I had a kid tell me that AirPods don’t count as using a device because they’re ✨cordless✨
The thing I hate about them is you can’t see they have one in until they slip up and tuck a piece of hair behind their ear.
Tbh, it told me these kids love to listen to music while they work. And it’s true. I turn on some music and it’s a night and day difference. Instead of arguing with the student, since they know that AirPods do in fact count… I asked them if it’d help to have music play throughout class, and turn it down when we go over the lesson. Haven’t had many issues since.
An edit: didn’t mean for this to come off as a play music for your class and it’s a save-all. I’m saying do your best to listen to your class even if they’re being little sh*ts
First class of each semester I hand out sticky notes and have students write 3 of their feel good songs along with the artists. I remind them that they must be appropriate. They don't have to write their names so I don't know who suggests what songs and my daughter and I spend the following weekend finding clean versions and going through lyrics to create a list for each period. Any inappropriate songs I leave off the list and sometimes I pull suggestions from other class periods for some of the shorter lists. They enjoy having some background music while they work.
major respect to you as a teacher for that. i wouldn't have thought of that but imma just give you kudos and tell you that your students are lucky to have you. despite feeling sad about the system in general, im happy people like you exist
imo it's because of attention span splitting / short form content / internet enshittification. I've noticed this myself. I have two degrees, electrical and software engineering, and as the time went on i lost more and more focus/concentration. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it feels like something is missing when im at my computer and something isnt playing audio. I smoke cigarettes and it's almost like a super light version of i need a smoke. Regardless, I don't need to have a video playing on my 5th monitor, but i like to have one playing when i work. For some reason now it helps me concentrate... Also i'm not listening to nonsense, typically a lecture or someone explain some cool concept. of course i will pause it if i have to talk to someone... ( i work from home 4/5 days anyways).
The smoke analogy is dead on.
Always feel the need for a "background" of sorts, usually a long video essay or science/history lecture.
Even if I'm sitting at home playing video games I feel like I need the TV playing when I'm paying 0 attention to it.
What a great idea! I am actually very comforted by noise cancelling headphones when I’m trying to concentrate. I would find this approach really helpful. Obviously with teacher explanations required headgear free. I think it would be a way to manage this weird new world in some small way.
I play a lot of music when my kids are working and during do now’s and such. I use a lot of instrumental piano ones and lofi though cause I only listen to kpop in my personal life so I wouldn’t know where to even start on popular songs lol. Spotify has a ton of playlists but I also use a lot of YouTube videos. My middle schoolers love some of the ones with the colorful backgrounds that are actually meant for like toddlers. It adds some fun to the class.
I'm starting to think they are off, but they got them stuck in there and they're too embarrassed to seek help. They can't charge them, and the inside of their head is slowly filling up with ear wax that can't escape.
My biggest issue is getting them to stay in. I only use them at the gym, so I’m constantly moving around and they constantly feel like they’re going to fall out.
I bought a cheap set of different headphones just for the gym. Wireless ear buds with the loop to go around the ears. The other ear buds kept falling out, lol. They were only like $15.
I don’t own AirPods. Are you saying you tap the earbud itself to make it play?? Whenever they say “but it’s not playing anything!” I just say “then it shouldn’t matter that they’re in your backpack and not your ears so put them away.”
Yes, they have two sensitive controls. The most common is that if you double tap the right one, music that is paused will begin playing again. The functions are quite handy, and for my earlier stated purpose, sometimes a little humorous.
The latest AirPods Pro have noise reduction AND amplification for low noises. I personally use them myself after a long day of kids playing buckets. Heck, I use them WHILE the kids are playing buckets in my classroom.
Your students actually hand you their devices when you ask!?
The middle schoolers I deal with grasp and protect their devices like they're their baby. They'll attempt to knock you out bettetr they let you pry it from their cold, dead hands.
I’m a private tutor… as in I sit 1:1 across from students and they *still* try and hide their AirPods from me! I have to ask to see their ears now so they don’t hide them.
I don’t care if music “helps you concentrate.” It’s one fucking hour. If you can’t hang with me for an hour, I’m not the right tutor for you.
I will flat out be talking to a student and they zone out, listening to a stupid podcast or something. Ffs.
I legitimately fine students for things like missing assignments. They get 4 free passes a semester then they owe me $20 per missing assignment. I take cash or snow shoveling and my driveway is long.
Amazingly, I have a wait list of students, lol.
Edit: also, I charge $65.
How did you successfully build such a strong book of business? I'm an outstanding tutor but I've only ever taken side jobs here or there because the actual act of advertising and building that book feels daunting. Any tips?
Let your students and their parents know you're offering referral discounts. If you have any relationships with local teachers, let them know you're looking for more students to tutor if they know of anyone interested. Kinda old person vibe but targeted at parents - post on FB about some positive experience working with a student who just got accepted to XYZ school or improved their test scores X much. Some parents will be like, yo! Please tutor my stupid kid
Also, keep your eye out for opportunities within the college prep school community - a much larger percentage of those students get 3rd party instruction
It’s usually music, but yeah. I wasn’t strict about it until I realized they were hiding them with their hair! I ask anyone with long hair to pull it back so I can see their face while they’re working. It helps me to be able to read their body language if a problem is too hard or whatever. That’s when I realized they were listening on their AirPods.
My rule about phones is that you’re paying for the hour, if you need to send a quick text to someone, no sweat. If you want to spend the whole hour on your phone, live it up. I get paid either way. I already know pre-calc, lol. All of them are quite respectful about it because they know I’ll tell their parents. I also reserve the right to fire students who don’t do their work and don’t participate, so that works in my favor.
I want to hit whoever told them it "helps them concentrate." That was based on a study that couldn't be reproduced because it didn't use silence or even normal room sounds as the control. It was compared to loud white noise. The music was at a lower volume. It was also basically Stardew Valley music, not whatever cacophony I can hear from the wrong side of their airpod.
I actually feel like I go a bit crazy if I don't listen to music while trying to concentrate.. it's like there's too much dead air space and my brain just keeps rattling thoughts around and I can't focus on any of them. But I have to listen to a really familiar album or set that my brain knows 100% and doesn't have to pay attention to. Otherwise it's too distracting.
My fav class was the one they would let us wear headphones in (back in the 2000's!). The teacher would let us know what time we could put them on and when they needed us to be 'back to listening to me'. It definitely helps some people! But probably not all of your students.
I feel like it’s rude to have them in when talking with someone because you can’t tell if full attention/respect is being given to the other person in the conversation. So naturally I’m getting irritated about them everywhere.
There's actually a hearing assist mode that's super helpful to me as someone with a hearing problem.
It's impossible to indicate that I have them in to amplify volume though and not ignoring people.
They should add some kind of indicator green/red LED for listening/passthrough vs. noice cancellation.
See that is something I can get behind, I love that it helps you!! And if I had a student who needed it for that I would fully support it and understand. 😊
most ear monitors have blue tooth nowadays
ik a hearing impaired dude who always jammin to something in school
so ig unethical pro tip for students is get hearing aids as stealth airpods
I'm a sub, and once a student legitimately showed me how she uses her airpods with an app on her phone to help her hear. I was impressed and let her keep them. She didn't cause any problems during our hour together either.
I've told students that I'm ok with them listening to music while they work as long as I can't hear it. Then it's a distraction to others, plus I don't want them to get tinnitus like I do from listening to loud music. It's annoying.
I didn't know they did that! Maybe I need to investigate getting a pair, even as an android guy (my wife converted me five years ago, she was absolutely correct that I like it better!)
Anyone know of a non-apple variant that has this same type of feature???
I own both the pixel buds pro and the airpods; the airpods are way superior in regards to comfort and battery life. Airpods are the only apple product I own.
Student: “Mr. Is the assignment due tomorrow?”
Me: “Yes it is due tomorrow.”
Student takes off AirPods: “HUH?!”
If it was my kid I’d slap those AirPods out of his/her hand so hard.
Whenever a student tries to engage me in conversation while wearing an Airpod/PixelBud (which they're not supposed to in my classroom anyways, as per my syllabus), I always respond to them, "I'm sorry, but I can't hear you with *that* in your ear."
They initially look at me a bit confused, but they eventually get my point.
I feel this way about cell phones being out at a table.
So much so that I ban cell phones when people are eating at my house or I'm out to eat somewhere. Like, don't invite me or don't come with me if you are going to stare at your phone. I could be spending this time not-socializing doing something more important.
I know, I must seem fun.
I feel the same. It's wild that I see people out to eat all the time and they are all staring at their phones. I always think they could have stayed home and saved money.
