Jeff Danziger for June 25, 2024

It’s real. And this isn’t the first time. When cell phone first showed up, they were forbidden in some schools. Which was widely… and variously… seen as a good, bad, silly or extremely smart move. Point being that there’s already institutional know how about dealing with collecting them and then returning them in a way that’s safe, efficient and fair.

Not guns? Not according to the GQP.

Schools are more hazardous than ever.

“’Abandon all hope, ye who enter. ’”

Unless the schools are willing to take the phones, suspend the students, stand up to the parents (and their lawyers) and support teachers who will have to add enforcement of the latest whiz bang school policy, this is all smoke and mirrors. Spoiler alert: they won’t.

I can see strictly enforced “airplane mode” and face down in a little tray on the student’s desk. Have trays just like there used to be a place for an ink bottle.

Students spend class time playing games, watching porn, and texting on their phones, when they are not engaged in active shooter drills. Only logical conclusion for GOP: Bad teachers, rotten public schools, evil teachers unions. Do you see the logic?

Sorry, but that sign should really just read “no cellphones”

worldpopulationreview .com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country

How about…just a small gun? With no bumpstock.

They could always leave their cell phones in their lockers while in class.

Or learn the discipline to put them on airplane mode in class.

More importantly, learn not to look at them when they should be interacting with the people actually near them.

The ReThugs will stop the cellphones before they ever stop the guns.

Here the school board is trying to block my grandson from moving to an online, homeschooling program because we feel that the move to the middle school is NOT a good idea. There have been a number of shocking incidents there, and my grandson has autism. So much for “we want the parents to be more in control of how the child receives an education.”

Smartphones are an affront to humanity!

Makes me wonder what phone that sweetheart little girl used to call 911 in Uvalde.

The sign says … “No guns allowed” … I thought the GOP was trying to change that so teachers would be armed.

Lunch will be Cell Phone Souffle…

Yeah. We wouldn’t want them to call 911 in the case of an active shooter or call their parents if they were stuck at school for some reason.

I remember when they banned transistor radios from school, then pocket calculators. They said TV was replacing social contact and would harm our emotional growth. Is there a difference in being bullied or shamed on the internet instead of the playground? Yep. There was the occasional violence in the schoolyard.

For every step forward by mankind some conservative who is opposed to change comes up with this baloney. Those who decry electric vehicles have great grandfathers who yelled “Get a horse!”. They never change.

What’s that on the guy’s hand? A stick for enforcement?!? :-\

Dream on, folks. Ain’t gonna happen. Every person in the country under 80 years old knows that if you don’t have your cellphone handy, you cease to exist.

And actually more hazardous than cigarettes

What if there is an active shooter?

I’m going to take a contrarian stance here and state that the problem is not the devices, it’s the pedagogy.

I think classes in school should start with the teacher taking care of administrivia, then outlining the subject to be covered for 5-10 minutes. The rest of the lesson, exercises, and self-evaluations should be done exclusively on each student’s cellphone. The teacher will be available to answer questions and coach those who need extra help. The end of the lesson will be a live quiz, so the teacher can determine which students need remedial work. The objective is to do as much classwork as possible on the phone, as a pedagogical tool. The school’s network can easily block the IP addresses of social-media and other sites lacking appropriate educational value.

This will have two salutary effects: the students will become quite adept at using their “learning tool”. More importantly, after a full school day of being forced to use their hand-helds, they might (maybe, possibly, hopefully) be more interested in face-to-face interactions with their friends. The best way to make someone sick of chocolate is to force them to eat it for every meal.

Creating a new species here, no kidding. The teachers may as well just fiddle with their phones too. Parents will scream if the grade isn’t A, [many] kids only know current events from tiktok, wouldn’t dream of reading a book, can’t spell their own name … evolution running backwards