This is from a Twitter post about a middle school in New York City that's adopted a phone-free policy:
Yondr? What's that?
That's clever. In comments to the Twitter post, a lot of people said they disliked phone-free policies because they wanted their kids to be able to contact them in case of a school shooting or something similar. The odds of that may be pretty small, but it's still an issue, especially now that pay phones are extinct.
But Yondr pretty much solves this problem. In case of an emergency, you just step outside the school gates (where you'd probably be anyway after evacuation) and unlock your phone. For less critical things, presumably the principal's office has an unlocker that they can make available if circumstances warrant.
I'm not entirely sold on phones and social media being the scourge that so many old people think they are, but I can certainly understand what a nuisance they are in classrooms. This seems like a pretty good solution.
IDK. I suspect some parents would want their kids to be able to call them even if they are trapped in a classroom.
Yeah, also in case of an earthquake. It would be better if instead of being locked the teacher/principal got a notification the pouch was opened.
Otherwise it sounds like a good idea. My daughter is an elementary school principal and she hates it that the kids have cell phones.
yeah, the point of being able to call during an emergency isn't calling AFTER you've escaped from the emergency. and even then, you're likely not going to have access to the unlocker in a field or parking lot outside the school where you evacuated to. but you could just have an unlocker in each classroom that the teacher has access to.
Sounds fine, but what's the cost? And how does that compare to, say, simply requiring students to put their phones in a plastic tub that sits on a desk at the front of the classroom before the bell rings (the preferred, cheap solution here in China)? This being the US we're talking about, a nineteen dollar solution from Home Depot isn't going to cut it, of course, when a school can send $200,000 to a tech firm. Priorities!
That solution might work in American elementary schools, but how would it work in middle and high schools where kids go from classroom to classroom for different subjects? And what about lunch? How does that work in China?
Why can't each classroom have a bin? They're twelve bucks.
The kids would have them between periods and at nutrition break and lunch break.
I think the tub solution involves issues of theft, loss, or damage because you don't retain possession of the phone. And with high end phones costing over 1000 bucks these days, I wouldn't want to throw mine in a bin.
In the event of a school shooting, it is not the job of parents to handle the situation. It is the job of school faculty and staff, and local emergency services. Parents driving to their kids' school in an active shooter situation will only clog up the road and make life harder for emergency vehicles.
The distracting and addictive nature of smartphones is poison to education. Students should either not be allowed to bring smartphones to school at all, or else they should surrender them to the teacher upon arrival to be returned at the end of the day.
Yeah, sure worked in Uvalde.
Yeah, this is the nightmare scenario that will reverberate in American parents' minds for decades to come.
The police in Uvalde did a terrible job, but parents whose kids had cellphones couldn't, and didn't, make any difference to the outcome. Also, the Uvalde police were unusually bad; police in other places that have had school shootings have done much better.
I'm a great believer in cost-benefit analysis. The benefit of letting kids have phones in school is very small, and the costs to the quality of their education are enormous. Keep phones out of schools.
From the student handbook at our kids' school. Compliance is pretty good, excepting lunch hours. You don't need to pay a vendor for this stuff.
CELLULAR PHONE USAGE
Students may carry cell phones for use after school hours. Phones must be turned off upon entering the building and must be carried in pockets or in bags. Phone use is permitted after dismissal, but not in detention or in the library. Any phone seen or heard is assumed to be in use and will be confiscated and given to an assistant principal, who may return the phone at the end of the school day. A second offense will result in detention, a third in two detentions, and a fourth in censure and three detentions. Repeated violations are subject to provisions of the Code of Conduct.
Kids should be allowed to have phones with them, and kids who abuse the privilege get their phones taken away temporarily and also some other kind of punishment, and kids who behave properly should face no consequences. I know this is an impossible scenario because it forces teachers etc. to actually exercise judgment, but it's what the goal should be.
If I was a high school kid, I would be outraged that I was constantly being punished for something other people were doing.
Several years ago, I was tasked at the last minute to teach a course I had never taught before. For the first time in 20 years, I fell back on lectures. One day, I looked up and there was not a single person in the entire class paying any attention at all. They were all on their phones.
Oof, Kevin, really? You’re unaware that children are routinely locked-down in their classrooms for hours during active shooter issues? So “stepping outside the school gates” is not a fix at all?
Do not feed the troll.
My son is in a K-8 school, their policy works well. The rule is no staff can see or hear your phone, ever. Turn it off and stick it in your backpack, fine, no problem. But if it rings or you use it in any way it goes to the office, to be released only to the parent or guardian in person.
This covers the nightmare scenarios without fancy equipment. This is an in-city school, a bit rough around the edges, with some aggressive kids. Yet the policy works fine. Kids really don't want to deal with their parents coming to school to pick up their phone. And parents, let's just say sometimes they wait a few days to pick up the damn phone.