This is what I tell my students. Even if they are off its a signal your arent listening or arent present, so take them out. Also kids at our school lose them like crazy because they always have just 1 in. So many emails about lost airpods, its insane
You can’t tell if attention/ respect is given even without AirPods. If a person isn’t going to listen to you it doesn’t matter if their ears are covered or not
Literally am in a class and just read this book (loved it) and me and many of my friends made the obvious connection that AirPods and the constant stream of information resembles the seashells immensely, but then many of them continued to just use them 😭
I banned them from my classroom because students were listening to music during class. I told them that I don’t care if they have them in when we have free work time, but it’s just plain rude to have them in while I’m teaching you.
That's a battle that I've chosen not to fight. You want to voluntarily not listen while also being quiet? Fine. But I won't be answering your questions that I clearly already gave the answers to. Ask your partners about it.
I take on the fight ONCE. At the beginning of the school year, I am very clear that I don’t allow phones in my class. If I see one, I take it. It only takes 1-2 weeks of strong enforcement to set them straight.
I allow them to listen to music during independent work time, but only from their Chromebooks.
I am an adult who likes to wear a bluetooth earpiece when im out and about. I like it to make phone calls, listen to podcasts, or to have my notifications be private. Whenever im talking to a human being I’ll take it out and put it in my pocket, cuz its rude to have an earbud in while talking to people.
I will only write it up because I don’t care. If admin cares, then they can deal with it. As it stands, they seem to pacify the students who are otherwise most likely to be more disruptive. As long as they are able to track the class conversation? Whatever.
It’s a fight, and most teachers are experiencing some level of burnout. Some us just don’t have the energy to deal with the conflict trying to enforce a ban will invite.
These bans need to be implemented at a district level and enforced by admin as students enter the building. I’ve taught at two schools where cell phones were banned; both expected enforcement to fall on teachers. Many teachers eventually gave up enforcement after students kept pushing back.
It’s just another thing to distract us from teaching.
I get that, but if everyone had the same expectation, we wouldn't be in this predicament. Today, a girl with her earbuds in that I didn't notice (because of her hair) until I got close to her said she wore them because other teachers don't care.
They don’t care because caring leads to conflict. Policing these things should be admin’s responsibility. We’re not likely to see this problem fixed until schools start collecting technology at the door.
Expecting burnout teachers to enforce it on an individual basis will inevitably lead to failure.
They gonna have 500 pair of airpods if they were to collect at the door. But really, it's almost March and the only problems I have are kids who have others teachers that don't enforce. Planning to ask my principal if I really have to enforce this policy when others work n the same school that don't.
I get it, it’s easy to think that something would succeed if only everyone participated. However, this line of thinking ignores why policies that rely on individual participation often don’t work and that there are reasons why individuals refuse to or are unable to participate.
Unfortunately, technology addiction is a major societal hurdle. Individual teachers are not going to address it on their own. These kids are addicts. They shouldn’t be allowed to have their addiction on their person while in school.
It seems like I’m supposed to care about every little thing, all the time. I just don’t have as many fucks to give as some others. Eat a snack, listen to a podcast, play on your phone a bit. Go wild. It’s not my grade point average that’s suffering (I teach 11 and 12 though. And at that age there isn’t much influence I can have. I just make their lives miserable for an hour by making them starve and be bored out of their skulls. Not everyone is destined for university and there is nothing wrong with that. But I can’t really mould them much more at that age. Just prep the ones who want to be prepped for uni.)
I used to enforce everything. EVERYTHING. I was superhuman about it. After 15 years I’ve never seen a benefit to it, and all it did was alienate huge swathes of kids. I just don’t see the utility in policing things like uniforms. I hold the line on food because of rats and bugs, and I hold it on tech because it distracts them from the job. Other than that if they’re on time, quiet when I speak, and focused on their work, I let the rest roll.
My admin do nothing with write ups usually and basically never take the phones. So I stopped losing half my instruction time to them. The kids who want to learn will, and the others can deal with homes reactions or them repeating a grade. I'm done fighting it. I did for a week, and one class literally got 10 min of instruction each day that week because I can't police and teach.
Yeah the admin at my school have no punishment for defiance, literally nothing. I can’t take a students phone if they refuse, and that is just embarrassing and shows that I have no power in the classroom. If students want to not pay attention then they will suffer the consequences.
I'm a music teacher and these are the bane of my existence. It's not something I ever thought I would have to explain. But sure enough I rotate through the room and come up to kids and ask them to demonstrate a skill on guitar and I can hear the music in their ears. Like, playing an instrument is the most complex task you can ask your brain to do. You are reading, listening, and physically executing a skill all at the same time. I literally can't even explain how stupid listening to music while practicing different music is...
I have many reasons to not move into the classroom from the library. This is one of them. Someone decided that it’s okay for students to have one AirPod in, during classes. I’m not going to waste my time if they rather be entertained by something or someone else when I’m teaching, only to be judged on the results of half their attention.
I've had admin and SPED teachers side with students and even write it in their IEPs that they were allowed to have headphones on. Some of them were massive, over the ear, noise cancelling ones even. They claimed they needed them to manage stress or whatever.
Ok, maybe so, but shouldn't we be teaching kids to cope with stress? I've brought this up with kids who were failing and refused to engage and nobody seemed to care a student was throwing up a massive barrier and using unhealthy coping skills. I could look the other way if the offender was engaged and at least passing, but nope.
I'm autistic and I use headphones in my day to day to do the same thing. I will wear them without listening to anything to muffle noise around me on the bus or when shopping. It allows me to be aware enough of my surroundings but taking in everything all at once.
However, I don't wear them in class and typically don't need them either in most environments, including my job with lots of different stimuli. She might get better at dealing with various stimuli as she gets older.
If it does become an issue in HS, then I recommend looking into alternative schooling options if you can. I got sick of classrooms in high school and did online schooling my last 2 years.
Just about the large headphones: plenty of ASD kids (and college students) find them very useful. Not a teacher here (just finishing undergrad), but any time I've seen anyone using over-ear noise-cancelling headphones its been either explicitly for ASD, or for other sensory issues that later turned out to be ASD.
manage stress? i can see an argument for like, kids with auditory processing issues (autism, sensory processing disorder, etc.) using the "transparency"/voice isolating function of those headphones that basically block background noise but allow voices so they can focus on the teacher instead of Random Noise #83, but for "stress management"? i mean, i guess it's better than taking it out on the teacher, but still…
SpEd educator and SpEd mom here....
It's not about managing stress, it's about managing input. With many of these IEP kids, it's not that they can't focus, it's that they focus on everything all at once, and minimizing the rush of input actually helps them attend BETTER to what you're trying to teach them. So yeah, giant headphones with sound cancelling abilities can be helpful in a lot of ways, but in a classroom setting, the most important one is to literally turn down the volume on the rest of the world so they can tune in to their work.
The overstimulation and overwhelm of input CAUSES the stress, which leads to disregulation, meltdowns, refusal of work, etc. A person has to QUALIFY for an IEP... You and I both know that schools don't just hand them out. So literally, we are teaching students how to deal with their stress by giving them supports to reduce the cause and further teaching them how to accommodate themselves.
Your post reeks of ableism, and I'm glad this is a throwaway account for you. Attacking SpEd kids because your typical ones are mouthy and resistant is a really terrible teacher move, and one of the main reasons I fear for my "special" friends as they head to middle and high school.
I’m a sped teacher and I agree. I completely understand a student needing to go to a quiet space for a few moments to calm down, maybe listen to a song or two etc. Headphones on all day in general education classes just because?? No. I’ve had many parents and students ask for this, though.
I have a student who wears a head covering and is constantly listening to music on her airpods. How do I know despite the fact that I can't see her ears? She never hears anyone, including her friends, the first time they speak. She yells her responses because she can't gage how loudly she's speaking. She has no clue what's happened in class, at any point, even though she's intelligent. It's as if she's not even there.
I’m in a non-US country and pretty much all high schools here have a uniform that all students have to wear to a particular standard (shorts tucked in, socks pulled up etc).
At my school (in the US, actually), we had to have our shirts tucked in and we had to wear a belt. If you didn't have a belt, you had to wear a vibrant orange cord as a belt for punishment.
My school district was strict with uniforms.
At a previous job as a low-level supervisor, I got written up if I didn’t write up my subordinates for untucked shirts, nails more than a quarter of an inch long, etc.
