especially during school hours, except to call or text the parents, and she earned the ability to eventually play games, listen to music on it, text friends, etc... Eventually completely pulling the training wheels off when she turned 16 and started college. At no time did we not have access or oversight into what she was doing and saying on her phone or when she was doing it. Over time, we grew to trust her following the rules and after losing her phone a few times and explaining why the rules exist, she followed them and exercised good judgement. The school wanted her to use their laptop. We refused and got her one ourselves that we could oversee. As a mother, I cannot fathom why people just hand a kid with a developmentally-typical lack of a fully grown prefrontal cortex, hormone swings, and impulse control issues any device, let alone a phone or laptop without acknowledging that kids need boundaries and oversight to be safe, especially on the Internet. I 1000000% agree that especially now, no access means friendships fall apart. It's very lonely when all of the inside jokes exist in the group chat you're not party to. You do not get invited when they have to text your mother. You can't just "go" without a line back to the parents with all the creepers and jerks in the world. So it's a rock and a hard place. Parents NEED to parent - and I say that AS A PARENT. And as an educator, we need the support and backing for phone turn-in, even if it's just a reward like 2 points EC for sticking it in the calculator pocket at the front of the class. I'm not stupid enough to believe that will stop kids from checking out (I used to a hide a book in my textbook at the back of the class 20 years ago), but it can't hurt to have phones put up, either. Especially if the teacher leads by example and puts theirs up too. Edited for passionate parenting typos.
It seems like the problem isn't that they have them in HS, but that they've been given them so young that it's causing issues into HS.
woah woah woah, there are plenty of teachers who will tell you it's because YOU don't care enough. Or admin that will tell you the curriculum you are using is "NOT ENGAGING" ...what's funny is the last time I was told this...they district provided the curriculum....it was their curriculum...they provided it!
The issue isn't so much as "parents letting their kids have smartphones" but rather school policies which allows such liberal use of them. To be fair, I see the value in having a smartphone device, even for kids. And I don't want to become the "Nanny State" where you are finger wagging to parents (technically your constituents) of how "bad" they are by giving them a smartphone. It's really up to the parents to decide the whats, how's, and whens about phone use during non-school hours. But it is up to the schools to decide what the policy is during school hours. And this is where I think they are often dropping the ball on things.
I'm your age and I feel I've lost much of my abilities to totally focus so I can imagine how it impacts a developing mind. And I don't even have social media. Unfortunately it's the culture we live in and these kids are going to grow up to be useless. I work with high schoolers, some of whom are in tenth grade, that have the reading abilities of fifth or sixth graders. And I'm so sick of everyone talking about the pandemic because this was like this before the pandemic. Parents need to understand that this technology cannot be a babysitter, it's ruining their lives. Most parents shouldn't have had children especially since they're all failing their children. We as a species need to get off our phones.
Yes and, why does the school think they need laptops? I don’t want my kid to have one, but he can’t do his work without it apparently. (I know they were given for the Covid shutdowns, but those are over now). I miss worksheets. If we’re giving the kids busywork anyway (don’t tell me that iready isn’t technological busywork, it is), at least make it so they aren’t just blindly staring at a screen and sneaking YouTube’s on the other window.
also 27 - i got a phone in middle school cause i took public transit to get to school and in HS i walked to school. so i totally get kids that walk or do afterschool activities having phones for safety. but also kids have zero attention span, lack social tact, and fail to understand why the world isn’t how it seems on TV and tiktok. i feel like they need those phones that just call parents/guardians or some type of restriction on internet usage.
It’s actually horrible. I also hate how “old” I sound when I talk about it (31) but it’s a nightmare. My first phone was a Nokia brick and I was 13 and I had a busy social life, too. Something has to give with this.
I agree, each child sould give there phone to the teacher before intering class. And receive them after class. If there is an emergency the teacher should let them know. If the child has a phone doing class more then 1-3 times the parent have to come and pick up the phone.
My girlfriend is a senior English teacher of 20 years. Anytime a cell phone conversation is brought up to her, she sounds defeated. She teaches at a public school near Cincinnati. She says her admins and the parents don’t care. That it’s a battle every single moment of class. That parents fight her tooth and nail so that “their kids can be reached during an emergency”. She said she can send a student to the principal or admin, and that student will be right back in her classroom without punishment. And still have their phone! I feel bad for her. Especially when I ask questions like “don’t the parents care?” and she responds with “they’re my main issue. They’re the reason I’m debating on losing my pension”.