My 13 year old is pretty forgetful, yet strangely I haven't needed to go in to release his phone even once.
This covers the nightmare scenarios without fancy equipment
But why does your school district hate on America's tech sector? EVERYBODY knows it's not worth doing unless some venture cap bro gets to buy a beach house!
Social media is harmless.
An 11-year-old boy from the United Kingdom has died after huffing toxic chemicals in a social media challenge known as “chroming” — and his devastated family wants the social media company shut down and all others barred from children under 16.
Kids die all the time. No one cares.
Uhh, compared to what kids do when challenged by their peers?
The point is that some tech companies have made it their mission to make everyone your peer, so peer pressure is more powerful. Terrible ideas have always occurred to kids and will always, but that doesn't negate the fact that exposure to more terrible ideas is still bad. Kevin's blindness to this issue is because he doesn't use social media and he relies on social sciences which are in a crisis.
"In case of an emergency, you just step outside the school gates"
Standard lock down policy in schools is for students to actually remain within the school by locking themselves in whatever classroom they happen to be at the moment.
Actual urban public school teacher and parent here (Providence, RI). Our daughter's middle school started using the Yondr pouches last year, and it was fine. I wish they were rolled out to all the schools in the district, including the high school where I teach, but it is currently a school based budget decision.
Yondr does seem to be stupid expensive. Our principal described it as basically a choice between, say, hiring a social worker or having Yondr pouches. I've not looked at the overall market. Maybe Yondr has a patent? You would think there would be competitors.
It is easy to forget that iPhone pricing starts at $429 for an SE (most kids have iPhones), so fundamentally if you're talking about putting phones in a bin at the beginning of class, we're talking about what, $10,000 worth of kit in a class of 20 students. These are their most expensive, most prized, most personal possessions.
Policies based around teachers (especially) or administrators taking phones can be and are implemented, but it would take full commitment by school and district administration and overwhelming support from the community at a whole to make it work well.
One of the main advantages of the pouches is that the students are still in possession of the phones, and adults are not spending time managing them other than locking/unlocking. When students do work around the pouches, the first step is just calling them on it and making them lock them -- easier and less confrontational all around than taking them.
Yondr is like a lock on a door. The point is not that there is no possible way though the lock as much as it just enforces the idea that if you break in you're definitely breaking a clear rule in a specific way, not just having a momentary lapse.
I know I’m in the minority here, but kids should just not have $429 worth of anything on them at any time. I get the whole “what about a school shooting” concern but a crappy basic flip phone would solve that problem - you can text and make calls on it, which is all you need to do in an emergency.
Agreed there, but none of us control what parents decide is ok for their kids. Once one parent decides to show off, it starts a chain reaction and then you can tell the poor kids from the rich kids. Also the reason why a lot of schools just went to uniforms, to avoid the issue of who's got the most expensive sneakers.
All the more reason to ban phones in school.
"I'm not entirely sold on phones and social media being the scourge that so many old people think they are"
This is because you are not a teacher and have no idea what goes on in the typical classroom.
Phones in class are a problem without social media.
my kids middle school instituted a similar policy with yondr pouch. this was implemented in the middle of the school year, two years ago.
first, there was no complaints from the parents about being able to reach their kids that I know of. Most parents actually would prefer that their kids learn at school and not be distracted.
But most importantly, how long did it take the kids to figure out how to open the pouches without the tool on their own? One day.
Some kids figured out that brute force worked. others purchased some magnet.
Faraday cage the school and all these concerns are no longer moot. As a (mostly former) teacher, I not only want to ban phones from school property, I want harsh penalties for transgressors. And by harsh, I mean harsh. We've coddled certain children and their parents far too long at the expense of others.
You're all talking about normal parents.
Some of them want to know about every bit of drama in their kids lives.
Some want to come up to school so they can help their kids jump someone who dissed them.
Oh no. How are the lil chilluns going to play TikTok videos? You know, the ones on AP Algebra?
I feel very uncomfortable with the tactic of confiscating students' cell phones. I am sure for school authorities it seems like a quick and effective fix, though I find the long term implications disturbing.
What is so striking for me is how much the current generation focuses on technology such as cell phones. In my experience, the social life of the classroom and school was completely dominant. The idea that during recess students would be by themselves on their cell phones would have been seen as conspicuously odd. Now, though, this is the chosen behavior. Engaging with their peers is no longer something that is expected to happen spontaneously -- it must be enforced by locking away cell phones, etc..
Instead of directly confronting the question and at least trying to make the social environment competitive with technology, the goto choice is to mandate behavior. Of course as soon as a free choice can be made the students will return to tech. Who wouldn't choose an AI tech with a verbal IQ of 155 over human intelligence? With the emergence of generative reality such as ChatGPT, Sora, etc. it is now very unclear whether any social context will be able to compete.