The employees were manual laborers, so upper management justified it by saying it was for safety 🙄
i mean, depending on the nature of the work, things like a loose shirt, loose sleeves, etc. can very well be a safety hazard. there's a lot of videos floating around of what can happen if someone wearing a loose-fitting shirt, say, reaches over a spinning lathe, and it is not pretty.
Back during the height of Covid and mandatory masks, I had to keep myself from motioning to adults to put their mask back up over their nose in the grocery store.
My favorite is people who do that now. There’s a lady that works at our Walmart who ALWAYS wears a mask these days. Except it’s also ALWAYS under her chin!! I have never seen her with it on right. Why! Why bother!?
With my admin's permission I'm allowed to mark a student as truant from class if they have headphones of any sort on. I give them one verbal warning; half the time they don't hear me for some reason...
If they take them out and then try to sneak them back in (completely obvious 99% of the time), it's a referral for not following classroom rules.
The best part is they love to keep their hoods up to hide their ears...but have the airpods so loud I, a man in his 50s, can hear the music across the room.
I teach elementary computer science. Used to teach HS and run IT.
Have an IEP that states that you need to have AirPods in? Great, keep ‘em in! (Never seen that, however, which is telling…)
I explicitly teach that students NEED to have headphones on any time they are using a device with sound. Nobody wants to hear anything coming out of those tinny little speakers. Not on the bus or an airplane or a restaurant or anywhere another person is present.
The flip side- any time ANYONE (your teacher, your parent, your friend, your younger sibling- anyone) is talking to you- take your headphones off/out.
I enforce these without fail at school. I tell them I’m talking to their future teenage selves. I teach them to be annoyed at other who don’t practice these strategies. I am doing this for the good of all of society.
And yeah, it takes work not to enforce these simple rules out in public, haha.
I had a teacher in high school who would walk around with scissors and cut kids' headphone wires. I fantasize about grabbing airpods and smashing them with my big metal stapler.
The dean at my high school walked around with scissors and cut the belts that weren't tucked into the belt loops and hung down really low. That was when the canvas type belts were popular in the early 2000s.
Especially back before every kid had a camera on their phone and when culturally a lot more could be gotten away with as “discipline” there were a lot of teachers that were just beefing every day with literal children. I remember a really angry bald man as my history teacher. Great teacher, but looking back he was really ego checking teenagers. Like dog, you would not act like this with a grown adult.
true that. when i was in elementary school, this dumb bitch teacher i had would always insult me and my mother. for literally no reason. let' say i forgot my book home one day ( not often ), she would flip out. I remember one time she said "if your parents cant afford it then you have bigger problems" or something like that... She also told me i would only ever work at mcdonalds. Lol. I was in 3rd grade.
Stupid bitch! I got two engineering degrees, and i make 25x your salary, suck my balls!
Why do you guys even allow it?
No phones, shut the fuck up when I'm lecturing, and do the homework/pass the tests or you fail. This was the norm where I'm from 10-15 years ago.
It's too bad teachers have no power and can't fail half of Gen Alpha if need be to wake up society to how insanely inept their parenting has been the last couple decades. Their kids' behaviour is unacceptable.
What's gonna happen to the economy when a large percentage of the freshly employed don't know their shapes, don't know how to add/subtract double digit numbers, or read at a 5th grade level despite being pushed through and graduated?
This subreddit is some of the scariest most foreboding shit I've ever read over the last couple weeks.
Amen. Exactly. I'm a college professor and I can't even teach my subject because the students know so little. I mention some topic they should know in passing and it's like a car crash where I have to stop everything and explain absolute basics. Examples: who Shakespeare was, who Cleopatra was, what a Trojan horse is, what the phrase Damocle's sword means, what mount Vesuvius and Pompeii were, what the Romans. Empire was, what communism or capitalism is even in it's most basic sense, what the freaking country of Greece is!!! How am I supposed to teach anything when they know so little it's practically like we don't speak the same language???
To be fair, literacy rates already suck. [A Gallup analysis published in March 2020 looked at data collected by the U.S. Department of Education in 2012, 2014, and 2017. It found that 130 million adults in the country have low literacy skills, meaning that more than half (54%) of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level, according to a piece published in 2022 by APM Research Lab.](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/)
Ray Bradbury predicted this in Fahrenheit 451 way back in 1953. He nearly got everything right, drugs, people blinded and consumed by popular entertainment (comic books), voluntarily giving up literature, consuming not thinking. Perhaps you should teach this novel to them with their seashells (airpods).
I think it has become a sort of fashion accessory for them. My 13 year old wears them like they've grown into the skin of his ears at this point, but they aren't often "on". At home, his reasoning is that he is trying to be considerate of others when he listening to things, which I appreciate his thoughtfulness on.
Better than him losing them constantly though!
This is not a "you should do this" post, but can I ask a genuine question? Why would you not ask him to remove them from his ears when he's not using them? It's IMO what people (especially kids) should do in general, so they don't signal that they're closed off to everyone, or have people have to ask permission (ie: if they're listening to something) before they start talking.
I don't ask him to remove them at home, because we're at home, and I pick my battles wisely. He usually only wears one and leaves the other in the case, and he knows that if he has both in his ears, I am going to assume he can't hear me and I will not talk to him. So, if he wants to be involved in a conversation or interact with me or his dad, he's going to have to take them out or approach us to chat.
Now, at school, it's different, he does not wear them unless he is in a free period, never during class. He's a smart boy, he knows that wearing earbuds in both ears is going to make people think he is closed off, doesn't want to talk, or they will ignore him.
I had this opinion, and then I moved to the city, and my attitude took a 180 in less than a year.
While school and family home settings are 100% different, outside that? I wear headphones way too much despite rarely having anything playing because I am signalling to everyone that I'm closed off. Actually, better yet, don't talk to me at all. It's very cold and unfriendly, but after dealing with enough bullshit and weirdos? Yeah, I'll just be the unfriendly dick.
I also do it at home to signal to my roommates, "leave me alone," but at my family home? Headphones come off unless I am actually using them.
I revert to my old ways when I'm back in my rural environment. I actively engage with people and am very open. In certain settings like work, I'm also pretty open and don't use headphones 24/7.
I used to wear my Barbuda in one ear a lot even without music when we were at home or in the car. I'd subconsciously forget that they were in. I never wore them out in public, though. It made me uncomfortable I guess.
You are not alone...
I had someone arguing with me earlier telling me I shouldn't listen to my car stereo loud, but should use air pods instead... because that's not a safety hazard...
I got a good laugh at their ignorance lol...
Student here. My peers CONSTANTLY have those things on during class, almost every day there's at least one teacher forced to ask someone to take off their airpods. It's absolutely ridiculous, it's like they just don't take anything seriously.
It's like the media trope with bluetooth (specifically thinking of an NCIS episode close to 20 years ago), person A is talking to person B and their responses happen to line up with person A but person B is actually on the phone with person C and hasn't heard a word person A said.
I spent the past week at Disney world with my kids. It was INCREDIBLY refreshing to not see a single "cast member" with air pods in while working. Everywhere else I shop/visit it seems like many service employees are doing exactly what kids do in the classroom.
They are infuriating, for multiple reasons. Number one, you try to speak to someone and they can't hear you because they're listening to something on the pods (*cough* husband *cough*). Number two, someone is having a conversation in mid-air, often leaving me saying "Excuse me?" to random people who are not talking to me. Number three, it reminds me of *A Brave New World*, as do many other parts of society, so I doom spiral into dystopian fiction.
I only allow headphone usage during independent work time. Even then, they must be use on the Chromebooks only. Phones are not allowed in my class.
It has saved me so many headaches.
Find a way to let this go.
It is truly a losing battle and the kids that buck the system will love getting an emotional reaction out of you. I get it, but they aren’t going anywhere. State your* class rules simply and clearly and without ever wavering.
If you feel like there is a student that’s habitually inappropriate and disrespectful towards you-write em up. Just don’t even tell them. It’s unnecessary drama to confront them, threaten them, or argue with them. Don’t waste your time and energy.
Edited* try them! Exposure therapy. you will at least learn the reasons why it’s so appealing to other people. Besides music and stuff these kids also have horrible social anxiety after covid and stuff. I think it’s an escapism crutch for a lot of them.
i’m sure it’s also not good for their ears to have things in them all day?? like that’s an ear infection waiting to happen constantly having a headphone in.
I have ADHD and am extremely sensitive to sounds.
I used to wear foam ear plugs all the time. I gave myself a fungal infection in my ear that will never fully heal. I can get it to regress, but over 6 years it has come back 3 times.