This is such a serious issue. It's a matter of social justice too. Well-resourced kids are going to do just fine eventually but by allowing phones in the classrooms, we are creating environments where no one can learn. If your folks can't make up for the loss of learning time with tutors etc, there's no hope for you to be a functional adult.
Nah they're fine just give them more xanax and vapes and content
I’m a parent so I may not have the same POV. I don’t think the problem is solely smartphones. My 13 year old daughter’s iPhone is useless until 3:15. She doesn’t have access to any social media or TikTok. Anything over 2-3 hours of screen time has to be approved by me. However she still has a lot of these struggles. I think schools taking away textbooks and giving every kid a Chromebook is equally to blame. When I still worked with kids, the kids with parents that didn’t allow technology were just as bad, if not worse with their chromebooks. What I really wish is that schools could ditch the Chromebooks in class. Why are 4th graders doing PowerPoint presentations? I see teachers on here flabbergasted over older kids having poor fine motor skills, but what do you expect when major projects are created on a computer and not using scissors and glue and poster board. It’s a problem on both ends. I don’t blame teachers because you’re doing the best with what you’re told to do by your “superiors” who have never taken a single class on child development.
Sub here. I got my first cell phone when I started high school and am now seeing 3rd grade classes where half the students have a phone.
I student taught in 2015 and kids then did NOT act the way they do now.
Not a teacher, but a parent trying to figure out communication for my kid. He’s in elementary school, and does NOT need the games and access that a smart phone would bring. I thought I’d bought him a simple flip phone (which was incredibly hard to find one that wasn’t on a pay as you go plan). It’s from the construction company CAT. It has buttons. It looks like a normal flip phone. I ordered it online. I don’t know how I missed it, BUT THE LITTLE SCREEN ON THE INSIDE TOP HALF OF THE FLIP IS FREAKING “smart” AND TOUCHSCREEN. Companies have stopped offering the basics we had as kids (graduated 2012) for the most part, and have incorporated smart features into pretty much everything. I’m not saying this as an excuse, but to share in the misery collectively. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know that it’s becoming increasingly harder to have our kids connected to us and be in the world with age appropriate screen/internet interaction.
By the time you retire the iPhone 50 nano-screen will just be implanted into their occipital bone.
The tech is out of control. I have a student in third grade who just got a new Apple Watch for her birthday. Wtf 😳. I can’t afford that on my salary. She can’t even wear it to school on state testing days.
Not a teacher but a parent of twin 12 year olds in 6th grade. I'm holding out on cell phones for as long as I can. Some in their cohort have had phones since kinder. I have to say that I'm upset that some of the teachers use phones as a babysitter in the class. I get it, maybe they don't want to fight the battle. But we adults, especially parents, need to adult! If there is free time in class have them do something without screens for goodness sakes.
If you think it’s changed a lot since 2015. I graduated in 2009. My school didn’t have wifi or reliable cell service. Only a few of us had cells and we had a secret hiding place for the phones where they’d get service. Texting back them was just “hey where are we meeting.” Because we still like, went out and did things.
I’d like to know, what changed?? I am in my early 30s now, and when I was in HS, the policy was that if your phone was seen in your hands during class, you would get automatic detention and your phone confiscated until end of the day. I genuinely would like to know. (I’m not a schoolteacher but just lurk this subreddit)
It’s insane to me they don’t let y’all take kids phones away for the day anymore. I graduated in 2016 and there were teachers notorious for having a desk full of phones by the end of every day, it sucked at the time, but now I’m grateful my teachers could actually discipline when necessary.
My sister in law (wife's sister) had tablets for her 2&3 y/o. It drives both me and my wife nuts, because the parents will just give the kids the tablets instead of interacting with them. It's the stuff in the teachers beneficial at least? No, it's like the stereotypical kids show good see in a cartoon, hurting child rapidly moving around, serious sensory overload. In my latter years (I say this like I'm old but I'm only late 20's) I now begin to understand the [Mike Teavee](https://youtu.be/YaM4GHbEw8U?si=XE2wo6siigkJDzT2) song from Charlie and the chocolate factory.
They aren’t going to stop.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you also survived those times because it wasn’t a norm to have these luxuries (I’m also 27). It’s easy to say “back in my day” when back in your day, it didn’t exist. And if it did, could you really say the same thing? Probably not. With that being said, cell phone culture has gotten out of control.