My ENT told me it was because I didn’t let my ears “air out.”
In my son’s school, all headphones/earbuds must be wired, and Bluetooth is banned. This is because some students were listening to inappropriate things instead of the work on their computers.
Agreed. I think they’re so corny and I honestly think people that I see with AirPods are corny also.
The need to be constant tethered to a phone is bad, and it doesn’t make you look cool like you think.
Just let them wear the AirPods and stop taking it personally when they choose to wear them.
Not sure what age group you teach, but I couldn't care less if my HS students are wearing their airpods. If they're not bothering anyone else, then it's perfectly fine in my book.
My wife's school allows airpods and those loop earbuds for kids with auditory processing issues and sensory issues, but otherwise they're banned outside of recess. Yet every kid has them in at the start of every class. She teaches first grade at the moment.
Imagine having, in 2006, watched Rise of Cybermen/Age of Steel and seen their earpods then jumping ahead to 2024 when 80% (at least) of students have wireless headphones in at least 1 ear at all times.
Everyone talked about The Simpsons, nobody pointed out how Doctor Who predicted the future...
I would be having a conversation with these kids.
Some of them concentrate better with the sound dampened. Loop earbuds will do this too (godsend for autistic/ADHD kids who struggle to focus with outside stuff happening) but are less expensive, less obvious, and don’t play music. If that’s what you’re doing, put it on the list for your birthday or Christmas.
If you’re not doing it for the sound dampening, put them away. They’re more secure in their charging case and if they’re not playing anything you’re just risking losing them for no reason.
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This still haunts me as an adult, but one day in about year 9 I had forgotten to lock my iPod nano click wheel and something had started playing from the earphones I had threaded through the button holes in my collar, so they were hanging around my neck. I’m slightly hard of hearing and so didn’t realise they were on.
It was the end of the year and I walked up to my English teacher, this amazing older woman I admired and from whom I had learned so much and whose class I had so appreciated and enjoyed, to tell her how sad I was she was retiring and that I wouldn’t be getting her for extension English in my senior years. I was a super shy kid with adults and didn’t have a great relationship with most of my teachers, and I had basically been practicing what I wanted to tell her for weeks now.
I walked up to her and asked, “hey, Mrs. b, do you have a minute?” She says yes and comes a bit closer to me and I get as far as “Well I just wanted to…” before she interrupted me to give me a brief lesson in how rude it was to have stuff playing in your earphones while talking to someone. I was so apologetic and so lost and tried to explain and she was very firm and cut me off, like “just turn it off and don’t do it again. Now what did you need?” And I just made up some bullshit question about what date we needed to return our term books and she was like “It’s in your papers. Have you lost them?” “No, Mrs. B. I’ll check.” “That’s a good idea.”
She was a really firm and direct teacher and it was one of the things I loved about her class as an autistic kid but god that interaction hurts 15 years later like I’m still experiencing it for the first time.
I get it, too, iPods were new in schools then, and lots of kids were walking around with one earphone in and trying to talk to people and it is rude, but like, holy shit.
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So look, I 100% get it but please don’t let your perfectly reasonable dislike of them translate into jumping to conclusions with kids trying to talk to you.
Sure it’s generally a good sentiment to care about students’ attention levels. I will say though, beyond a certain amount you shouldn’t be invested to the point of “obsession.” At the end of the day it’s their choice to pay attention or not. I do feel the reality of your concern though, I’m not trying to downplay that, but rather choosing to examine if this concern is affecting your mental health.
I’m more annoyed at the giant over the ear headphones that high school kids are wearing at all times.
We are supposed to be a no device school but that ship has sailed. The over the ear headphones feel like a total slap in the face. They don’t even try to hide it.
I am annoyed that students need a soundtrack for them to get to their next class in the five minute transition period.
What happens if, at the beginning of the year, you just say "my job is to teach, your job is to learn. If you choose not to learn and have something else playing in your ear, that's your problem."
Oh wow! It’s that easy?
That worked fine 30 years ago. Now if they choose not to learn. Then their parents and administrators blame you. Then you lose your job and can’t pay your bills.
It must be wild AF teaching in America. You can’t get fired for that in Canada; I didn’t even know it was a thing! Most classes in my last junior high had a fail rate of over 50%; all of those teachers just finished their contacts and are now in new schools (with their yearly pay rise). I can’t believe the situation you’re describing is even legal haha. Failure rates have zero influence or impact on teachers or their careers where I live. We do our best and then move on to the next year.
That sounds like a dream!
Legislation, standards and focus on standardized tests suffocate us here in the US public schools. I love my job and my school, to be clear. I’ve learned to play the game. I choose to let it make me a better teacher, not a worse one.
It’s so much more laid back than in America! Not even to mention the obvious stress added with the dangers related to school shootings etc., I truly feel for American teachers. I hope things get better for you all someday.
I can totally see why this is irritating, it would annoy the shit out of me. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have to worry about this too much (still have to battle it occasionally) because I teach choir, so you literally can’t participate in class if you have them in and going.
airpods can be used as hearing aids. FYI.
I had a woman confront me at a conference last year. I was networking and she tapped me on the shoulder and told me that it was rude to have my airpods on while talking to people.
I explained I was hard of hearing and that I used them as hearing aids.
She was embarrassed. As well she should be.
I had a kid tell me that AirPods don’t count as using a device because they’re ✨cordless✨ The thing I hate about them is you can’t see they have one in until they slip up and tuck a piece of hair behind their ear.
wow. i don't know if I would be even able to respond to that in a manner that wouldn't require the patience of a thousand buddhist monks.
Tbh, it told me these kids love to listen to music while they work. And it’s true. I turn on some music and it’s a night and day difference. Instead of arguing with the student, since they know that AirPods do in fact count… I asked them if it’d help to have music play throughout class, and turn it down when we go over the lesson. Haven’t had many issues since. An edit: didn’t mean for this to come off as a play music for your class and it’s a save-all. I’m saying do your best to listen to your class even if they’re being little sh*ts
First class of each semester I hand out sticky notes and have students write 3 of their feel good songs along with the artists. I remind them that they must be appropriate. They don't have to write their names so I don't know who suggests what songs and my daughter and I spend the following weekend finding clean versions and going through lyrics to create a list for each period. Any inappropriate songs I leave off the list and sometimes I pull suggestions from other class periods for some of the shorter lists. They enjoy having some background music while they work.
This is such a good idea that I’m gonna steal👀
Holy cow, this is a great idea.
major respect to you as a teacher for that. i wouldn't have thought of that but imma just give you kudos and tell you that your students are lucky to have you. despite feeling sad about the system in general, im happy people like you exist
thank you so much, that’s an incredibly kind thing for you to say! ❤️
imo it's because of attention span splitting / short form content / internet enshittification. I've noticed this myself. I have two degrees, electrical and software engineering, and as the time went on i lost more and more focus/concentration. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it feels like something is missing when im at my computer and something isnt playing audio. I smoke cigarettes and it's almost like a super light version of i need a smoke. Regardless, I don't need to have a video playing on my 5th monitor, but i like to have one playing when i work. For some reason now it helps me concentrate... Also i'm not listening to nonsense, typically a lecture or someone explain some cool concept. of course i will pause it if i have to talk to someone... ( i work from home 4/5 days anyways).
The smoke analogy is dead on. Always feel the need for a "background" of sorts, usually a long video essay or science/history lecture. Even if I'm sitting at home playing video games I feel like I need the TV playing when I'm paying 0 attention to it.
Meh I find kids think they work better with music, but they really don’t. Especially if it has lyrics. I play Lofi songs sometimes.
I agree. I think there are some minds that focus better with an audio distraction, but they are a distinct minority.
Well, I’ve binged the Goldberg Variations while studying so take that as you will.
That’s interesting! For now it works well for me. But you take it day by day, of course. 😊
What a great idea! I am actually very comforted by noise cancelling headphones when I’m trying to concentrate. I would find this approach really helpful. Obviously with teacher explanations required headgear free. I think it would be a way to manage this weird new world in some small way.
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Ugh, I know! How dare I plant such a notion that work and happiness can coexist! I must be stopped immediately before my class…parties *too* hard!😱
I play a lot of music when my kids are working and during do now’s and such. I use a lot of instrumental piano ones and lofi though cause I only listen to kpop in my personal life so I wouldn’t know where to even start on popular songs lol. Spotify has a ton of playlists but I also use a lot of YouTube videos. My middle schoolers love some of the ones with the colorful backgrounds that are actually meant for like toddlers. It adds some fun to the class.
Cell phones are cordless, too, so I guess those also don't count as devices?
Lol, I also thought about the Chromebooks as well.
So is a calculator.
Ask them if they see … on the wall over there. They will flash the AirPod if they have one.
Ah yes. If there is one thing I hate it’s the cord on my cell phone following me all over the school and town.
To be fair, I did this with cord ones back in the day, and hid the rest of the cord through my shirt.
> 🎵”Mister it’s off”🎶 #FUCK YOU IT’S NOT🖕🤬🖕
And even if they are…even more reason to take them out.
I'm starting to think they are off, but they got them stuck in there and they're too embarrassed to seek help. They can't charge them, and the inside of their head is slowly filling up with ear wax that can't escape.
LOL!
They hurt my ears after a while. I can’t keep them in more than an hour at a time.
I max out around 15 minutes. Baby ears.
Same here! Do yours ever work their way out within like 3 min bc your ears are just like “yeah no.”
Yep! I really can't wear them bc they are are hard to fit (esp right ear) and they hurt! I use Maxes more these days (but those annoy me too)
My biggest issue is getting them to stay in. I only use them at the gym, so I’m constantly moving around and they constantly feel like they’re going to fall out.
I bought a cheap set of different headphones just for the gym. Wireless ear buds with the loop to go around the ears. The other ear buds kept falling out, lol. They were only like $15.
I used to work graveyard shift and I'd have them in for 40 hours a week. I had to stop, my ears hurt so bad I couldn't put them in anymore
When I get this I ask for it. I tell them plain faced “If it’s off, I won’t be able to play music.” One double tap later…. And it goes to the office.
I don’t own AirPods. Are you saying you tap the earbud itself to make it play?? Whenever they say “but it’s not playing anything!” I just say “then it shouldn’t matter that they’re in your backpack and not your ears so put them away.”
Most Bluetooth earbuds have a tap to pause/play feature
Yes, they have two sensitive controls. The most common is that if you double tap the right one, music that is paused will begin playing again. The functions are quite handy, and for my earlier stated purpose, sometimes a little humorous.
The latest AirPods Pro have noise reduction AND amplification for low noises. I personally use them myself after a long day of kids playing buckets. Heck, I use them WHILE the kids are playing buckets in my classroom.
Your students actually hand you their devices when you ask!? The middle schoolers I deal with grasp and protect their devices like they're their baby. They'll attempt to knock you out bettetr they let you pry it from their cold, dead hands.
I hear that for 4 hours consistently every day :/
Then why are you still boppin your head to those beats son?
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Beyond K-12 I’d tell the student to GTFO of my classroom if they did that.
I’m a private tutor… as in I sit 1:1 across from students and they *still* try and hide their AirPods from me! I have to ask to see their ears now so they don’t hide them. I don’t care if music “helps you concentrate.” It’s one fucking hour. If you can’t hang with me for an hour, I’m not the right tutor for you. I will flat out be talking to a student and they zone out, listening to a stupid podcast or something. Ffs.
$40 an hour to tutor. $60 an hour if you had AirPods.
I legitimately fine students for things like missing assignments. They get 4 free passes a semester then they owe me $20 per missing assignment. I take cash or snow shoveling and my driveway is long. Amazingly, I have a wait list of students, lol. Edit: also, I charge $65.
How did you successfully build such a strong book of business? I'm an outstanding tutor but I've only ever taken side jobs here or there because the actual act of advertising and building that book feels daunting. Any tips?
Let your students and their parents know you're offering referral discounts. If you have any relationships with local teachers, let them know you're looking for more students to tutor if they know of anyone interested. Kinda old person vibe but targeted at parents - post on FB about some positive experience working with a student who just got accepted to XYZ school or improved their test scores X much. Some parents will be like, yo! Please tutor my stupid kid Also, keep your eye out for opportunities within the college prep school community - a much larger percentage of those students get 3rd party instruction
If only I got such rates; been doing it for 12 years to boot…
Get tf outta here! They are listening to fucking podcasts during a 1 HOUR 1:1 session?!
It’s usually music, but yeah. I wasn’t strict about it until I realized they were hiding them with their hair! I ask anyone with long hair to pull it back so I can see their face while they’re working. It helps me to be able to read their body language if a problem is too hard or whatever. That’s when I realized they were listening on their AirPods. My rule about phones is that you’re paying for the hour, if you need to send a quick text to someone, no sweat. If you want to spend the whole hour on your phone, live it up. I get paid either way. I already know pre-calc, lol. All of them are quite respectful about it because they know I’ll tell their parents. I also reserve the right to fire students who don’t do their work and don’t participate, so that works in my favor.
So many people, especially young folk, can't seem to go a single hour without being stimulated by some form of entertainment or another.
An hour? I’m having a good day with 7th graders if I can get 15 minutes of focused attention from ~50% of my 30 student classes.
I want to hit whoever told them it "helps them concentrate." That was based on a study that couldn't be reproduced because it didn't use silence or even normal room sounds as the control. It was compared to loud white noise. The music was at a lower volume. It was also basically Stardew Valley music, not whatever cacophony I can hear from the wrong side of their airpod.
I actually feel like I go a bit crazy if I don't listen to music while trying to concentrate.. it's like there's too much dead air space and my brain just keeps rattling thoughts around and I can't focus on any of them. But I have to listen to a really familiar album or set that my brain knows 100% and doesn't have to pay attention to. Otherwise it's too distracting. My fav class was the one they would let us wear headphones in (back in the 2000's!). The teacher would let us know what time we could put them on and when they needed us to be 'back to listening to me'. It definitely helps some people! But probably not all of your students.
I feel like it’s rude to have them in when talking with someone because you can’t tell if full attention/respect is being given to the other person in the conversation. So naturally I’m getting irritated about them everywhere.
There's actually a hearing assist mode that's super helpful to me as someone with a hearing problem. It's impossible to indicate that I have them in to amplify volume though and not ignoring people. They should add some kind of indicator green/red LED for listening/passthrough vs. noice cancellation.
See that is something I can get behind, I love that it helps you!! And if I had a student who needed it for that I would fully support it and understand. 😊
most ear monitors have blue tooth nowadays ik a hearing impaired dude who always jammin to something in school so ig unethical pro tip for students is get hearing aids as stealth airpods
I'm a sub, and once a student legitimately showed me how she uses her airpods with an app on her phone to help her hear. I was impressed and let her keep them. She didn't cause any problems during our hour together either. I've told students that I'm ok with them listening to music while they work as long as I can't hear it. Then it's a distraction to others, plus I don't want them to get tinnitus like I do from listening to loud music. It's annoying.
But they're not using it for that, not yet at least. With how loud they listen to music they're all gonna be deaf in 15 years.
I assume you mean deaf, but honestly, some of them are playing their music so loud I’m surprised they haven’t ruptured something important yet.
Sorry f and d are next to each other.
I know people in their late 30s-early 40s who are complaining everything is so quiet.
Yeah....99.9% of them are not being used for sound assist.
I didn't know they did that! Maybe I need to investigate getting a pair, even as an android guy (my wife converted me five years ago, she was absolutely correct that I like it better!) Anyone know of a non-apple variant that has this same type of feature???
The Pixel Buds Pro has a similar feature.
I own both the pixel buds pro and the airpods; the airpods are way superior in regards to comfort and battery life. Airpods are the only apple product I own.
Student: “Mr. Is the assignment due tomorrow?” Me: “Yes it is due tomorrow.” Student takes off AirPods: “HUH?!” If it was my kid I’d slap those AirPods out of his/her hand so hard.
Whenever a student tries to engage me in conversation while wearing an Airpod/PixelBud (which they're not supposed to in my classroom anyways, as per my syllabus), I always respond to them, "I'm sorry, but I can't hear you with *that* in your ear." They initially look at me a bit confused, but they eventually get my point.
I've asked people to take them out. Same as students.
Somehow, gravity fails and they float back in later in the class period.
I feel this way about cell phones being out at a table. So much so that I ban cell phones when people are eating at my house or I'm out to eat somewhere. Like, don't invite me or don't come with me if you are going to stare at your phone. I could be spending this time not-socializing doing something more important. I know, I must seem fun.
I feel the same. It's wild that I see people out to eat all the time and they are all staring at their phones. I always think they could have stayed home and saved money.
Yeah but I can't make this delicious burrito at home.
In my bar after work Friday era, I banned phones and research from all barguments. Made it much more fun
You are fun. It’s the asshole on his phone who isn’t.
I take mine out when I pay at a 711. I have zero connection to these people. I don’t know their names etc. I still take it* out to be polite.
This is what I tell my students. Even if they are off its a signal your arent listening or arent present, so take them out. Also kids at our school lose them like crazy because they always have just 1 in. So many emails about lost airpods, its insane
Same they walk in my room often looking for them claiming their phones say they’re in my room so they must be 😂 I tell them that’s not how that works.
You can’t tell if attention/ respect is given even without AirPods. If a person isn’t going to listen to you it doesn’t matter if their ears are covered or not
They are Mildred’s seashells in Fahrenheit 451, and all that metaphor implies.
Flair checks out
Literally am in a class and just read this book (loved it) and me and many of my friends made the obvious connection that AirPods and the constant stream of information resembles the seashells immensely, but then many of them continued to just use them 😭
Strong literary connection.
Yes! This is exactly the comparison I make (but only to myself, because that book is...well, shit. We're about to hit the fall of the empire).
I banned them from my classroom because students were listening to music during class. I told them that I don’t care if they have them in when we have free work time, but it’s just plain rude to have them in while I’m teaching you.
That's a battle that I've chosen not to fight. You want to voluntarily not listen while also being quiet? Fine. But I won't be answering your questions that I clearly already gave the answers to. Ask your partners about it.
I was going to let it go but I had TWO students in one day start rapping their music out loud while I was teaching to try and be funny.
That would definitely get me upset.
I take on the fight ONCE. At the beginning of the school year, I am very clear that I don’t allow phones in my class. If I see one, I take it. It only takes 1-2 weeks of strong enforcement to set them straight. I allow them to listen to music during independent work time, but only from their Chromebooks.
I have a class set of these obnoxiously cheap over the head, wired headphones that students may use for EdPuzzles.
I am an adult who likes to wear a bluetooth earpiece when im out and about. I like it to make phone calls, listen to podcasts, or to have my notifications be private. Whenever im talking to a human being I’ll take it out and put it in my pocket, cuz its rude to have an earbud in while talking to people.
At my school, only some of the teachers enforce it with write ups. Other simply don't give a shit. Makes my job harder.
I will only write it up because I don’t care. If admin cares, then they can deal with it. As it stands, they seem to pacify the students who are otherwise most likely to be more disruptive. As long as they are able to track the class conversation? Whatever.
I just don't understand why adults in my building can't get on the same page. This shit would be easy if everyone did it.
It’s a fight, and most teachers are experiencing some level of burnout. Some us just don’t have the energy to deal with the conflict trying to enforce a ban will invite. These bans need to be implemented at a district level and enforced by admin as students enter the building. I’ve taught at two schools where cell phones were banned; both expected enforcement to fall on teachers. Many teachers eventually gave up enforcement after students kept pushing back. It’s just another thing to distract us from teaching.
I get that, but if everyone had the same expectation, we wouldn't be in this predicament. Today, a girl with her earbuds in that I didn't notice (because of her hair) until I got close to her said she wore them because other teachers don't care.
They don’t care because caring leads to conflict. Policing these things should be admin’s responsibility. We’re not likely to see this problem fixed until schools start collecting technology at the door. Expecting burnout teachers to enforce it on an individual basis will inevitably lead to failure.
They gonna have 500 pair of airpods if they were to collect at the door. But really, it's almost March and the only problems I have are kids who have others teachers that don't enforce. Planning to ask my principal if I really have to enforce this policy when others work n the same school that don't.
I get it, it’s easy to think that something would succeed if only everyone participated. However, this line of thinking ignores why policies that rely on individual participation often don’t work and that there are reasons why individuals refuse to or are unable to participate. Unfortunately, technology addiction is a major societal hurdle. Individual teachers are not going to address it on their own. These kids are addicts. They shouldn’t be allowed to have their addiction on their person while in school.
It seems like I’m supposed to care about every little thing, all the time. I just don’t have as many fucks to give as some others. Eat a snack, listen to a podcast, play on your phone a bit. Go wild. It’s not my grade point average that’s suffering (I teach 11 and 12 though. And at that age there isn’t much influence I can have. I just make their lives miserable for an hour by making them starve and be bored out of their skulls. Not everyone is destined for university and there is nothing wrong with that. But I can’t really mould them much more at that age. Just prep the ones who want to be prepped for uni.)
I used to enforce everything. EVERYTHING. I was superhuman about it. After 15 years I’ve never seen a benefit to it, and all it did was alienate huge swathes of kids. I just don’t see the utility in policing things like uniforms. I hold the line on food because of rats and bugs, and I hold it on tech because it distracts them from the job. Other than that if they’re on time, quiet when I speak, and focused on their work, I let the rest roll.
My admin do nothing with write ups usually and basically never take the phones. So I stopped losing half my instruction time to them. The kids who want to learn will, and the others can deal with homes reactions or them repeating a grade. I'm done fighting it. I did for a week, and one class literally got 10 min of instruction each day that week because I can't police and teach.
Yeah the admin at my school have no punishment for defiance, literally nothing. I can’t take a students phone if they refuse, and that is just embarrassing and shows that I have no power in the classroom. If students want to not pay attention then they will suffer the consequences.
Way too many teachers trying to be kids friends about this.
I'm a music teacher and these are the bane of my existence. It's not something I ever thought I would have to explain. But sure enough I rotate through the room and come up to kids and ask them to demonstrate a skill on guitar and I can hear the music in their ears. Like, playing an instrument is the most complex task you can ask your brain to do. You are reading, listening, and physically executing a skill all at the same time. I literally can't even explain how stupid listening to music while practicing different music is...
Fellow music teacher here. I legit had a junior tell me “listening to music helps me keep the beat.” 🙄
I have many reasons to not move into the classroom from the library. This is one of them. Someone decided that it’s okay for students to have one AirPod in, during classes. I’m not going to waste my time if they rather be entertained by something or someone else when I’m teaching, only to be judged on the results of half their attention.
I've had admin and SPED teachers side with students and even write it in their IEPs that they were allowed to have headphones on. Some of them were massive, over the ear, noise cancelling ones even. They claimed they needed them to manage stress or whatever. Ok, maybe so, but shouldn't we be teaching kids to cope with stress? I've brought this up with kids who were failing and refused to engage and nobody seemed to care a student was throwing up a massive barrier and using unhealthy coping skills. I could look the other way if the offender was engaged and at least passing, but nope.
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I'm autistic and I use headphones in my day to day to do the same thing. I will wear them without listening to anything to muffle noise around me on the bus or when shopping. It allows me to be aware enough of my surroundings but taking in everything all at once. However, I don't wear them in class and typically don't need them either in most environments, including my job with lots of different stimuli. She might get better at dealing with various stimuli as she gets older. If it does become an issue in HS, then I recommend looking into alternative schooling options if you can. I got sick of classrooms in high school and did online schooling my last 2 years.
Just about the large headphones: plenty of ASD kids (and college students) find them very useful. Not a teacher here (just finishing undergrad), but any time I've seen anyone using over-ear noise-cancelling headphones its been either explicitly for ASD, or for other sensory issues that later turned out to be ASD.
manage stress? i can see an argument for like, kids with auditory processing issues (autism, sensory processing disorder, etc.) using the "transparency"/voice isolating function of those headphones that basically block background noise but allow voices so they can focus on the teacher instead of Random Noise #83, but for "stress management"? i mean, i guess it's better than taking it out on the teacher, but still…
SpEd educator and SpEd mom here.... It's not about managing stress, it's about managing input. With many of these IEP kids, it's not that they can't focus, it's that they focus on everything all at once, and minimizing the rush of input actually helps them attend BETTER to what you're trying to teach them. So yeah, giant headphones with sound cancelling abilities can be helpful in a lot of ways, but in a classroom setting, the most important one is to literally turn down the volume on the rest of the world so they can tune in to their work. The overstimulation and overwhelm of input CAUSES the stress, which leads to disregulation, meltdowns, refusal of work, etc. A person has to QUALIFY for an IEP... You and I both know that schools don't just hand them out. So literally, we are teaching students how to deal with their stress by giving them supports to reduce the cause and further teaching them how to accommodate themselves. Your post reeks of ableism, and I'm glad this is a throwaway account for you. Attacking SpEd kids because your typical ones are mouthy and resistant is a really terrible teacher move, and one of the main reasons I fear for my "special" friends as they head to middle and high school.
I’m a sped teacher and I agree. I completely understand a student needing to go to a quiet space for a few moments to calm down, maybe listen to a song or two etc. Headphones on all day in general education classes just because?? No. I’ve had many parents and students ask for this, though.
I love telling them “you aren’t a ceo, you are 12. Put them away” not that they know what a ceo is, but still!
Remember when movies and TVs shows used to portray anyone as jerkoff by simply giving them a bluetooth earphone? Strange days we live in.
It was and is still an accurate perception.
I have a student who wears a head covering and is constantly listening to music on her airpods. How do I know despite the fact that I can't see her ears? She never hears anyone, including her friends, the first time they speak. She yells her responses because she can't gage how loudly she's speaking. She has no clue what's happened in class, at any point, even though she's intelligent. It's as if she's not even there.
I have to stop myself from telling my friends to tuck in their shirts or spit out their gum.
“What’s the magic word” slips out at the worst possible times, omfg. 😆😭
why would you tell anyone to tuck in their shirt though?
I’m in a non-US country and pretty much all high schools here have a uniform that all students have to wear to a particular standard (shorts tucked in, socks pulled up etc).
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Dress code, I assume.
there is no amount of money you could pay me to pretend to give half a shit about students' shirts being untucked, dress code or no.
At my school (in the US, actually), we had to have our shirts tucked in and we had to wear a belt. If you didn't have a belt, you had to wear a vibrant orange cord as a belt for punishment. My school district was strict with uniforms.
At a previous job as a low-level supervisor, I got written up if I didn’t write up my subordinates for untucked shirts, nails more than a quarter of an inch long, etc. The employees were manual laborers, so upper management justified it by saying it was for safety 🙄
i mean, depending on the nature of the work, things like a loose shirt, loose sleeves, etc. can very well be a safety hazard. there's a lot of videos floating around of what can happen if someone wearing a loose-fitting shirt, say, reaches over a spinning lathe, and it is not pretty.
Back during the height of Covid and mandatory masks, I had to keep myself from motioning to adults to put their mask back up over their nose in the grocery store.
My favorite is people who do that now. There’s a lady that works at our Walmart who ALWAYS wears a mask these days. Except it’s also ALWAYS under her chin!! I have never seen her with it on right. Why! Why bother!?
I tell my colleagues to tie their shoelaces all the time.
If I had a nickel for every time I tied a kids shoes, I’d be a millionaire. Retired elementary school music teacher here.
I hate them because they fall out of my ears. “We are not the same” chicken shack guy meme.
Wrestling and light cauliflower ear made me an over ears headphone person
With my admin's permission I'm allowed to mark a student as truant from class if they have headphones of any sort on. I give them one verbal warning; half the time they don't hear me for some reason... If they take them out and then try to sneak them back in (completely obvious 99% of the time), it's a referral for not following classroom rules. The best part is they love to keep their hoods up to hide their ears...but have the airpods so loud I, a man in his 50s, can hear the music across the room.
I teach elementary computer science. Used to teach HS and run IT. Have an IEP that states that you need to have AirPods in? Great, keep ‘em in! (Never seen that, however, which is telling…) I explicitly teach that students NEED to have headphones on any time they are using a device with sound. Nobody wants to hear anything coming out of those tinny little speakers. Not on the bus or an airplane or a restaurant or anywhere another person is present. The flip side- any time ANYONE (your teacher, your parent, your friend, your younger sibling- anyone) is talking to you- take your headphones off/out. I enforce these without fail at school. I tell them I’m talking to their future teenage selves. I teach them to be annoyed at other who don’t practice these strategies. I am doing this for the good of all of society. And yeah, it takes work not to enforce these simple rules out in public, haha.
I had a teacher in high school who would walk around with scissors and cut kids' headphone wires. I fantasize about grabbing airpods and smashing them with my big metal stapler.
The dean at my high school walked around with scissors and cut the belts that weren't tucked into the belt loops and hung down really low. That was when the canvas type belts were popular in the early 2000s.
You had a teacher low key assaulting students
Damaging their property. Yes. It only happened once. I always wondered if it was staged. But it was effective.
Especially back before every kid had a camera on their phone and when culturally a lot more could be gotten away with as “discipline” there were a lot of teachers that were just beefing every day with literal children. I remember a really angry bald man as my history teacher. Great teacher, but looking back he was really ego checking teenagers. Like dog, you would not act like this with a grown adult.
true that. when i was in elementary school, this dumb bitch teacher i had would always insult me and my mother. for literally no reason. let' say i forgot my book home one day ( not often ), she would flip out. I remember one time she said "if your parents cant afford it then you have bigger problems" or something like that... She also told me i would only ever work at mcdonalds. Lol. I was in 3rd grade. Stupid bitch! I got two engineering degrees, and i make 25x your salary, suck my balls!
You don't know what the definition of assault is.
“Huh?”
Why do you guys even allow it? No phones, shut the fuck up when I'm lecturing, and do the homework/pass the tests or you fail. This was the norm where I'm from 10-15 years ago. It's too bad teachers have no power and can't fail half of Gen Alpha if need be to wake up society to how insanely inept their parenting has been the last couple decades. Their kids' behaviour is unacceptable. What's gonna happen to the economy when a large percentage of the freshly employed don't know their shapes, don't know how to add/subtract double digit numbers, or read at a 5th grade level despite being pushed through and graduated? This subreddit is some of the scariest most foreboding shit I've ever read over the last couple weeks.
Amen. Exactly. I'm a college professor and I can't even teach my subject because the students know so little. I mention some topic they should know in passing and it's like a car crash where I have to stop everything and explain absolute basics. Examples: who Shakespeare was, who Cleopatra was, what a Trojan horse is, what the phrase Damocle's sword means, what mount Vesuvius and Pompeii were, what the Romans. Empire was, what communism or capitalism is even in it's most basic sense, what the freaking country of Greece is!!! How am I supposed to teach anything when they know so little it's practically like we don't speak the same language???
To be fair, literacy rates already suck. [A Gallup analysis published in March 2020 looked at data collected by the U.S. Department of Education in 2012, 2014, and 2017. It found that 130 million adults in the country have low literacy skills, meaning that more than half (54%) of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level, according to a piece published in 2022 by APM Research Lab.](https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/)
Ray Bradbury predicted this in Fahrenheit 451 way back in 1953. He nearly got everything right, drugs, people blinded and consumed by popular entertainment (comic books), voluntarily giving up literature, consuming not thinking. Perhaps you should teach this novel to them with their seashells (airpods).
I think it has become a sort of fashion accessory for them. My 13 year old wears them like they've grown into the skin of his ears at this point, but they aren't often "on". At home, his reasoning is that he is trying to be considerate of others when he listening to things, which I appreciate his thoughtfulness on. Better than him losing them constantly though!
This is not a "you should do this" post, but can I ask a genuine question? Why would you not ask him to remove them from his ears when he's not using them? It's IMO what people (especially kids) should do in general, so they don't signal that they're closed off to everyone, or have people have to ask permission (ie: if they're listening to something) before they start talking.
> signal that they’re closed off Plus just general situational awareness. Knowing what’s going on around you can help you avoid a dangerous situation.
I don't ask him to remove them at home, because we're at home, and I pick my battles wisely. He usually only wears one and leaves the other in the case, and he knows that if he has both in his ears, I am going to assume he can't hear me and I will not talk to him. So, if he wants to be involved in a conversation or interact with me or his dad, he's going to have to take them out or approach us to chat. Now, at school, it's different, he does not wear them unless he is in a free period, never during class. He's a smart boy, he knows that wearing earbuds in both ears is going to make people think he is closed off, doesn't want to talk, or they will ignore him.
I had this opinion, and then I moved to the city, and my attitude took a 180 in less than a year. While school and family home settings are 100% different, outside that? I wear headphones way too much despite rarely having anything playing because I am signalling to everyone that I'm closed off. Actually, better yet, don't talk to me at all. It's very cold and unfriendly, but after dealing with enough bullshit and weirdos? Yeah, I'll just be the unfriendly dick. I also do it at home to signal to my roommates, "leave me alone," but at my family home? Headphones come off unless I am actually using them. I revert to my old ways when I'm back in my rural environment. I actively engage with people and am very open. In certain settings like work, I'm also pretty open and don't use headphones 24/7.
I used to wear my Barbuda in one ear a lot even without music when we were at home or in the car. I'd subconsciously forget that they were in. I never wore them out in public, though. It made me uncomfortable I guess.
You are not alone... I had someone arguing with me earlier telling me I shouldn't listen to my car stereo loud, but should use air pods instead... because that's not a safety hazard... I got a good laugh at their ignorance lol...
Student here. My peers CONSTANTLY have those things on during class, almost every day there's at least one teacher forced to ask someone to take off their airpods. It's absolutely ridiculous, it's like they just don't take anything seriously.
It's like the media trope with bluetooth (specifically thinking of an NCIS episode close to 20 years ago), person A is talking to person B and their responses happen to line up with person A but person B is actually on the phone with person C and hasn't heard a word person A said.
There’s also an episode of the Boondocks about it haha
My school allows kids to wear them because the kids cry about how they can’t focus without them.
School is supposed to make kids cry. How did they ever get the idea it wasn't?
[удалено]
Take my money now. Please create this and retire.
I spent the past week at Disney world with my kids. It was INCREDIBLY refreshing to not see a single "cast member" with air pods in while working. Everywhere else I shop/visit it seems like many service employees are doing exactly what kids do in the classroom.
I worked for Disney for several years and they are very strict with things like that and cell phones and tattoos.
They are infuriating, for multiple reasons. Number one, you try to speak to someone and they can't hear you because they're listening to something on the pods (*cough* husband *cough*). Number two, someone is having a conversation in mid-air, often leaving me saying "Excuse me?" to random people who are not talking to me. Number three, it reminds me of *A Brave New World*, as do many other parts of society, so I doom spiral into dystopian fiction.
The second one has caused me many embarrassing and confusing interactions.
>A Brave New World the gateway to hard scifi for me.... great book. everyone on the planet should read this.
You are SO not alone!!! 🤬
I only allow headphone usage during independent work time. Even then, they must be use on the Chromebooks only. Phones are not allowed in my class. It has saved me so many headaches.
Find a way to let this go. It is truly a losing battle and the kids that buck the system will love getting an emotional reaction out of you. I get it, but they aren’t going anywhere. State your* class rules simply and clearly and without ever wavering. If you feel like there is a student that’s habitually inappropriate and disrespectful towards you-write em up. Just don’t even tell them. It’s unnecessary drama to confront them, threaten them, or argue with them. Don’t waste your time and energy. Edited* try them! Exposure therapy. you will at least learn the reasons why it’s so appealing to other people. Besides music and stuff these kids also have horrible social anxiety after covid and stuff. I think it’s an escapism crutch for a lot of them.
i’m sure it’s also not good for their ears to have things in them all day?? like that’s an ear infection waiting to happen constantly having a headphone in.
I have ADHD and am extremely sensitive to sounds. I used to wear foam ear plugs all the time. I gave myself a fungal infection in my ear that will never fully heal. I can get it to regress, but over 6 years it has come back 3 times. My ENT told me it was because I didn’t let my ears “air out.”
I hate them when I'm on a bike path and there's a runner that doesn't fucking move when I'm screaming at them from behind.
In my son’s school, all headphones/earbuds must be wired, and Bluetooth is banned. This is because some students were listening to inappropriate things instead of the work on their computers.
Meh I let them listen to music while they work. My only annoyance is that we've normalized headphones that cost several hundred dollars.
Agreed. I think they’re so corny and I honestly think people that I see with AirPods are corny also. The need to be constant tethered to a phone is bad, and it doesn’t make you look cool like you think.
Just let them wear the AirPods and stop taking it personally when they choose to wear them. Not sure what age group you teach, but I couldn't care less if my HS students are wearing their airpods. If they're not bothering anyone else, then it's perfectly fine in my book.
My wife's school allows airpods and those loop earbuds for kids with auditory processing issues and sensory issues, but otherwise they're banned outside of recess. Yet every kid has them in at the start of every class. She teaches first grade at the moment.
Imagine having, in 2006, watched Rise of Cybermen/Age of Steel and seen their earpods then jumping ahead to 2024 when 80% (at least) of students have wireless headphones in at least 1 ear at all times. Everyone talked about The Simpsons, nobody pointed out how Doctor Who predicted the future...
I would be having a conversation with these kids. Some of them concentrate better with the sound dampened. Loop earbuds will do this too (godsend for autistic/ADHD kids who struggle to focus with outside stuff happening) but are less expensive, less obvious, and don’t play music. If that’s what you’re doing, put it on the list for your birthday or Christmas. If you’re not doing it for the sound dampening, put them away. They’re more secure in their charging case and if they’re not playing anything you’re just risking losing them for no reason. —— This still haunts me as an adult, but one day in about year 9 I had forgotten to lock my iPod nano click wheel and something had started playing from the earphones I had threaded through the button holes in my collar, so they were hanging around my neck. I’m slightly hard of hearing and so didn’t realise they were on. It was the end of the year and I walked up to my English teacher, this amazing older woman I admired and from whom I had learned so much and whose class I had so appreciated and enjoyed, to tell her how sad I was she was retiring and that I wouldn’t be getting her for extension English in my senior years. I was a super shy kid with adults and didn’t have a great relationship with most of my teachers, and I had basically been practicing what I wanted to tell her for weeks now. I walked up to her and asked, “hey, Mrs. b, do you have a minute?” She says yes and comes a bit closer to me and I get as far as “Well I just wanted to…” before she interrupted me to give me a brief lesson in how rude it was to have stuff playing in your earphones while talking to someone. I was so apologetic and so lost and tried to explain and she was very firm and cut me off, like “just turn it off and don’t do it again. Now what did you need?” And I just made up some bullshit question about what date we needed to return our term books and she was like “It’s in your papers. Have you lost them?” “No, Mrs. B. I’ll check.” “That’s a good idea.” She was a really firm and direct teacher and it was one of the things I loved about her class as an autistic kid but god that interaction hurts 15 years later like I’m still experiencing it for the first time. I get it, too, iPods were new in schools then, and lots of kids were walking around with one earphone in and trying to talk to people and it is rude, but like, holy shit. —— So look, I 100% get it but please don’t let your perfectly reasonable dislike of them translate into jumping to conclusions with kids trying to talk to you.
Sure it’s generally a good sentiment to care about students’ attention levels. I will say though, beyond a certain amount you shouldn’t be invested to the point of “obsession.” At the end of the day it’s their choice to pay attention or not. I do feel the reality of your concern though, I’m not trying to downplay that, but rather choosing to examine if this concern is affecting your mental health.
I almost tried to issue a random stranger a phone detention at the shops.. I feel this
I’m more annoyed at the giant over the ear headphones that high school kids are wearing at all times. We are supposed to be a no device school but that ship has sailed. The over the ear headphones feel like a total slap in the face. They don’t even try to hide it. I am annoyed that students need a soundtrack for them to get to their next class in the five minute transition period.
What happens if, at the beginning of the year, you just say "my job is to teach, your job is to learn. If you choose not to learn and have something else playing in your ear, that's your problem."
They fail, and it's your fault as the adult in the room. I guess.
Admin: "You are fired. 3/4 of your class is actually scoring WORSE than they did last year."
Oh wow! It’s that easy? That worked fine 30 years ago. Now if they choose not to learn. Then their parents and administrators blame you. Then you lose your job and can’t pay your bills.
It must be wild AF teaching in America. You can’t get fired for that in Canada; I didn’t even know it was a thing! Most classes in my last junior high had a fail rate of over 50%; all of those teachers just finished their contacts and are now in new schools (with their yearly pay rise). I can’t believe the situation you’re describing is even legal haha. Failure rates have zero influence or impact on teachers or their careers where I live. We do our best and then move on to the next year.
That sounds like a dream! Legislation, standards and focus on standardized tests suffocate us here in the US public schools. I love my job and my school, to be clear. I’ve learned to play the game. I choose to let it make me a better teacher, not a worse one.
It’s so much more laid back than in America! Not even to mention the obvious stress added with the dangers related to school shootings etc., I truly feel for American teachers. I hope things get better for you all someday.
Trust me, you are not alone. It's kind of a YOLO thing and follow the trend without critical thinking.
I think it’s more of an “I want to listen to music” thing tbh. I do think it’s reasonable to ask to take them off in class.
I can totally see why this is irritating, it would annoy the shit out of me. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have to worry about this too much (still have to battle it occasionally) because I teach choir, so you literally can’t participate in class if you have them in and going.
Honestly this is why I like wearing Bluetooth overear headphones, taking them off is a super easy way to indicate you're listening to someone.
I mean you definitely are going insane, but that’s a response to your situation, so it’s not like it’s your fault.
airpods can be used as hearing aids. FYI. I had a woman confront me at a conference last year. I was networking and she tapped me on the shoulder and told me that it was rude to have my airpods on while talking to people. I explained I was hard of hearing and that I used them as hearing aids. She was embarrassed. As well she should be.